Last Quarter (下弦の月) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Ribon from the April 1998 to June 1999 issues. A live action film adaptation was released on October 9, 2004.

Plot

Facing struggles with her father's re-marriage and cheating ex-boyfriend, 17-year-old high school student Mizuki Mochizuki falls in love with Adam, a British musician, one night. Captivated, Mizuki begins avoiding her family and friends to spend time with him in secret at an abandoned mansion. Two weeks into their relationship, Adam tells her that he will be leaving, and Mizuki decides to run away from home to follow him. While crossing the street to him, Mizuki is hit by a car. At the same time, 5th grade elementary school student Hotaru Shiraishi is also hospitalized from a car accident while looking for her pet cat Lulu and dreams of a girl who helped her look for her. After being discharged from the hospital, Hotaru's search leads her to finding the girl at the abandoned mansion and discovering she is a ghost, with Hotaru being the only one who can see her. The girl has no memories of her past life other than Adam and she is unable to leave the mansion. With the help of her classmates Sae Kayama, Tetsu Sugisaki, and Masaki Miura, Hotaru assists the girl with recovering her memories. The four children nickname the girl "Eve" due to her searching for Adam and they communicate through Hotaru's interpretation and Eve writing in Sae's notebook. Miura initially identifies Eve as Sayaka Kamijo, but Hotaru states they look nothing alike. Sugisaki and Miura are then able to identify Eve as Mizuki, and the children learn that she is alive but in a coma, leading Hotaru to the conclusion that she will awaken if she is able to meet Adam again. They manage to identify Adam based on a song written by his band, Evil Eye, that Eve plays on the piano, only to learn that Adam had died in 1979, before Mizuki was born. At the same time, Eve begins recovering memories of another person. The children soon discover that Adam's girlfriend was Sayaka, who died at age 17 from illness, leading them to realize that Sayaka has possessed Eve. Miura concludes that the only way to have Sayaka leave Mizuki is to give her closure by revealing Adam's death. Once Mizuki tells Eve the truth, Eve vanishes and reappears at the street where Mizuki's accident took place, while Mizuki's body takes a turn for the worse. Hotaru chases down Eve and convinces her that she is loved by her family and friends, giving her resolve to live. Once Eve disappears for good, Mizuki wakes up from her coma after Adam leads her out of her dreams. At the end of the series, Mizuki returns to her normal life with no recollection of what had happened, and the children bury Sae's notebook inside the abandoned mansion. Through a monologue, Adam reveals himself to be a wandering spirit searching for Sayaka after his death, and he had managed to lure her during a moon cycle after she had possessed Mizuki; during their time together, he had also fallen in love with Mizuki. While she ultimately had been unable to follow him due to her willpower to live, Adam states that he will continue to watch over her.

Characters

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Ai Yazawa, Last Quarter was serialized in Shueisha's monthly manga magazine Ribon from the April 1998 to the June 1999 issues. Shueisha collected its chapters in three volumes, released from December 7, 1998, to November 15, 1999. It was republished in a two-volume edition on September 17, 2004, and a two-volume edition on March 19, 2013. In February 2024, Viz Media in licensed the manga for North American distribution in English, publishing the version of the manga. In 2022, Yazawa stated that she had initially moved on from using dip pens and brushes to illustrate manga after the conclusion of Neighborhood Storyin 1996; however, she mentioned that she returned to using those tools for Last Quarter, as she felt that they helped convey the mood of the story better.

Volumes

Tankōbon edition

Aizōban edition

Bunkoban edition

Film

A live action film adaptation, written and directed by Ken Nikai and distributed by Shochiku, premiered in Japan on October 9, 2004. It stars Chiaki Kuriyama as Mizuki, Hyde as Adam, and Hiroki Narimiya as Tomoki. Additional cast members include Tomoka Kurokawa as Hotaru and Motoki Ochiai as Miura. The film's theme song is "The Cape of Storms" by Hyde. The song was originally released in Hyde's 2002 debut studio album Roentgen. The film grossed ¥247,000,000 at box office. The film was licensed by Geneon Entertainment for North American distribution in English, and it was released on DVD on July 4, 2006. The film saw several changes from the manga, such as making several characters older.

Reception

Editors at Anime News Network reviewed Last Quarter favorably, praising the artwork, storytelling, and tone. Sequential Tart stated that the story became more interesting after Hotaru's introduction. For the live-action film adaptation, critics at Anime News Network panned Hyde's acting and the film's cinematography.