Tegami Bachi: Volume 3: Meeting Sylvette Suede

by Hiroyuki Asada, 175 pages

Gauche Suede is missing. Soon after his promotion to the capital Akatsuki five years ago, it seems he somehow lost his heart and vanished. No one-- not even his dear little sister Sylvette, for whose sake he strove to be Head Bee--has seen or heard from him since. Heartbroken, Lag goes to visit Sylvette and tearfully promises her that he will find Gauche, return his heart, and bring him home. As Lag begins his first official deliveries as a Bee, he keeps his eyes and ears open for any clue to his hero's fate. In the process, he learns about what happened to Gauche on The Day of Flicker. On that day twelve years ago, the artificial sun that shines above Akatsuki inexplicably flickered for the first and only time in living memory, leaving the world in darkness for the barest of seconds. At the same moment, a government airship crashed, Gauche's mother died giving birth to Sylvette, and Gauche lost all of his memories of his mother. It was also the moment Lag was born. The government claims the brief blackout was due to routine maintenance and that the airship was just on an insignificant research mission, but there are those who question the official story. Lag just wants to know what happened to his friend and to his own mother, both lost to the secrets of the mysterious capital.

I love the whole idea of The Day of Flicker. It's creepy and unsettling. A true sun shouldn't do that, sputtering as though there were a short in the wiring somewhere, leaving the landscape lit only by the faint pinpricks of distant stars. The atmosphere of this series is one of its most unique features and it only deepens the sense of mystery, mysticism, and conspiracy.