Subarashii Sekai

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: WaWW

Japanese: 素晴らしい世界

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 2

Chapters: 19

Status: Finished

Published: Jan 19, 2002 to Mar 19, 2004

Genres: Drama, Slice of Life

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Sunday Gene-X

Authors: Asano, Inio (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.58¹ (scored by 12,214 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2416²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #560

Members: 33,541

Favorites: 415

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Jan 31, 2010

Yxel

Recommended

Asano Inio is the unsung Aesop of our time. He weaves his set of ideals and his take on life into his manga, teaching and inspiring us time and time again.

In this compilation of short stories, Inio tries to teach us one thing, saying it directly on the first and last pages of the second volume: "This world that we live in is gentle yet sad, fun yet sorrowful, strong yet ephemeral..." / "...but as long as you're alive, something good is bound to happen. I'm sure of it."

______

Each and every one of the stories shows struggle. They show how terrible "ordinary" ...

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Nov 8, 2019

ANDy342

Not Recommended

Asano Inio is a bad writer. But he's the best writer for the MAL. I don't mean this to be a condescending review but the fact is he writes for 15 year olds. You know the 15 year olds who just recently learnt what "nihilism" meant or that the structure of society isn't perfect? This is his core philosophy and audience. And teens love it. When I was a teen I loved it!

The issue with this style of writing its that it is shallow, so incredibly shallow. I'll get in to spoilers here. There are five characters who suicide in this work. Suicide is thrown ... around like a plot device. It's so unbearably childish. It's just a thing people do, they say "oh screw it I'm done" it's done with literally no subtetly. I think David foster wallace put suicidal ideation best "“The so-called ‘psychotically depressed’ person who tries to kill herself doesn’t do so out of quote ‘hopelessness’ or any abstract conviction that life’s assets and debits do not square. And surely not because death seems suddenly appealing. The person in whom Its invisible agony reaches a certain unendurable level will kill herself the same way a trapped person will eventually jump from the window of a burning high-rise. Make no mistake about people who leap from burning windows. Their terror of falling from a great height is still just as great as it would be for you or me standing speculatively at the same window just checking out the view; i.e. the fear of falling remains a constant". And this view on depression and suicide marks the difference between a poor writer and a writer who has the ability to look at something and truly see it and bring new and thought provoking conclusions.

The writing also falls in the same trap I think we all had as 15 year olds, dark = mature. If I saw a movie with gore then it was for adults and super mature. But that's not really true. In fact it is more often than not the opposite. It continually aims to introduce these large concepts and winks at the audience saying "deep and and dark right?". Some people say this is due to the fact it's a short story style of story telling that it doesn't expand on these concepts more but a good writer can explore concepts with depth regardless of length as I already showed with DFW.

Overall a very weak work that is kind of insulting.

Time for a bonus round for the cringiest moments.
-tone of suicide for the edgelords
-absurd bullying scenarios. Kids can be mean but they're not insane
-drug addicts who think they've workd everything out
- the same mentality rick and morty fans have is all over this work "its so tough being smart am i right fellas :)
-weird borderline pedo relationships
-bad imagery and symbbolism "a raaaiiiinnnnnnboooowwww"
-everyone's parents are dead like everyone's
-high school students who have the vaguest understanding of existentialism
-teens looking at the sky philosophizing and saying things teens would never say

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May 11, 2015

defunctmaluser

Recommended

When it comes down to authors who can make the mundane appealing, you'd be hard-pressed to find who could fit the bill like Inio Asano. He's one of the few mangakas out there who can take something mundane like a slice-of-life setting and really turn it into a unique experience that other mangas just can't compare to. To get a good idea of what I'm talking about, let's look into Subarashii Sekai (What a Wonderful World!): the first manga of his to ever come to the West. Subarashii Sekai can be succinctly described as the manga equivalent of a book from the Chicken Soup for ... the Soul series in that this is a series of stories about the lives of various people and what keeps them around to live another day.

Well, I don't think it's entirely fair to say that Subarashii Sekai is a compilation of stories since there really isn't much story to be found. This may be a bizarre thing for me to say, but please hear me out. Subarashii Sekai consists of 19 chapters, each chapter being a vignette taken from the lives of people just like you and me. From these vignettes, we get to see what it is that these people go through on an otherwise daily basis and what it is that keeps them going. That's not all that we get to experience, however. There's also the chance that we get to see an unusual day in the life of some random bloke and what happens when they decide to go against the current of their otherwise miserable lives.

Despite the fact that Inio Asano is known for his cold and unflinching portrayal of reality, Subarashii Sekai is one of his more optimistic works and it has a worthwhile message to be found: life is a precious gift that shouldn't be taken for granted. This is a manga that anyone who's gone through or is going through some tough times in life needs to read at some point, if only because of the fact that it's something that's sure to brighten their day if only by a tiny margin. Subarashii Sekai also serves as a great introduction to the rest of Inio Asano's works like Solanin and Oyasumi Punpun.

On the subject of how well Subarashii Sekai holds up to Asano's later work, I prefer Solanin and Oyasumi Punpun, if only because of the fact that I could connect to the both of those on a much deeper and more personal level than I can with Subarashii Sekai but that doesn't mean that this manga isn't worth reading. Despite the fact that Inio Asano's improved his craft by a conisderable margin, Subarashii Sekai is still a worthwhile buy and is definitely something that you should have in your shelf and the messages it has are worthwhile no matter where you are in life. That's all for now. Feedback is always welcome and with that, I'm out. Peace :)

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Oct 18, 2015

acajou

Recommended

"I look up into the clear blue morning sky. It makes my eyes hurt. And suddenly, I feel something nostalgic underfoot. It's the dawn of a new day, and the first thing I do is step in some shit."

Asano Inio's serial debut Subarashii Sekai is an interesting anthology of loosely linked short stories about people caught between prolonged adolescence and adulthood, trying to resist the pressures of a fast-paced society as they stand in the midst of their failing aspirations and relationships.

Protagonists include a college dropout, a bullying victim, and other characters that many readers will be able to relate to on some level. At ...

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Mar 1, 2024

NapoTheGuy

Recommended

La siguiente reseña está en Español e Inglés (traducida con el apoyo de DeepL)
La versión leída es la traducción al español por Robelais

Español

Es una antología de historias, cada capítulo tiene un protagonista en una situación específica, uno que otro aparecerá en otra historia como personaje secundario. Si bien cada situación es única, el carácter del compendio se puede generalizar, son las vivencias cotidianas de personas cualquiera, con cada quién enfrentando a su manera las circunstancias tan comunes que le suceden.

Sea una relación de pareja, familiar o amistad, el inevitable proceso de crecimiento o la convivencia en tu ambiente; ninguno de los protagonistas está en un ...

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Nov 25, 2024

Mara2463

Not Recommended

What a Wonderful World – Spoiler Free – Not Recommended

TLDR
Overall: 4/10

Disclaimer: due to the nature of this work – a collection of short stories –, my normal parameters of Story, Art, Characters and Enjoyment with a weighted average won’t be applied. Instead, a global overview will be offered.

This world that we live in is gentle yet sad, fun yet sorrowful, strong yet ephemeral…
-What a Wonderful World

What a Wonderful World is probably one of Asano’s worst works, as he again attempts to use short stories to tell multiple independent stories. What a Wonderful World suffers precisely from the same illness as Before Dawn and the End ...

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