Goodnight Punpun Part 1

Goodnight Punpun is a slice of life seinen romance by Asano Inio.  The series was compiled in 13 tankoubon.  Due to the scale of the manga I am going to split it up into 4 parts, to more closely review the 4 major story arcs.  The first arc covers events in the first two tankoubon.

    The first story arc for the series deals with the title character, Onodera Punpun when he is in 5th grade.  Punpun is a bit of a recluse and mainly goes with the flow in his small group of friends.  While he participates in the adventures of his peers he has a difficult home life.  His parents have a loveless marriage and when his father beats his mother bad enough to send her to the hospital, Punpuns uncle moves in to watch over him.  His uncle Yuichi is probably the most emotionally stable member of his family but he comes with his own baggage which he drops onto Punpun.  Yuichi struggles greatly with the meaning of his life and the point of existence to the level of being semi suicidal.  He is open and frank with his impressionable nephew, which does little to improve Punpuns dismal psyche.

    Beside that Punpun tries to enjoy his youth, hunting for discarded porn with his friends and liking girls.  One of his classmates, Tanaka Aiko, catches his eye.  Much to his enjoyment she has mutual feelings for him.  Aiko though is also damaged goods as she is being raised by an abusive mother who has wholly devoted her life to a get rich quick cult.  Aiko dreams of running away from her pitiful existence and Punpun eagerly tries to please her.  Aiko tells Punpun that if he ever betrays her or lies to her that she will kill him.  The look in her eyes convince him she isn't kidding.

    Things start to become complicated in their relationship when Punpuns friends find a porno and watch it at his house.  Just as the porno gets to the good part the tape begins to play a home recorded video.  In the video a 20-something man talks about how he murdered his family and hid their bodies in an abandoned miso factory.  He says that anyone brave enough to discover them will also find a cache of money.  The kids freak out from the prospects of what they have just witnessed and decide to investigate.  One of them, Seki Masumi, knows the location the guy is talking about.  Seki's father had previously run a lunch box business and has dealt with the now deceased owner of the factory.  Seki, like everyone else has his own problems at home.  His father is now an unemployed alcoholic and Seki dreams of murdering him.

    The boys and Aiko head off to the factory in Stand By Me fashion, excited for the adventure and the prospect of seeing dead bodies and finding riches.  Punpun eagerly goes along in hopes of being able to fund he and Aiko running away from home.  At the factory, they run into an older girl who goes there to work on her artwork, she warns them of a ghost but leaves them to their own devices.  The factory is a dump, with hazards everywhere, the children's hyped sensitivity leads to a near disaster as a fire breaks out.  The events of the fire changes all their lives for better or worse.  The reason for the adventure builds a small rift between Aiko and Punpun which intensifies when she wants to meet him at the beginning of Summer break and he is unable to do so...due to his mother failing at killing herself.

    I have been a fan of Asano's work since I first read Nijigahara Holograph.  His artwork is some of the most detailed out there, with incredibly realistic scenery and character designs that are unmistakable as his own.  Goodnight Punpun pushes it a bit further with the designs for Punpun and his family.  They are all drawn like how a 4-year-old would draw a bird.  In the world of the story the characters obviously look like normal humans, but to the readers they appear as strange birds, heightening the issues the Onodera's have with personal identity and social relatability.

    Asano's stories deal with some pretty realistic darkness throughout and Goodnight Punpun is no exception.  Right from the beginning the reader is informed that this is a story about children who live in less than perfect environments and how those environments effect their psyche.  In the first part, perhaps the most damaged individual is Aiko who casually and intently threatens death for the smallest infractions.  She doesn't appear to do it in some childish dark humor but with real sincerity and intent.  Punpun appears to be the most vulnerable to outside influence as we see with how much his self-perception is molded by his uncle’s own perception.  Yuichi cares for his nephew but his own self-hatred undoes a lot of that compassion.  Perhaps one of the most damaged children though is Shimizu Ko, a snot nosed friend who sees a mysterious poop headed deity that tells him he has super powers.  Shimizu seems to be borderline cognitively disabled and follows around Seki like a puppy.

  Speaking of hallucinations, Punpun has an influential deity of his own which appears to him as a smiling man with a wild afro, offering brief yet impactful advice to him.  This deity is the direct result of his uncle influence from earlier in his life and works as a reactionary conscience for Punpun, for better or worse.  As he becomes more entangled in his relationship with Aiko, 'god' becomes more assertive in his suggestions, including murder.

    Goodnight Punpun is meant for mature audiences even though it deals with children in a realistic and non-fanciful way.  Coarse language, nudity, and anti-social suggestiveness.  Inio relates a realism that suggests some of these experiences are perhaps due to some things he experienced himself.  Those dark things that pretty much every child in modern affluent societies go through, the exploration of maturity in the lack of adult supervision.

    Goodnight Punpun, as with other of his titles, is currently being released by Viz in North America.  The published versions by Viz are double the size so there will be 7 volumes when they are done published them.

Flip Flappers

Flip Flappers (フリップフラッパーズ) is an original 13 episode sci-fi magical girl escape of insanity by Studio 3Hz.  The series originally aired in the Fall of 2016.

    Cocona lives an idyllic life in a small and picturesque village.  She goes to school, hangs out with friends and helps out her wheelchair bound grandmother/caretaker.  Everything goes out the window when a hyperactive and detached girl named Papika shows up.  Papika latches on to the reluctant Cocona with great zeal, forcing her to come with her on other worldly missions for a mysterious organization called Flip Flap, lead by the stoic Dr. Salt.

    The girls teleport themselves into different realities called the Pure Illusion to look for fragments that Dr. Salt is gathering for an unknown purpose.  While Cocona resist joining the search she is time and time again dragged into Pure illusion by Papika.  The girls must face great dangers in their journey and the deeper they go the more they notice the real world seems to be hiding something.  What is the Pure Illusion, who is Dr. Salt and the others in Flip Flap and why does Papika need Cocona's help so much?

    This is a strange yet familiar adventure that meshes magical girl stories with wide ranging anime/pop culture references.  Each trip into the Pure Illusion mashes up very recognizable source materials, from Mad Max and Evangelion to Fist of the North Star and Giant Robo.  Half of the fun is picking out all the source material.  Beyond a few gatcha's that are thinly veiled this is a pretty mindless romp of weirdness and nostalgia.  The animation is questionable at times and varies in style but works really well for this show.  While it's not the best ever made it is fun and enjoyable and worth the time for a little diversion into surrealism.

    The series was picked up by Sentai Filmworks in North America and was streamed on Crunchyroll.

March Comes in Like a Lion

March Comes in Like a Lion (3月のライオン) is a 22 episode comedy/drama based on the manga of the same name by Umino Chika.  The anime originally ran from The Fall of 2016 until the Spring of 2017.

    Kiriyama Rei is a young shogi prodigy who struggles with his existence.  While in elementary school he lost both of his parents and his little sister in a car accident.  A shogi playing friend of his fathers decided to adopt him out of both pity and a realization for Rei's ability in the game.  Life with his adoptive family was difficult as he was completely scorned by his adopted siblings, both of which despised the change he brought to their house.  He forced himself to block everything out except for shogi, furthering his alienation when he appeared to become the favorite child of his adopted father.  His skill and dedication allowed him to become a professional shogi player while in middle school.

    The series takes place while he is in high school and living on his own, off of his shogi earnings.  His life is spartan and lonely.  He doesn't socialize with anyone at school and barely interacts with the adults and peers at the local shogi hall.  Yet he has been able to fill some of the familial void he has experienced since his parents deaths with a quirky and quaint family in his neighborhood, the Kawamoto's.  The Kawamoto's consist of 3 sisters and their grandfather.  The oldest, Akari has a sisterly fondness for Rei and encourages him to visit them often.  The sisters, who's father's whereabouts is unknown, lost both their mother and grandmother soon after the youngest was born.  They live with their grandfather who runs a family confectionery.

   While Rei enjoys the coziness of the Kawamoto residence he tries to keep his distance and focus his entire being into becoming better at shogi, his only purpose for living.  He struggles with the worth of that existence and his own desire to continue with it, but given its the only thing he feels he has left it is what he clings to as his identity.  The Kawamoto's do what they can to make him feel more human as well as a peer and long time rival in the shogi hall, an energetic but poor heath riddled rich kid named Nikaido.  Nikaido works hard at pushing Rei to be the best he can and to open himself up to at least those around him in the world of shogi.  Rei though struggles with deep depression and low self esteem, even if he is gifted in what he does and has people around him who care for him.

    This is more a story about personal growth and the struggles of self identity than it is about shogi, but there is a good deal of shogi with some minimal explanation on how the game works through out.  The series is split between different vignettes, shifting between different characters view points at sometimes but always pushing the story forward.  My favorite ones tend to be the really dark introspective ones, I feel this is where the writing really comes through at its best.  There are always comedic vignettes to counter act the most depressing parts as well, so its not all doom and gloom!  Some of the best characters are the cats at the Kawamoto residence and their internal dialogues about demanding food and attention.

    The artwork is fantastic and plays a large part in the overall tone and feel of the story.  Particularly in the water motifs to reference Rei's sense of isolation and suffocation in his life.  I can't stress enough how much the imagery of water plays a part in the story.  It's hard to find any faults with this series over all.  While some aspects of the story were less interesting to me than others it was typically enjoyable over all.  The character development is well paced and new personalities are introduced and then expanded upon in a satisfactory way.  There are no one dimensional characters and much of the writing and plot development strives to show that.

    The series licensed in North American by Bang Zoom and is available for streaming on Crunchyroll.  Even better, the second series began in the Fall of 2017!

Sunny

Sunny is a slice of life manga by Taiyo Matsumoto.  The series has been compiled into 6 tankoboun.

    Sunny is set in a small town in 1970's Japan and deals with a group of children who have been left in the care of an orphanage known as the Star Kids Home.  The story moves between them over its course, exploring their past, their view points of life at the home and developing all of the characters personalities and the homes' environment.  There is no over arching plot line and no central character.  The closest to a central figure would be Haruo, who has lived at the home for many years after his mother abandoned him.  Haruo struggles with his parents rejection, continuously trying to reconnect with his mother, who makes things worse by having him visit her on weekends from time to time.

    The children have come to live at the home for many reasons; abandonment, guardian illness, guardian death and others.  The home is run and funded by an elderly man who has made it his life's work to take care of those who society has turned their backs on.  He, with his employees, try to do the best they can to provide some form of stability in the shattered lives of the youths who come through their door, whether it be for weeks or years.  The compassion of the people who maintain the home can only do so much for the shattered psyche's of the children though and the story deals heavily with how they cope with their reality.

    I have been a fan of Matsumoto's work since the mid 90's with Tekkonkinkreet (Black & White in Viz's Pulp) and Sunny is no different.  I relish his strangely detailed style and his worlds overflowing with reality and imagination.  What makes Sunny stand out is that much of it is based on his own life in a foster home and the people he knew there.  The realism is as stark as it is because it comes from experience on his part.  The story is layered deep with nostalgia and memory of a time now past but of things that are still relevant.  While I wouldn't count this as a critique on the orphanage system in Japan it's a good idea to keep that in the back of your mind.  Its a very difficult life to be abandoned in Japan, where traditionally even family members can be reluctant to adopt.

    Sunny has been translated and published either digitally or in fantastic hardcover editions by Viz Media and are well worth it.

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju Decending Stories

Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju Decending Stories (昭和元禄落語心中 ー助六再び篇ー) is the 12 episode continuation of the historical drama Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju.  The series is based on the manga of the same name by Kumota Haruko and aired during the Winter of 2017.

   Decending Stories takes place a number of years after the original series.  Yotaro has come into his own as an apprentice under Yakumo.  He is now beginning to strike out as a professional rakugo performer.  Unfortunately his criminal past is coming back to haunt him, threatening his future in the arts.  At the same time Konatsu, still struggling with her hatred for Yakumo, has to realize her place in a world were women are considered less important.  Yotaro does his best to provide stability for Konatsu, who has recently become pregnant, by becoming her common law husband and adopting the stage name of her deceased father.

    Yakumo, facing his advancing age and the continuing decline in rakugo patronage is steadfast in his desire to prevent the art from continuing successfully once he dies.  Having been serious for his entire life he appears to have become even more cantankerous in his twilight years.  To make matters worse the guilt he feels for his past deeds begins to affect his mental health and he starts to hallucinate that Sukeroku is working on dragging him into the afterlife before his time.

    The original series was primarily set in the past as Yakumo detailed his childhood and rise in the world of rakugo to Yotaro and Konatsu, so I was only slightly hesitant when I learned that this was going to be focused more on the present time in the characters life.  Not that I had any distaste for Yotaru, I was really enthralled by Yakumo and his earlier life.  Though, given where the original series ended it only makes sense to continue in the way it did.  That said it was every bit as fascinating and enthralling of a story.  There is something mesmerizing in the way the characters lives are displayed for the viewer that makes this series special.

   Aside from the excellent story telling, both dealing with the characters lives and the depiction of the rakugo they perform, the artwork stands out among the crows as well.  The characters are stylized in a classic shojo manner, having qualities more homely than lustful.  There is fine attention to detail in the characters mannerisms and facial expressions, which is important to both the rakugo and making the characters more believable.  Its always refreshing to see properly done mouths!  There are really only two things that bothered me with this, the first is how annoying Yotaro's voice really is.  Loud, shrill and abrasive, sometimes on a ridiculous level.  I can't tell if its just bad voice acting or intentional, but it can sometimes dampen the mood set by the story its self.  The other troubling thing is that the series really has no room for expansion.  It ends really well with a nice and tidy final episode.  I really enjoyed both series and would like to see more in the world of these characters, because the story telling is so well done.  Oh well, I can always re-watch them!

    This series, like the original, are available on Crunchyroll in North America.  There is no word on anyone picking up the license for hard copy or dub release, which is a bit of a shame, but sadly I don't see a large fan-base for this excellent and mature story.

Tsuki ga Kirei

Tsukigakirei (月がきれい) (Tsuki ga Kirei) is a 12 episode original romance anime by studio Feel.  The anime aired in the Spring of 2017.

    In the beginning of his third year of middle school Azumi Kotaro notices a classmate named Mizuno Akane.  Akane notices Kotaro as well and shows signs on interest in at least getting to know him.  The problem is that both of them are incredibly shy around anyone they are not familiar with.  When they are both recruited to the clean up crew for a school event they both see a way of breaking he communication barrier with an online chat program.

    Slowly but surely their relationship grows to the point where romance enters the picture.  Beyond their mutual communications problems there are external forces that threaten to shatter the thin connection they have established.  Can they overcome their own awkwardness and fend off external problems to see if their relationship can grow or will they succumb to adolescent awkwardness and confusion.

    It's been quite a long time since I have watched a romance that really grabbed me.  I had originally caught the first episode when it began airing but had to set it aside due to time constraints.  In the push to clear up my stupidly long Crunchyroll queue I picked it up again and wasted no time burning through it.  The series was pretty decent, calming, dream like and frustrating at the same time.  The main characters are obnoxiously timid with much of the in person communications being little more than positive noises instead of actual dialogue.  But beyond their unrealistic portrayals the pacing and overall story are enjoyable and welcomed in the ever increasing world of junk romance anime.

    That said there are a few issues with the series beyond its plot and characters...the animation.  It's like there were two groups doing the artwork, your A-team that focused on the backgrounds and main character designs.  And the D-group that was responsible for filling in everything else.  I didn't notice it until a few episodes in but a good portion of the background characters look like Nintendo Mii's, its really weird and distracting.  This is heightened by the enjoyable washed out set pieces and the main character designs.  Its really noticeable when a shot is outside with a lot of people milling about, they all have a similar posture and gait that makes things really awkward and bad.  I was embarrassed for the studio, it's that bad.  I really started to pay attention to it once i picked up on it and at some times got to distracted from the story its self, especially when they were in Kyoto for a school trip.

    Aside from the horrible 2nd animation division work the anime was really enjoyable, it could have been longer but its better it wasn't.  Instead of wrapping it up in the final credits I would have really liked an OAV to cover some of that material instead.  In a few ways it reminded me of a more realistic and enjoyable Suzuka, especially given the severe lack of modern fan-service!

    The series was licensed by Funimation in North America and is currently available for streaming on Crunchyroll.

Stretch

Stretch (ストレッチ) is a slice of life comedy, yuri-light manga disguised as a self-help manga by Higashiyama Sho.  It was published between 2013 and 2015 and has been compiled into 4 tankoubon.

    Pre-med student and halfu woman Saeki Ran ends up moving in with a sempai from her high school tennis club, Komatsu Keiko.  Keiko had a reputation for being difficult and dangerous in school but she and Ran got along well enough for her to invite her to be her roommate several years later.  The two young, single women enjoy each other’s company.  Ran teaches Keiko a variety of sports medicine stretches for health and relaxation over the course of the series.  They also support each other in the day to day struggles of life; shopping, dieting, house work, season festival observations...you know typical things.
 

    Under the fluff and 'education' there are a few things deeper going on.  One is the unspoken and steadily increasing attraction between the two women over the course of the series, but this is not a romance.  Their friendship seems to extend beyond just friends at least on a psychological level, but don't expect any sort of hardcore lesbian action going on in the series.  The other more open thing of substance is that both women have had tragedy in their lives and that tragedy is one of the things that strengthens their bond.

    I read this on recommendation from a friend and needed something light and brainless after absorbing a long and incredibly mentally draining manga.  At first I was skeptical of the quality of the story, it seeming like some pointless voyeuristic trash like Anime De Training.  A poor excuse to show girls in compromising positions to stimulate the blood flow.  On top of that the artwork was starkly low quality, especially compared to the series I read just prior to it.  A few issues in to it and I was starting to enjoy myself.  Over all the series was pleasant and went by fast.  Its comprised of about 45 or so short episodes.  But the series left me feeling cheated...as it sorts of ended and there was no development or resolution of the slowly building romance.  Boo!!!

     The series won't ever see the light of day as an official English publication, but if you want to read it you can learn some good stretches to help exercise and tone all sorts of body parts and enjoy a calming and simple friendship develop.