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These type of mangas are primary examples of why I personally prefer the medium over animated works. To put it simply, you often don't find as many animes that are as thoughtful as works like Toumei Ningen no Hone. Not only that you find more stories in the same vein, stories that really suck you into the atmosphere. While, yes, such stories can be found on any medium.But I feel like for certain subject matter, "vibe", style, whatever you may call it, you can always find bigger array of stories. In this case of this manga, the most prominent "vibe" is the heavy psychological ... atmosphere, which, for the most part this manga does quite well. So if you are like me and love reading stories with more depressing feel, this might be right down your alley. Though in this case "depressing" isn't synonym for "sad" , as quite often most people mix these two up. Now you could argue they are the same, but for me depressing feel represent this constant, but slight feel of dread you get from reading stories with such elements.

These elements are often hard to make believable. If you make it too realistic it might become dull, or alternatively if you make it too unrealistic it becomes unbelievable and the immersion into the atmosphere breaks. Sadly while I praise this manga for being thoughtful and atmospheric, it isnt without its flaws. Partially I think that the mangaka did great job on creating the heavy atmosphere and putting some good, even relatable, thoughts behind the elements of the story. For example I especially love how the art complements the atmosphere with heavier use of darker shades and monotone colors.Same goes for the other characters, during most of the story other characters are represented from the perspective of the main character. The other characters become one dimensional feeling, which in this case is definitively not a bad thing, as this also complements the mood and the central thought behind the story really well. Whether that be by design or by accident, it serves to make the reader feel more inline with the main character's emotions. And as the story goes on the world changes from darker to lighter and the themes slowly but naturally shift towards happier things.

There are many praise worthy and well done things about this manga, but there are also couple downfalls in it.Since where it falls sort from being a masterpiece in my eyes is on how well some of those elements are explored and represented. There are a lot of questions and thoughts about morality, connection to other humans, circumstance of our lives, friendship and etc, philosophical just about anyone has thought about at some point in their lives. Some of these thoughts are well explored but others fall short on contemplation and thus become shallow. Shallow in this case meaning incomplete, in a way that those thoughts lack the rigourous philosophizing they need to become something more than just easily refutable or acceptable statements. Often such that the questions of "why" that might arise from certain thoughts are never delved into in a satisfying manner, or simply represented in a black and white manner. All in all it makes a lot of the moments in the manga less impactful. And there is also quite honestly big stain over the whole story because of one moment at around the midway point.The moment in question feels like it was done more for the sake of forcing drama and conclusions and was the actually the reason why I started writing this review.

Moving forward from there on some shifts in logic that break me from my immersion into the story. Though overall if you are able to look past the rougher points of the manga you will find quite enjoyable and possibly relatable moments, especially if you have ever felt out of touch with reality. It is quite a nifty package of emotions. While I hate condensing complex thoughts into numbers, in this for me it falls tiny bit short of being 8/10. But grades are honestly quite meaningless as they are quite subjective, but I just thought to clarify it so no one gets mad.