Gaku (Hatou Manabu) has a strange new friend in school, one who’s short and cute to her taller, more athletic build, and one who claims that everyone looks like robots to her. Yukari doesn’t try to broadcast this information to everyone anymore but as she assures Gaku, she didn’t even initially realize that people weren’t “robots” and that the rest of the world didn’t see things her way, for her this has always been “normal”.
But this is no delusion — Yukari’s big purple eyes seem to show a truth of the world that no one else can comprehend and that many people want for themselves. Gaku is desperate to protect her friend and the lengths that she’s willing to go to are perhaps even stranger than Yukari’s mechanical-tinted perception of the world.
I actually did read fan translations of Qualia the Purple’s manga adaptation years ago, 2013 at least going by my old blog post, and it’s a title I remembered fondly for being my first brush with using quantum physics as a plot point. Even in the years since I haven’t come across too many sci-fi stories utilizing the principles of quantum physics, and in Qualia it’s not simply a matter of Gaku world-hopping (like you might have in a portal fantasy) but achieving it through the concept of branching choices made by infinite possible iterations of herself (given that the novel came out in 2009, I wonder if it partially influenced similar aspects of Puella Magi Madoka Magica). The story eases both Gaku and the reader into the concept of parallel worlds etc. quite gently and slowly enough that the entire subject feels quite approachable, to the point where the story almost doesn’t feel like “hard sci-fi” at all. It’s a drama where a theoretical concept is needed to get the plot in motion but the heart of the story is Gaku’s devotion to Yukari.
In the ten years since I first encountered Qualia there have been other yuri sci-fi stories released in English (such as Otherside Picnic) but it’s still a niche genre and I’m thrilled to see a title that I assumed would be too esoteric to ever be licensed have both the novel and manga versions brought over. The story reads crisply and easily, so even when multiple characters are talking without character tags it’s simple enough to follow who said what, and while the early sections of the book have the sense of an impending shoe drop they’re still engaging sections, not filler there solely to build up suspense. It’s definitely a change of pace compared to what kinds of light novels usually get brought over (even given just how many are licensed these days!) and could potentially have some cross-over appeal with the more general sci-fi crowd since it’s fairly low on the “anime-ness.”
I’m definitely looking forward to revisiting the manga when it’s released. It’s been fun to return to a series I enjoyed and realize that yes, there isn’t much else quite like it.