Mar 31, 2023
Once, in 1865, while filing the popular "Proust Questionare", Laura Marx asked her father "what's your idea of happiness?", to which the man, today known as the father of modern socialism, responded that happiness is "to fight".
I kept thinking about this anecdote through the evening, after having re-read the last chapters of Kurosawa these last few days. The reason being that, if the question was asked to Kurosawa, I belive he'd respond with the same answer.
To fight admirably. To fight admirably against your opressor, against the cruelty of this world. To have empathy, to realize your self imposed weakness and to surpass them, not through
...
selfish solutions, but through selflessness. We are constantly crushed by this world, by this society, and we are made to believe we are failures and that it's all our fault. Therefore we have to fight, not to be rich, powerful or to keep up appearances and conform, it's exactly the opposite: We have to fight to survive and to prove that there is meaning and value outside what our capitalist society deems "worth". To fight for ourselves, and for us all. And through this fight, we can find happiness.
This is, I believe, the ultimate message of Kurosawa. A weirdly rebellious "coming of age story", about people that rarely get the spotlight in media - poor "common" people, the weak, failures. A manga that can be funny, sad, thrilling and even poetic without ever losing sight of it's themes. It's such an unique story, that it would be interesting to read even if it wasn't that great. Fortunately, it is not only unique, but also a masterpiece.
Read it, that's all I can say.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
