"Someone's loneliness is spreading all through the sky, and I couldn't move an inch."
Sono Saki no Fuukei is a tragedy, following the live's of three people, a brother, his girlfriend, and his younger sister, we see them navigate through their delicate relationships with one another as murky feelings slowly rise to the surface.
Tragedy is the name of the game, and it's one Fujiwara Kaoru's(the author) specialty. We bear witness to the sorrow felt by the younger sister, a girl who's relationship with her brother has been distant for some time now and who suffers from heart complications that stop her from taking part in any
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Jul 19, 2019 Mixed Feelings
"The first thing I saw when I was born was the snow gently falling from the sky."
Origin is the latest completed work by author & artist Boichi, a man who's stock in the anime and manga community seems to be rising with every single work done, and now with his role as artist on Dr. Stone, a popular manga in Shonen Jump, interest in him will only continue to grow in thanks to the currently airing adaptation of said work. But Dr. Stone isn't the focus of this review, instead this is about the story of one robot's arduous path towards self-realization. And with this marking ... the last time a translated chapter for Origin will release, it's easy to look back on and think that it started off so hot with it's immediate eye-catching art and mature tone yet ended up barely hobbling over the finish line when everything was said and done. Regardless, the first thing that's apparent in anything that Boichi has worked on is the quality of art present, and with this most recent work we see it at its best so far. With his previous manga there tended to be some attribute, whether it be the overall roughness in the character outlines and environments, or some heavy shading done to character designs that would end up taking away from the deep level of detailing that was otherwise present. There was always something distracting that stood out and the overall product suffered because of it, but with Origin these previous flaws were focused on and touched upon leaving us with a manga whose art at least, is as close to flawless as it's ever been. The photo-realistic art style is apparent for nearly the entirety of the story save for a few moments where we are shown a much more cartoonish and round art style that is more akin to his work done for Dr. Stone. But these aren’t used as a way to cop out, instead they’re meant specifically to dictate the tone of a scene and when you see the art style change you can tell it’s meant to be a lot more light-hearted, and comedic at times. Boichi enjoys including elements of comedy in his works and switching to his cartoonish style allows for him to not sacrifice the seriousness that his normal detail-rich style has, resulting in products that are almost always pleasing to look at throughout. The only real negative that can be found is how he draws his females, of which they almost all resemble that of a supermodel with physique’s that are all drawn in a way to best show off either their legs, chest, or asses, not to mention all of them appearing to be moderately skinny and worst of all, all having faces that are almost identical to one another. This is something that is apparent in all of his works and while the female characters themselves are written competently, this design choice, and really the author’s preference in his females does get tiring to see all of the time. Somewhat ironically is that in Origin itself is the most variance in character designs even with the females and yet this “iconic” body type still makes an appearance in multiple females that are shown and featured. As for the characters in Origin there is only one main character to speak of, as well as only one "main" side character. Beyond that there are a number of other side characters we are introduced to during Origin's journey, however most of their roles are so minuscule and lacking, such as the main villain, that there isn’t much to say beyond a line or two describing what they could have been. But hey the story is called Origin, and speaking of him it is revealed almost immediately, that he is an android, or robot. When we meet him we are presented with a cold, calculating machine that is focused solely on searching for something and as such, and to his backstory, we are presented with a blank slate in terms of a main character. What separates him from being a self-insert for the reader is the fact that his lack of any meaningful traits is a specific tool used by the author in order to use the environment of Tokyo that surrounds him to educate and influence his development as someone who is attempting to learn how to live. And it’s in this openness done by the author with this use of environmental storytelling that one of the main issues for this story starts to crop up. Beyond the other character of importance in this story no one else is really given a chance to shine and so it leaves the moments where our main character has those deep moments of realization feeling empty as you almost wonder where he pulls such prolific thoughts from, coupled with the frequency of said moments and it eventually leads into seeming more like Boichi is just trying to say whatever might seem cool and will work for the moment, which ends up cheapening a lot of the messages shared that would otherwise have more of an impact But speaking of the other character, her name is Hirose Mai, a charming coworker of Origin's that we are introduced to not so long after the introductory arc concludes. She is an innocent, robot-loving woman who unfortunately, or rather fortunately, falls for our handsome main character almost instantaneously and thus you might imagine what her role is to this story. She is the perfect compliment to Origin's artificial personality and with a caring, nurturing attitude she is the standout character, offering a completely different look to his world, and thus opening his eyes towards the one thing he struggles to understand the most, love. And really she opens up the hearts of us readers too, with a cute character design that is complemented by her ditziness it’s almost impossible to resist feeling some sort of connection and sympathy while watching her deal with her own struggles and develop as a character, yet at the same time being the catalyst for all of the changes that our main character will go through. It almost seems as if this part of the story should have been focused on more, or in a sense less, because in comparison to the overall arching plot that is going on while Origin and Mai are interacting with each other, the story of those two is a much more touching and emotional tale than what we are actually given. So what do we get? An android goes on a journey to find purpose in its existence, at first glance it’s a common synopsis heard before and yet thanks to the double-edged sword of Boichi’s writing, the journey itself is enthralling, being one half a delicate romp through the inner workings of our main character’s mind, and the other half a rapidly intense showing of no-holds barred fighting. The best part is that when these two are hitting the right notes at the same time it hits a perfect balance that doesn’t overshadow either and instead elevates the story towards the thought of something great...up until it isn’t. Due to either scheduling conflicts or Boichi wanting to focus solely on working on Dr. Stone, that perfect balance mentioned earlier is disregarded and the pacing of the story is thrown out of the window. This is a notable change as well that occurs through the middle of a well-paced arc that turns it into a sprint to the finish. Up until said point, arc's had been spaced out with about fifteen to twenty chapter allotted to each major arc which allowed for characters to be fleshed out and for the arc to end on a satisfying note, the writing is at its peak here and leads itself to being competent, rather than insulting for the reader. With new characters being introduced and utilized properly, fights featuring gorgeous choreography and panel work, the emotional weight that is felt behind Origin as he begins to take hold of what he wants. All of this happens and it hits the right beats and then for whatever reason, it’s thrown out of the window and instead all of that doesn’t matter anymore. Overall, the art is still outstanding throughout but everything else is not, instead of caring for what will happen, you just want to see how Origin will end, no longer feeling invested in anyone but the main character as plot points and new characters are introduced and left behind, or even worse, waved off with some made-up and outlandish use of science and theory that feels out of place in a story that felt grounded in its universe up until a few chapters prior, this results in a piss-poor ending that has lost any emotional weight it had to it all you’re left with is wondering what could have been lingering long after the last page. That’s not to say the entire work should be ignored, it just sours the overall experience, akin to buying a new car and for it to work fine for a couple of months, only for the transmission to randomly fail one day so you go and look for a replacement of the same car only to realize that the entire line of cars has been recalled so all you’re left with is the bad memories of what happened at the end with it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jul 14, 2019
Mitsuami no Kamisama
(Manga)
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"What's over there in the other world? The truth isn't something you can openly say."
Mitsuami no Kamisama is an award-winning work by Kyou Machiko, an author most well known for the whimsical identity each one of her manga exhibits and with this story it's no different as we follow the seemingly lonely life of one girl, well that's not the whole truth but more on that in just a moment. The first thing that you will notice with Mitsuami no Kamisama, and with all of Machiko's works is the softness that her art emanates, it fills you with a feeling of warmth, couple it with the ... minimal amount of dialogue most of her work's have and it's fairly easy to get lost in her works where you may end up finishing them in a day or getting close to it. Another advantage of her soft art-style is the inherent vulnerability it adds to each character, and as a side effect, the emotion they end up displaying is heightened in effect. For this story in particular, there's a lot of bright & warm colors that are used to purposefully clash with the abnormal world that our main character inhabits. Speaking of which, our main character and some of the other characters that are introduced as the story progresses all have rather plain designs, from their hair styles to the type of clothing they wear, nothing stands out about them, instead the focus of this manga is on the setting, and rather the story behind said setting. What we are shown is nothing out of the ordinary, our main character lives by herself in a house, there's a shore nearby where sea turtles often come from and every now and then our MC might get some mail, the real question that begins to form is, where is everybody else? The second thing you might notice is the dialogue, or the lack thereof that is present in this story, this is done purposefully and ties back into her art. Machiko prioritizes telling a story through her environments a lot of time, whether it be with a panel that focuses on the night sky or the emotion displayed on a character's face. Each of these is used and prioritized in a way over the conventional storytelling method of dialogue & text, and thanks to the author's skill with this unconventional storytelling as well as the inherent vulnerability given off by the character's designs, it pays off in great effect during the story's highest notes. But speaking of this story is a delicate issue, and it's one that doesn't even really start to form until about a third of the way through the manga. See for a large majority of this manga, especially at the beginning, every chapter is told through the eyes of a specific tool that our heroine has, for example, a clothespin, soap, gardening gloves, and a few others I won't mention but through each of these tools we are shown a story that tells a day in the life of the specific tool, and what there thoughts are regarding what they do. These stories can range from funny to touching, philosophical to depressing, and with each of these stories you get a grasp of Machiko's strong storytelling. In most of her works she focuses on a character driven journey but for Kamisama we are instead treated to her ability at crafting a story based largely on the world the characters live in. That's not to imply that the character's themselves don't have much of a story because they do, and the shift from environmental to character-focused comes off feeling well-written and smooth, it's just that the whole air that surrounds this manga is leading unto the reader hoping to get a glimpse into what might have happened to this seemingly devoid world. Speaking of shifting focus there is one issue with the manga (as mentioned earlier) and that has to do with that shift from the environmental focus to a character driven one, the shift itself doesn't feel out of place but what does is the feeling of abruptness that the ending leaves you with. The ending itself is quite clever and well-written, with questions being answered and the stakes being raised we are presented with a surprising and poignant climax that I enjoyed, but my issue is with the fact that what follows the climax is nothing, and in a story sense where it ended is a logical conclusion that our characters would have reached, but as an overall story it feels just stuffed in a little bit too early on in what could have been a much longer story. In regards to the characters, each one (including the tools themselves) are all written in a touching, and surprisingly human way, especially those you may only see for a single chapter. They are all touched upon and bring with their arrival, a lesson to not only our main character, but more importantly us as the reader and with that leaves a feeling that won't go away once you reach the last page. Thinking about it now this story holds many messages to it, from the one-off chapters to the ending there's a lot to be found and plenty here to touch the heart. It would have been nice to see the story continue on but really what we were given anyways was quite good itself. Overall Kyou Machiko has written another touchingly lovely story that everyone should give a shot and check out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Feb 25, 2019
Boys on the Run
(Manga)
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“I’m truly very sorry. Seems I ruined your humble little life.”
Welcome to Boys on the Run, a manga serialized from 2005 to 2008 in Big Comic Spirits that tells a story about the life of our twenty-six year old protagonist, Tanishi. A self-aware, self-deprecating employee at a toy company whose main responsibilities in life up to this point have been to make sure that the vending machines across various businesses are stocked. As you might have been able to tell from that description, the job is not an exciting one, Tanishi’s life up to when we are introduced to him, is not an exciting one, ... and so what is he going to do about that? Nothing, not one thing is he going to do in order to change the situation that he’s in because to him, well, that’s quite alright. See our meek little protagonist is very aware of the crushing reality that surrounds his existence. He’s a twenty-six, going on twenty-seven year old man who works at a small-time toy company, lives with his parents at home, and whose only strong connection with people of the opposite sex is through various teleclubs (places where you pay to receive calls from women who would be willing to go on a date with you) and the one female coworker at his job who he happens to have a crush on but at the same time interacts with her about as a well as you think someone with a life like his would. This all changes one day as he’s going about restocking the vending machines around Akihabara and he runs into an employee from a rival toy company, when their friendship is struck, so is the match that ignites the spark of this marvelous story. The first thing I’d like to comment on is the characters of the story, there are many that we meet and are introduced to throughout the one-hundred and sixteen chapters that take up this manga and they all have their own role to play in the story. There is not one character that the author, Kengo Hanazawa, brings into the story that doesn’t influence the story in some way. Whether it be the man from the yakuza who’s in a dom & sub relationship with a teleclub member, or the deaf female trainer who works at the boxing gym, and even the constantly drunk older coworker at Tanishi’s job. All of these characters I’ve just listed, even though they’re not all major characters in the story, have a role to play in not just Tanishi’s life, but in their own life as well. That’s the thing about this story, the main goal as you might have guessed, is about Tanishi improving his life in some major way, however as the story goes on we are presented with many smaller goals that pop up along the way of our protagonists journey, and where other stories might have the protagonist helping out or playing some role in each and every one of these smaller goals, in Boys on the Run these other characters couldn’t care less about Tanishi, they all have their own fleshed out personalities and backstories that fill up the world that this story takes place in. With Tanishi we have our protagonist and main character, and then there’s pretty much everyone else. That’s not to say everyone else is a “minor character” per say, it’s just that for about ninety-seven percent of the story we are only seeing things through his eyes, and following what he does, and because of this, and because of his general mindset on the various aspects of his life, we don’t always get to see what’s going on, things that have to do with other characters are implied instead of being shown, brought up in passing instead of focused on, and all the times this happens it helps to add a layer of realism to an already grounded story. The important thing to come away from this with is that there’s a colorful cast in “Boys on the Run” and one that doesn’t feel under-utilized in any way. Every one of the characters that comes into Tanishi’s life has their own life to live, and while watching him develop, you will also see them developing in their own ways at the same time. In a way it’s like an equivalent exchange between Tanishi, and the people who he’s crossed paths with, while they might not always be interacting with each other, the “rubbing of shoulders” that comes from their sometimes brief interactions does result in a lingering effect that shapes their development in ways that you won’t always see right away, in ways that once revealed or shown, will make you want to smack your forehead from how natural and genius it was pulled off, and that’s the real genius in this story’s characters, and their development. But that’s only one part, another aspect of this manga is its art. The characters themselves all have a general shared style that is having a rounded and plain look to themselves, you won’t really see any characters pop up in this story with super chiseled features or a really defined body and that seems to be somewhat of a trait shared across the author’s works, at least with the faces. In a way it is a detractor because with some characters, mainly the females, it can be hard at first to tell them apart, however this isn’t a persistent issue and with the general variety in body shapes seen it quickly is forgotten. Otherwise the fight choreography is well-done, fights that happen in this story are all easy to follow and this can be pointed to as a side effect from the general simplicity of the character designs, or that the author just has a good grasp on how to properly map out a fight. Another small aspect that deserves some attention brought to it is the backgrounds, most of the time the backgrounds are left to be about as a plain, if not more so than the character designs themselves, as to not pull attention away from what the characters are saying and doing in each panel, however there are some moments where the backgrounds really stand out and this ties into what I really would like to touch upon, the paneling. Not the format of the paneling itself but the actual usage of the panels, there are a few moments scattered throughout the manga where we are presented with a textless panel that focus in on a specific detail in order to highlight its importance to the reader. It’s these textless scenes where emotion is forthright and the strength in Hanazawa’s skill as a writer, and as an artist, are shown to full effect. However these textless panels aren’t the only moments where emotion is captured well, this is a manga all about experiencing the different aspects of life, and no matter if it’s a dramatic or comedic moment, the emotions displayed on our characters during them hold a weight to them that is not soon forgotten. There are moments and scenes during the story that will have you remembering them long past the chapters end, and it’s that sticking power which elevates the manga as a whole to that of a masterpiece. Speaking of the story, Boys on the Run executes its story perfectly, this is not your story of: boy has goal, boy works toward goal while overcoming the bumps along the way, boy finally reaches goal. instead we get the complex story of a man who so badly wishes to break free from the shackles of his current life, yet is unable to do so at any opportunity presented. This causes a lot of frustration, and I’m not just speaking from a reader’s standpoint, Tanishi constantly has the window of opportunity open before him but before he’s able to actually step through the mental block comes and it shuts off any opportunity for progress, and this happens constantly, as the reader you sit there screaming for him to just take that extra step, to finally flip the switch, but he won’t. As the reader this is very aggravating and where some commonly seen frustrations of the manga stem from, the fact that Tanishi is a weak-willed wimp of an mc is often times seen as the largest negative to this work because the way he is portrayed is done so perfectly. The author knows full well what he’s doing, every contradiction that comes from his mouth, every action, it all stems from the idea that he is just not worth it. See while there are a large amount of people who dislike Tanishi, none of them compare to the hate and disgust felt by the man himself. He is painfully aware of his shortcomings and missteps but he is unable to do anything about it, at least by himself. The main plot device of the manga, or rather “devices” that move the plot forward are the women who Tanishi interacts with. Without them Tanishi wouldn’t get anywhere in this story, he bases everything in his life around them, should he clean up in order to look better for one? Should he start working out in order to impress them with looks? Or just be there for them any moment they need? He plays the role of a very subservient man, his existence up to that point has been devoid of an actual relationship with a female so when he starts to catch feelings for one, it not only pushes the story in a certain direction, but it pushes him to also better himself. This is also reflected in the differences between how the men and women are handled as characters. For a lot of the men we meet they generally have a specific role they play and it doesn’t really change from that, overall they have a smaller impact and role to play in the grand scheme of things, whereas with the female characters we see them looked at with a focus that is lacking in their male counterparts. But this isn’t a bad thing or a result of poor storytelling, in fact it is a nearly direct representation of how Tanishi views the two through his own eyes. It’s through all of these different aspects that we see how tightly woven together this manga really is. So if you’re able to sympathize, understand, or even just try to grasp the mindset of Tanishi then you’re in for a treat. He’s not an easy character to like, almost none of the characters are, and some are made specifically with that in mind but you have to understand it isn’t just Tanishi’s life you’re reading about when you see him take the actions that he does, it’s about every single of those who pop up along the way as he’s figuring his life out. Without a doubt if you want to see a story whose characters hit too close to home, whose actions can take you on a trip down memory lane, and whose effects linger long beyond the last page, then I recommend you give Boys on the Run a read.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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