This review is spoiler-free. However, if you haven't finished Oyasumi Punpun, the paragraph before the ending thoughts contains major spoilers so please avoid reading it. I will let you know when you reach that part. Also, please note that my review might be all over the place, as I am not an experienced reviewer. In any case, thanks in advance.
Where do I even begin. I'm sure you have at least heard of Oyasumi Punpun before, and that's to be expected considering how popular and well appreciated it is. We get to witness the story of Onodera Punpun, an innocent bird-shaped boy who spends his days
...
playing with his friends, wishing over stars, and learning valuable lessons about love, life, and the meaning of promises. Well, that’s the impression the manga artist, Inio Asano, would like you to have anyway. If you take the title and Punpun’s cute design at face-value, the manga certainly gives off that vibe. However, as you begin to turn the pages, you quickly realize that it goes much, much further than that. Oyasumi Punpun follows messed up people as they struggle through multiple stages of their messed up lives. As you might have already guessed, this is not your usual slice of life story. It explores something dark, and much deeper than that.
Onodera Punpun begins as a shy 11 year emotional boy, full of dreams, living in his own little world. With the passage of time, and with how life throws him one hardship after the other, he develops into something much different. His shyness slowly begins to turn into isolation. His hopes are challenged time and time again, and his concept of love becomes twisted. There’s a lot more to Punpun than his pointy nose and dot resembling eyes. Behind his simplistic design is a young boy struggling with some serious stuff. At first, he has to deal with relatively common issues, like his parents arguing all of the time, but that problem quickly escalates and becomes a catalyst for more issues that develop in Punpun’s life later on.
Most of the important character figures like his mom, his uncle, and some of his friends, will be given their own arcs, showing the reader how they came to be this way and how they face their own issues in their own way. This is a key aspect of the story, as we do not have a vast amount of characters in general, and throughout the volumes you will notice that Asano switches between them quite frequently. Worry not, however, as the center of the story will always be revolving around our pessimistic, and shockingly nihilistic main character, Punpun. Throughout the manga, we get to explore his issues in depth… and it’s hardly ever pretty.
When it comes to the art, one might argue that it's the best part of the package. Not only is it consistent from start to finish, but it's so well drawn and unique, that you can absorb the mood simply by observing the background of a page. As Punpun and his family slowly age throughout the story, Asano finds ways to change up their designs in small but smart ways. For example, during some of his awkward teenage phases, Punpun grew slicked hair, potentially as a way of acting out, while his uncle grew noticeable facial hair and his physique became slither, which can be perceived as Asano's way of making us realize that he's getting older but wiser. During major development points in the story, Asano likes to do some interesting things with Punpun’s design specifically. Without spoiling what those are, Punpun doesn’t always take on the rounded bird-like form he does in the beginning. Some designs are silly-looking, others are sinister, and the way he looks always mirrors what Punpun current thoughts and feelings are. This is an ingenious idea, as the designs, most of the times and if not always, are left to be interpreted by the reader.
Warning! The following paragraph contains major spoilers of the story and what I personally disliked from Oyasumi Punpun. Please avoid reading it as it will spoil your experience and skip to the closing thoughts. I am writing this as a way of justifying my score.
From the moment Punpun found Aiko again, the story took a very, very different route from what I was expecting. I didn't particularly hate it, but I wasn't a huge fan of it either. Making our little introverted Punpun suddenly a "badass" with a devilish design felt out of place. I can justify it to a point, but not to that extreme. While I have my issues with the later part of the story, I found myself very intrigued by the conversations happening between Punpun and Aiko. As such, the last few volumes were definitely an ok read, even if it wasn't my cup of tea. Leaving that aside, the ending, and mostly what Asano said while explaining it in his interview, was what pissed me off the most.
--- Spoilers end here ---
Oyasumi Punpun is a story in a category of it's own, and we have Asano to thank for that. You can hardly find something to compare this to, due to how uniquely it is portrayed. I may dislike some parts of the story later on but I still consider this to be an amazing manga, worthy of the spot it has acquired in MAL's highest rated works to date. While I definitely recommend Oyasumi Punpun, you might want to delay reading it if you’re currently in a bad spot in life, at least until you feel you can take on some psychological hits. You need to be in a certain type of mood to read it or otherwise it will destroy you. It is a story that does not pull any punches, and you might find yourself uneasy reading, especially during the last few volumes.
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Nov 30, 2020
Oyasumi Punpun
(Manga)
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This review is spoiler-free. However, if you haven't finished Oyasumi Punpun, the paragraph before the ending thoughts contains major spoilers so please avoid reading it. I will let you know when you reach that part. Also, please note that my review might be all over the place, as I am not an experienced reviewer. In any case, thanks in advance.
Where do I even begin. I'm sure you have at least heard of Oyasumi Punpun before, and that's to be expected considering how popular and well appreciated it is. We get to witness the story of Onodera Punpun, an innocent bird-shaped boy who spends his days ... 
Feb 28, 2020
I Am a Hero
(Manga)
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This review is spoiler-free.
I Am a Hero is a story that I picked up a few years ago and couldn't stop reading, until the last published chapter of that time. Then I got bored of waiting and just pushed it off for a while. Usually happens with anything ongoing that I read. It's February, 2020, years later, that I somehow came across this manga on MAL and to my surprise saw that it was completed. I decided to refresh my memory by reading it once again from the beginning and now, here I am, both relieved and disappointed that I finally reached the end of ... |
