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This manga is excellent, but there's currently no way to finish reading it unless I learn Japanese. The manga itself is finished, there's something like 36 chapters translated, and 40 or so left untranslated. I wish someone would complete it because it's a shame to leave it inaccessible to non-Japanese speaking fans. I wouldn't recommend reading it until then unless you want to regret starting something fantastic without having a way to finish it.

Please for the love of God, someone finish translating this! It's the story about the development of a child from a young age into adulthood who deals with the most traumatic ... experiences one can think of. The pay off of something like this is to see how he turns out.

Such a shame that the translator seems to have dropped it.

(READ THIS THING! IT'S GREAT AND UNDERRATED!!!)
It's both comforting in it's depiction of the most idealistic town ever, which is ripe with lush thickets and serpentine waterfalls, but it's at the same time deeply sorrowful due to it's subject matter.
Suiiki is a good ol' tear-jerker that pulls you in and makes you feel like you went through the wringer along with its characters. It'll punch you in the gut emotionally, but it'll make you go "oh, that's a beautiful panel," pretty often. The artwork and narrative evokes a magical realist vibe that's weighty with themes of the ethereal nature of things.
"Nothing ... is permanent," is the resonating theme throughout it; nothing maybe except water, which is the thing that binds everything.

It's only 12 chapters. Might as well give it a go.

"What's the point of climbing a mountain?"

Born with a supernatural gift for climbing, brooding loner Mori Buntarou, ascends the highest mountains in order to escape from the world below. For most of this manga there's nothing waiting for him below. He's a misanthropic misfit who has been hurt by anyone he's ever opened up to, so he prefers to do everything solo.

Moody loners protagonists are a staple of manga. Usually they are presented as mysterious badasses who make women swoon without having to utter anything more than a grunt.

Like Client Eastwood, they are cool.

I'm sure many young men have tried to ... emulate that sort of suave detachment in real life and (hopefully) learned that it makes them seem like awkward weirdos. Therefore, I usually find characters matching that description to be bland and unrealistic, but in this manga Muto's characterization subverted my expectations. He's weird, and turns people off. Regardless of how many mountains he conquers, he's a social outcast who can hardly do more than stand speechlessly when faced with another human being.

Instead of worrying about that, Muto obsesses over a single Herculean task "Climb the highest mountain", which he writes down and pins onto the wall of his austere single room apartment. There he lives like a monk, carrying a heavy ruck-sack full of water bottles to and from work because he doesn't have running water at home (or any other essentials). He cuts back on food for days, and bivouacs in the dead of winter because he has one thing in mind: to conquer the untrodden East-face of K2.

A major theme of isolation and the risk of opening oneself up to others persists throughout this series. I won't spoil it for you, but I'll mention that as soon as the once suicidal Muto finds acceptance and love, he finally finds what he was looking for on those mountains.

Jiraishin fascinates me. Despite my better judgement I found myself hooked to this often cliched, cheesy, overly-angsty cop thriller. A lot of the mysteries introduced are conveniently wrapped up, and the plot-lines often segue into the laughable, but God dammit, I kept on reading.

For all of it's flaws, Jiraishin never lets up the bleak tone that it establishes from the get-go. Unlike a lot of manga and anime, there are no gags, no tonal shifts--it's always relentlessly dark and woefully depressing. So much so that major characters will be killed off without warning, and it's often like a punch to the gut.

Hell, even ... minor characters who were introduced just a chapter before had me biting my nails as I hoped for their safety. This manga made me root for murderers because the author writes them with enough humanity for me to care.

There are no good guys and bad guys in this manga. Okay...I take that back, there are some, but there's enough moral ambiguity in most cases to see there are no winners.

Just human beings being pushed off the edge of this mortal coil.