Towa Kamo Shirenai ("Maybe Forever") is a shoujo manga by Michiyo Akaishi, which was serialized in Shogakukan's Cheese! magazine from 1997 to 2000 and compiled into eight volumes.
Kosumo Koganehara is a young girl with the bad luck of being both extremely ill and having a very rare blood type. Because of that, the poor kid has lived her life going from hospital to hospital, and lately she's had to go to the USA for treatment. While writing a letter, Kosumo has an horrifying seizure and must be operated, but no one can find a donor.
Few blocks away from the clinic, a Japanese girl named Himiko tries to save a child from being hit by a truck and ends up being run over. She's rushed to the same clinic, but her injuries are so serious that she just won't make it. The doctors try to save her but fail, and then they realize that they can save Kosumo by donating Himiko's blood and heart to her. They ask her guardian and companion, Hitsuji, if he would allow them to do so, and he accepts.
While Himiko dies, Kosumo is saved, and everything seems to be all right. Not only that, but soon Kosumo now more or less healthy and can come back home. However, she starts noticing that things aren't the same anymore... Demons! There are many devils targeting her and others! Why?
The explanation is simple. Himiko wasn't a normal young woman, but a Miko and Magical Girl Warrior coming from a powerful clan. When her organs and blood were given to Kosumo, then, she inherited her powers and mission. And now Kosumo has to come to terms with it, with Hitsuji's own opinions about he deal, and the terrible dangers coming from being the heiress of the 99-th Miko, destined to save Japan from destruction by demons.
This manga provides examples of the following:
- Deal with the Devil: Hishou sorta made one with the ice demon Hyousetsushin to save his father and his town. Hyousetsushin agreed to protect him, but at the cost of isolating him eternally from everyone else.
- Driven to Suicide: Hitsuji intended to kill himself so he and Himiko could be Together in Death. He doesn't go through, once the Ikutama starts glowing...
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Kosumo and Hitsuji manage to vanish Tokoyo-no-kami, save the world and stay together. However, Mizuki's sister Azumi died again after a tearful confrontation with her brother, and .
- Heart Trauma: The source of Kosumo's troubles.I have the feeling that my poor heart is a defective product, which menaces to stop...
- Heroic Sacrifice: By double: Himiko was fatally injured to save a little girl, and then her blood and organs were what saved Kosumo. Lampshaded by an American doctor, who refers to Himiko as "an heroine" while speaking to Hitsuji.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Kosumo really wants to live and pull through. Pity she's sick.
- Improvised Weapon User: Kosumo tries to protect herself and Hitsuji with a toy laser sword. It then glows and lets her channelize Himiko's powers within her.
- MacGuffin: Himiko's pendant, which contains a mystical item known as the ikutama.
- Magic Mirror: One of Kosumo's most powerful artifacts is one of these, known as the Mirror of Amaterasu. She uses it to grant Azumi a Mercy Kill, and then to vanish Tokoyo-no-Kami.
- Meaningful Name:
- Himiko's name comes from the legendary queen of Yamataikoku.
- Himiko is associated often to Amaterasu, goddess of the sun. Likewise, Hitsuji's name means "sucessor of the Sun", alluding to him being in service of Himiko.
- Himiko's name comes from the legendary queen of Yamataikoku.
- Meaningful Rename: Every woman who becomes a Himiko priestess takes up the title as her first name, and is referred as such. Hishou was actually named Koshou, but the 98th Himiko re-named him when she took him in.
- Parental Favoritism: Kosumo feels bad for, in her own words, "monopolizing" her parents's attention. She was putting said feelings in her letter to Mirai when she had the almost fatal seizure.
- Shock and Awe: Himiko's thunder and lightning powers.
- Snow Means Death:
- Plays heavily in the backstory of a man named Hishou. An angry snow/ice spirit (an Omiwatari spirit named Hitsoushin) caused a massive snowstorm that lasted days. Hishou, who had the ability to calm spirits down, went in the snow to try talking to them when his father, a local priest, almost froze to death. He manages to do it and the spirit pledges himself to him... and then becomes pretty much Yandere for the dude
- Hishou and the 98th Himiko finally found each other again in a snowy day. (It's hinted that, by that time, Hitsoushin had given up on isolating Hisou from others). Two days later, she died of illness.
- True Love's Kiss: Kosumo uses this in the end, to try debrainwashing Hitsuji. It causes his two personalities to start struggling... and when Azumi attacks Kosumo afterwards, he breaks free and protects Kosumo. Sort of a Justified Trope in this case: Kosumo deduces that she can use her Miko powers to directly debrainwash Hitsuji, but to do so she needs to have close skin contact with him. What would be better than a kiss on the mouth, huh?
- Tsundere: Kosumo starts as this. In her first meeting with Hitsuji, she scolds him for killing a butterfly in front of her. Then she protects him without hesitation from Himiko's other subordinates... and they start bickering right there.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Three in the same scene! Kosumo calls ut Hisuji first, then he gets called out by Himiko's clanswomen led by Hiyoshi, and then Kosumo calls the ladies out for their treatment of Hitsuji.
- Yandere: The revived Azumi, to a degree. Her desperate desire to live overrid anything else in her life, so she clings to the Brainwashed and Crazy Hitsuji like crazy.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Well, Kosumo didn't exactly kill Himiko, but she got her heart and blood. Now she's stuck with Himiko's powers and life duty.
