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The cover caught my attention with its eerie design, contrasting the cheerful face emerging from the ground. However, I couldn’t figure out why Shibata was always so cheerful in the manga — this remained unclear to me throughout the story. Maybe it's just a stereotypical face of Japanese people.

It’s interesting that both main characters share the name "Hajime"— one being Sato Hajime and the other, Shibata Hajime.
While the plot was engaging and I found myself anticipating the ending, the narrative often felt like it kept circling back to an "ending" without actually concluding. I wasn’t entirely sure if the conclusion was clear or if ... it required a reread due to the branching storylines.

The secondary romantic plot, which touches on themes of friendship, felt underdeveloped. The characters, although somewhat connected through the small town they reside in (or at least it seemed small), struggled with loneliness, seeking solace in movies. The manga includes subtle references to various films, which I found interesting, especially as one character’s zombie film played a pivotal role in the development of the story within the manga’s context.

As for the characters, there were two main living ones — Sato and Shibata — along with two secondary female characters. The rest of the focus was on non-living elements, particularly the Sakura tree, which plays an important role, though it’s not immediately obvious why it appears on the cover. The manga’s setting and film production were intriguing, but the actual camera work was shown only sparingly.

The storytelling style felt more dreamlike. Like a late-night film marathon which turned into a thriller dream where everything is fragmented, characters’ faces blend together, and surreal transitions occur — like moving from a garage to an aquarium, then to a school and a research lab. These shifts in setting, while adding to the surrealism, sometimes left me wondering about the narrative's grounding in reality.

The character design, particularly for the male protagonists, was quite appealing, with Sato starting off as a blonde but changing over the years. There was noticeable growth in the characters, especially as they learned to value their friendships and change their views on people as they navigated their twenties. However, I felt some character arcs, especially the side characters, were lacking depth — like the story of the blonde girl who quickly finds herself a boyfriend, but we don’t get much detail about him.

As for the art style, I found the males character designs mostly attractive and the further it goes, the more beautiful the main character gets, but not for long, as in old age he's already not that great. Though the anatomy sometimes felt off, especially in full-body shots. The lack of expansive backgrounds or panoramic shots made the world-building feel incomplete, and I think the manga would’ve benefited from more visual variety.