Kin no Hitsuji
The Golden Sheep

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From a technical perspective The Golden Sheep is basically flawless with effective art and paneling, great character designs, and coherent backgrounds. The story is a typical coming of age tale, which is the author somewhat specializes in, and it is here the negatives can be found.

Of the 4 protagonists, 2 have a satisfying, if quick, arc while the other two pull down the series. Tsugu in particular stands out for her optimism and sincerity, which puts here a cut above move teenage girl leads. The slight romance that develops with her is compelling and leads to some of the most effective emotional beats. Her and ... her otaku love interest are easily the best part of the series.

The sick one and the boxer on the other hand just never get in a groove. They do awful things repeatedly throughout the series which then gets 'resolved' in a series of tearful exchanges. There isn't much likability or arc to be found here. The boxer in particular just never earns the resolution the series give it.

The length of the series is a massive negative. A longer story would have given more time for the reconciliation to develop naturally and for the characters to face the consequences of their actions. The entire cast also leaves off in a very interesting placed, and volumes of material could easily be spent exploring things the characters just off-handedly mention in the last page.

Good, but not filled out enough to be truly impactful.

Score: decent 7

This manga had a lot going for it. Its story is something that appeals to me a lot. The idea of your friends not being the same people as they were when you left is something I feel like I'd like t see explored more in ways similar to this. I won't say it's the most unique structure, but it definitely is engaging. Not to mention, it even went the whole running away on an adventure to become stronger plotline which is almost like an instant appeal point to me. That said, my overall feelings on this manga were a lot more mixed, sometimes negative. ... I'll start off with positives about this manga first because I want to be able to show that there is value to be found here and it isn't a 6/10 for me because it's mediocre all around.

Edit: actually tbh 4/10 haha after letting it sit in I did not like it.

First of all, the art is very good. There's a certain flare to the expressions of the characters that makes it evident what they're thinking or feeling without any dialogue boxes used. You find something as simple yet effective as this most commonly in larger, more important scenes in most manga, but this is one of the few that does it consistently even during the smaller moments.

Next, I think the general story is good. I explained at the beginning why I feel like this manga ahs story beats that immediately appeal to me. It's still a bit iffy in execution which I'll get to later, but the very structure of the story I think was good and made for some decent developments to occur.

And last notable positive, Sora and Tsugu are good characters. Their struggles, guilts, everything all make sense within the scope of the story and most of the decisions they make (key word being most) are all in line with such.

And on to the negatives, which is conveniently right after I talk about the two good characters in the story, because the other two of the main, sick girl and boxer(can't be bothered to write their names) are downright horribly written. Not only are they horribly written, but their dynamic with the two good characters I mentioned earlier sours my taste for even them, as it sort of muddles the point of their arcs.

Spoilers incoming.

Both the sick girl and boxer are just downright horrendous people. I'll start with boxer first. The concept of his character is that he used to be a nice, upstanding kid, but after he started to get bullied due to his dad getting into a pedo scandal(which btw also makes it hard to sympathize with the dad when that's what they decided to make his scandal. They should've chose something more forgivable or make him a victim of false accusation if they wanted to portray him as sympathetic, but that's very subjective I guess.)

Anyway, in desperation he asks Sora if he wants to go boxing with him, but Sora, not understanding at the time that it was a cry for help, declines. Eventually, when they get to high school, Boxer turns Sora into his and his group of delinquents' punching bag. The guilt Sora feels after realizing that he pushed Boxer away first is a really good motivation that explains why he takes the beatings and literal physical abuse(they throw darts at his back) without any resistance.

However for Boxer, this just makes him all the more look like a bad person. Doesn't help that he was about to throw a rock at an innocent dog that wasn't even attacking him. For me at least that is enough to make him almost irredeemable. Actually when you stack the shit he did to Sora yeah definitely unforgivable.

Even so though, if the author wanted to make it so that the group forgives him, they should've put a lot more effort in doing so. To my memory, not once does he apologize or feel genuine remorse for the things he put Sora through, which may I remind you includes MAKING HIM ATTEMPT TO KILL HIMSELF.

And then there's sick girl. Always jealous everyone got to hang out while she was sick. And eventually by the time we reach present day she starts to bully and go along with the plan to exclude Tsugu from their group because she's jealous that she's getting closer to Boxer when she knows she's in love with him. Eventually when she's left alone in school the other girls start to bully her (for the same reason she bullied Tsugu) whatever whatever. She wasn't just fucking boring but she was also a total prick for no reason. I abhor this character and she gets away with her behavior with even less scratches than Boxer. At least Boxer got socked in the face and his ass handed to him by a pro boxer and his fellow delinquents. This girl gets bullied, yes, which is bad, but she never has to face her sins to the people she wronged. Not in any meaningful way at least.

Which makes the rushed conclusion so much worse. I like the idea of spending more chapters having the characters mend each other's relationships. They don't need to fully forgive but I just need them to be able to develop a bit more instead of accepting things from the get go. Author had the right idea to make Sora dislike Boxer for most of the story and refuse to help him, but it doesn't feel like it pushes through ever.

Overall this manga is a victim of having two severely mishandled characters ruin a lot of the emotional core and developments it had set up. It was too rushed and the destination, while fine in a vacuum, came in far too soon for it to have a genuine positive effect. Do I recommend this manga? Well sure, it has a lot of interesting story beats still. I just personally found it too distasteful in how it treats forgiving two of the characters that it soured most of my experience in the latter half of the manga. 6/10

Warning: I do mention the s!xual assault and the bullying/Harassment portrayed in the story, please read knowing this and that.
Note: I am not trying to dog on the manga, this is just something that WILL frustrate people and they deserve a warning.

Art: The art style of Ozaki Koari is amazing, the colour pages are perfection and the warmth practically radiates off of the page dragging you into the cozy feeling she tries to build with her work.
The anatomy is generally well done, I've yet to see a wonky eye or misshapen hand.
Her style is very Anohana/Your name but distinctly set in the 2010's which ... does set her apart when reading some of the newest stuff from around the time the English translation dropped.

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Story/Characters: I didn't see much issue with the first few chapters of 'Golden Sheep' - the story had Ozaki's weird obsession with having young boys obsess over boobs and a lot of the story was pretty solid in terms of set up and execution. We get introduced to our 'Main four' of Tsugu, Sora, Yuushin and forgettable charact- I mean Asaki. The group are pretty divided into bullies vs bullied within the first few chapters and very quickly establishes a status quo that the story should follow - before smacking that out of the park and hitting someones car.

Tsugu is literally the best character in this manga; she's complex with motivations and emotions that resonate with a lot of young adults and teens that really make you want to see her happy, a genuinely fun character to watch in every panel and is all around an actual good representation of a "bubbly" teenager without diving into stereotypes too much. I have absolutely no complaints about her, she;'s perfect and I only really have a complain with how she feels less like a character by the end of the story and more like a filler love interest for Sora.

Sora is overall just really boring, he fits that self-insert quota for young Japanese men and the story definitely forfeits some autonomy for Tsugu to further Sora's character. I think out of all the characters his character arc is the best of them all, going from a boy who struggled to even say a word about being bullied to bravely standing up for his friend against someone who'd tormented him for years. Which speaking of -

Yuushin is the biggest piece of scum on this side of the manga world - he's got trauma, that's for sure, but his actions far out way the defence. He actively torments Sora for failing to notice a cry for help and he does so by literally feeding him to the wolves at every opportunity he gets for around a few years. He actively uses the dog that they all found as kids to lure Sora out and literally says "jump off this bridge and die and I won't beat up your dog". He's generally a pretty big douche to even the character's he's "nice" too and the worst crime of all, because he literally commits a crime, is the fact he sexually assaults Asaki. You heard me, he assaults her - while also knowing that she loves him. It's gross, it's disgusting and I genuinely want to actually throw up every single time I think of that.
My biggest gripe with all of these actions though is the fact that Ozaki glosses over it all, she has this boy literally SA a girl and then pretends like he's some wayward soul just doing a small oopsie and not a depraved psycho that committed a literal crime. He gets no slap on the wrist, no consequences to his actions and when Asaki see's him again, AFTER BEING SA'ed BY HIM, she doesn't react with disgust, or fear or even anger. It's like it never happened.

Asaki is alright, I genuinely only really began rooting for her because of the SA situation but she's also not that great. She actively excludes Tsugu because she 'gets pally' with Yuushin which is just? Huh??? And what sucks for her is she doesn't get much time to actually develop - she's barely a member of the main cast and honestly feels like an added extra to the group rather than a character that is important to these """friend""""

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Overall: I think this is a problematic manga - it glosses over some really heinous actions and Ozaki has a weird obsession with randomly putting weird sexual actions/intents on teenagers and it's just a bit weird? I think if you can enjoy this good for you, but truly it does nothing to actually deepen it's narrative and all of the plot is surface level at best.