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This is not a review, but a record.

3 years ago I started reading Oyasumi Punpun, but ended up dropping it after 1/3 through because I felt I wasn't mature enough (I was 17) for that story. Since then I have been putting it off. 2024 comes and I thought it might be time to try again. However, before I got to that I decided to purchase A Girl on the Shore in order to prepare myself for what is known as the author's magnum opus. I wasn't expecting anything about this 2-volume-long manga.

Yet, it broke me. The first chapter made clear that this tale was ... going to be complicated, and it closed with a shot of the beach and Sato crying. As if by magic, I could already feel the emotions coming off the paper. I read another 3 chapters and was impressed. These four chapters were easy.

After the second night of reading, 6 chapters, I was surprised with how much I cared about the 2 main characters in such a short time. I felt anxious during the day, as if I couldn't separate reality from fiction and was part of the story and living the experiences the Sato and Isobe were going through. That's not like me.

During the third night, my reading slowed down because my teary eyes were making my vision blurry. I was actually worried for the lead characters and even though I wanted to finish it, I put the book down because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to sleep otherwise. I went to bed knowing this was the best story I've ever read.

I finished A Girl on the Shore on the following morning, skipping breakfast. And even after putting the hardcover in the shelf, I'm still feeling anxious. I don't know for how long my eyes will wettten just by thinking about this story. Sometimes people say they were traumatized by the eclispe (Berserk) or a certain character death in a story... I wonder if this feeling I got right now is what they're talking about.

In the end, I don't know if I'm going to read Punpun this year. I'm genuinely scared it will ruin me.

I think whether you should watch Sonny Boy or not depends on what you're looking for, or rather if you're looking for anything at all. If you do, and by that I mean if you're looking for something specific or something that fits your taste, watch something else and you'll probably have more fun. However, if you're feeling open-minded and want to experience something different, with no idea of what the journey is gonna be like and where the destination is or even if it's gonna be worth it, watch this. It's unique in its directing, visuals, music choices, and most episodes are going to ... leave you confused. But that's okay, you don't need to understand every metaphor or quantum physics explanation because the overall theme is easy to get, so just enjoy the ride!

Beautiful visuals through which most of the story is told, unhinged architecture, massive structures that exhale loneliness, mysterious and cool characters, intense action, annoying mistranslations, a story that takes millenia, a hopeless journey, a determined hero, confusing camera angles... These are all characteristics that belong to the popular game franchise Dark Souls, which is a favorite of mine. Coincidentally, Blame! shares them all.

I'm usually not a big fan of sci-fi, I'm more of a fantasy guy myself, for I find it that my immersion is always broken by those pseudoscientific explanations that aren't convincing at all. But that doesn't happen with Blame! Maybe because Nihei ... let's you come up with your own explanations, so I connected the dots in the way that makes the most sense to me. This mf's laziness for writing really worked in favor to the manga. Plus, he just throws you in the middle of the story with no explanations at all, no hand-holding, and you gotta keep reading and catch the cues along the way. This is why the story, nay, the world is so immersive and hooks you until the end, which isn't even close to the actual end!

I don't think it's perfect, but I don't wanna nitpick because I feel like most of the problems I have with Nihei's first work are my own fault. This is a manga you have to read and interpret it yourself, that's why.