Mar 10, 2025
This manga will make you uncomfortable, but that is the aspect that makes this manga great in my opinion. It sheds light into a rare glimpse of Japanese society in a very real, depressing perspective. Many others have also confronted so and so problems as well, but it is hard to take most seriously. Most stories have a black and white setting with a defined good & bad, but this manga is set up in a way where we make up our own decision. This story reflects reality more because it is in a grey area and everything is more complex and we don't know
...
everything.
Although this manga isn't entirely about this, it is partially about the instability and toxicity of blindly following a loosely but legible definition of a conventional healthy relationship/ happiness. It is a commentary of the faults of certain Japanese social structure: tendency towards un-confrontations, conformity (defining/ comparing your life off conventions), lack of openness (unwillingness to communicate & listen to others). This manga has a tendency to exaggerate everything. Although the exaggeration makes the story seem more fictitious, it puts what would normally be too meager to become a problem a very visible problem, which leads (at least) me to think/ contemplate about it; Very rarely will what conspired in this manga happen in reality, but it shows that there is a haze of toxicity and instability within this environment (a haze because the effects of its translucency is visible but you can't defined when it starts & ends, and it's in the background). There is no clear good or bad people in this manga, and it is just people doing bad things (not bad people); Who is good or bad will vary depending on what you personally think is worse, but everybody does bad things and somebody shouldn't be excused from their bads just because comparatively there is worse. This grey area makes the manga more believable despite its hyperbole because it has authenticity (something many manga rarely has).
(Major spoilers, don't read this if you don't want to be spoiled)
Most of the problems in this story could've been alleviated had the family been open to communicate and listen to each other, but they all dug themselves a deep hole where nothing is solved. The main family never got around to form some sort of resolution, instead they all saw the problem at face value (in their own perspective) without thinking. The father never got around to realize that the family was unstable to begin with. Everything was pushed onto him, and although he had his own problems, nobody was willing to listen or acknowledge it because he's supposed to take it like a man or father (and he never challenges this). Because of the aloofness and loneliness he felt, he started inching towards infidelity and he foolishly assumed that the pedophilic intimacy was the solution (sprout in reminiscent of simpler times when things were good with his wife). The mother wasn't any better because she pushed the man towards pedophilia, and she assumed faulty entirely on the guy without ever hearing him out; She is just as closed minded start to end. She talks about how she changed as a person because she got more healthy, but she hasn't changed at all. The daughter was frustrated by how aloof her father was not realizing that she's the reason why. Everybody is an idiot in this story, and this fact makes this story even more realistic because it shows how blindsided people can be from their person's tie to the cultural/societal structure that define them. To abbreviate, everybody is stupid, and nobody knows jack shit.
I think it was the right choice to contain this story within a few volumes, but the end felt very rushed. I think they could've added a chapter or two more for the mother, since the focus on her was very sudden but brief. Throughout the entire story, she was a background character, but within a couple panels in the last chapter, the author/ artist tried to fit her perspective. This makes the mother seem like a character brought up in the spur of the moment, and the briefness makes her much more hollow in comparison to everybody else when she is a big aspect of the story.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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