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.

City of Lights

City of Lights (ひかりのまち) is a single volume dark slice of life manga by Asano Inio.  It was originally published between 2004 and 2005.

    The City of Light is a recent development project in a non-descriptive Japanese town.  Beautiful high rise apartments and fancy shopping arcades designed to be enclaves for the up and coming middle class families.  Behind the modernity and bounty there exist darkness and regret.  While things may seem pleasant and cheerful humans can never get away from their problems.

    The story follows a few loosely tied characters in their troubles relating to the City of Light.  The first real character is a middle school boy who struggles with his father, a disgraced police officer.  In an effort to help an older girl he likes he puts his own life at risk.  Another story follows a street thug with dreams of restoring the neighborhood of his youth to the quaint glory he remembers before the yuppie developments.  In another, a preschool boy is haunted by the desires and regrets of a man who died too soon.

    As with other manga by Asano, the artwork is impeccable in its level of detail and realism and full of his signature character designs.  The stories are interesting and the way they weave together reminded me of Pulp Fiction, but this one would be the weakest of his works I have read.  While they are vignettes of different denizens of the town they didn't flow as enjoyably as I would have liked, causing the narrative to be disjointed.  The best arc would be the one dealing with two men, unrelated, who are stuck raising a small girl that is one of their biological daughters...but they don't know who's.  It was a story about the power of responsibility while being able to compensate for lack of intellect.

    The prelude chapter appears to be more of an anecdotal homage to Asano's inspiration to write this particular manga and was my favorite part in the collection.  If the entire series would have been closer to the style of the prelude it would have been more enjoyable.  At times the dialogue became too obtuse and introspective, particularly the arc with the preschool boy.  That was countered by the way the boys story slips into a lucid state of astral consciousness.  At the end of the day this was still better than many other manga titles I have read.  It felt closer to the delivery and tone of Girl on the Shore than Solanin though, so as with most of his work, prepare for darkness and misery.

    This manga though is currently unavailable commercially in English.

Solanin

Solanin (ソラニン) is a slice of life romance manga by Asano Inio.  It was originally published in 2005 and compiled in 2 tankoubon.

    Meiko and her boyfriend Taneda live together and struggle through their lives after college.  Meiko works in a nondescript office setting, continuously being ground down by the mediocrity of adult responsibility.  Taneda works part time as an illustrator but struggles to find inspiration or a drive for anything in life.  Meiko decides that enough is enough and quits her job, feeling that she will be better off and will be able to figure out what she really wants to do.  Instead of figuring out her own life she begins to focus on Taneda's and their life together.

    Taneda is a bit of a wet noodle and shrugs through his existence.  The only thing that seems to bring life to his eyes are when he and his friends from college ritually meet to play music.  Struggling with finding her direction Meiko pushes Tandea to try and tackle music seriously in one final hurrah before truly succumbing to adulthood.  Encouraged by her enthusiasm he throws everything he can into it.  His band gets serious and record a demo to send out to record companies and music venues, seeking a dream that may come true instead of regretting not taking the risk.

    I wasn't sure what to expect out of Solanin, only gravitating to it because of the author and its praise in Western circles.  What I got out of it was unexpected and incredibly powerful.  With each manga by Asano I read I continue to be impressed by his realism in both artwork and the way he depicts people.  Solanin is a raw story about growing up and facing the reality that is modern life.  Every teenager and college student faces the stark existence of adulthood and struggles with it alone.  The understanding and acceptance of mediocrity, joining the ranks of their parents as another part of the machine, letting life slide by as you establish the routine of responsibility.  The characters in the story are in the throws of accepting their existence as people in the background, living a live of repetition and comfort instead of pushing ahead with the wild dreams they had in their youth.  This is the last chance at trying to break out of that mold but will they ever be able to do what countless others before them have failed to do?

    As with his other stuff, the artwork is fantastic.  The backgrounds and direction of the panels are the best part.  The character designs at times, especially Meiko, are a bit weird, but still grounded in reality.  Asano's work is a far cry from the norm that is expected from manga by most people.  It is mature and realistic, detailed in ways that make you forget its just black ink on paper.  That alone is reason to read this excellent manga.  But what is really amazing is the writing and the story telling, the dialogue between the characters, and with themselves, is hyper realistic and relatable by almost anyone.  This is a stark self examination for us that are or have gone through the pangs of early adulthood and a taste of things to come for those not old enough to experience that sense of oblivion.

    Viz compiled the series into a large tankoubon and I highly recommend you pick it up.  A live action adaptation was made in 2010 so I might have to track that down.

A Girl on the Shore

A Girl on the Shore (うみべの女の子) is a psychological romance hentai manga by Asano Inio.  The series was originally published in Japan between 2009 and 2013.

    As an average girl with few friends Koume is struggling to fit in at school.  She confesses to an upper class-man that she likes.  Seizing on the opportunity he gets her to give him a blow job, telling her he may like her more that way.  She agrees to it, hoping to end up dating him.  Instead she find's her self in a state of conflicted emotions.  She desires to be with the upper class-man but feels ashamed of belittling herself to accomplish her goal.  Instead she confides in Keisuke, a loner transfer student who knows what happened.  Instead of sorting out her feelings she decides to use him as a sexual tool in order to work through her emotions.

    Koume doesn't know what she feels as she continues to exploit Keisuke for sex.  She struggles to understand what she is accomplishing and if she is doing the right thing, instead of figuring it out she is swept up in the trial of maturity.  Keisuke uses the opportunity to satisfy his own carnal desires, but belittles Koume in the process.  Struggling with his own mental issues he shuns everything around him, barely going to school, mostly left alone by his absentee parents.  Part of him yearns for real companionship with Koume and the other part of him only see's her as a tool for his own satisfaction.  His mind meanwhile is transfixed on righting a wrong he feels is responsible for his dramatic world view.  As he continues his relationship with Koume he uses her to explore his darker fantasies and fetishes, hoping to push her away from him.

    I'm going to through a warning flag on this one right here, this is an incredibly explicit manga, explicit enough given the normal Japanese censorship laws that it even caught me off guard.  Asano stated in an interview after the series had run its course that he was lucky to have published it when he did, given the massive shift in manga that depicted underage nudity and sexuality to be banned from publication.  While definitely a realistic representation of teenage sexuality at times the series did seem somewhat exploitative.  The story could have been just as impact if it was less graphic.  This brings back the discussion of when you cross the line between art and not?  I don't want to get into that here, because it's too long and complicated.  But I will make the warning of this is one of the manga that could lead to someone getting arrested for indecent material...even in places like Canada or the US.  The main characters are 14 or so and there is a lot of graphic sex between them...a lot.  But the manga doesn't seem to be specifically designed to masturbate too.

    The writing is very realistic, much more grounded in the real lives of teenager than your run of the mill shonen romance title, of which the shut in otaku seem to obsess over. This deals with teens struggling with social acceptance, satisfying their biological urges and trying to figure out their place in society and their purpose in the world.  At times though, because the characters are so typical of the depressed and out of sorts youth they represent it seems almost passe, almost too melodramatic.  The series flows rather well though, between sexual exploits and contemplation of self worth until what could be considered the epilogue where you have to read between the lines a little to see how the main characters end up.  All in all the best thing about the manga is the artwork and its realistic, sometimes too real, depictions of modern teenagers with too much time and not enough supervision.  Not the best I have read but Asano continues to blow me away with his artwork.

    The series, surprisingly, was published in North America by Vertical and is currently available in one large tankoubon.

Nijigahara Holograph

Nijigahara Holograph is a single tankobon horror series by Inio Asano.

    The story takes place in a city somewhere in the countryside of Japan and deals with a small number of characters and how events that took place ten years in the past have finally taken their toll on their current selves.  Much of the events deal with a legend surrounding a tunnel, Nijigahara, near the middle school.  Arie Kimura, a 5^th grader, starts to talk about there being a monster in the tunnel that will destroy the world unless a sacrifice is made to it.  The rest of her class gangs up on her and pushes her into a well where she suffers a severe brain injury and ends up in a coma.  Shortly afterwards a new student transfers from Tokyo, Suzuki, who had tried to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of his old school.  The classes’ homeroom teacher, Ms. Sakaki, tries to help Suzuki fit in, but she has her own problems as well.  Earlier in the year she was attacked by an unknown man while trying to stop him from raping a young girl at Nijigahara.  The attack left her right eye in terrible shape and she wears a bandage covering it while at school.  In the present time, Komatsuzuki, who has had strong feelings for Arie before she became comatose, tries to help her father as best he can in a way to atone for taking part in her accident.  When that help turns tragic he must try to reconnect with something that was lost to him when he was also thrown down a well and fulfill a prophesy relating to Nijigahara.

    This is an interesting and stark story dealing with the cruelty of children and their tendencies for savagery.  It lays out darker sides of humanity, some just under the surface of the story; hopelessness, rape, incest, abuse, etc.  The artwork is higher than the normal manga standard, with detailed backgrounds and a keen eye for lighting and personal details.  A lot of attention is put in the way the characters clothing sits on their bodies and the dirtiness of daily life.  The story can be hard to follow at times and things get easily lost or forgotten.  I read this in one sitting and would be really confused if it would have been broken up.  Even with all of the characters and events fresh, there were some sequences that I needed to reread or pause a moment on to recall everything that was taking place.  Part of the problem is from jumping back and forth in time throughout the story.  Other problems deal with trying to figure out who is who between the different time periods or what character is talking at certain points.  Other times there are scenes were the actions are more hinted at then outright explained so the reader has to come to a conclusion on their own as to what has taken place.  Some of these scenes are pivotal to the overall development of the story as well.  Even after reading it all and pondering over it and working at connecting all of the dots, I feel there are still some aspects I am not connecting properly or picking up on completely.  It might be worth a reread and perhaps building a chart to detail each character and what rolls specifically they play in both parts of the story. 

    This is an intriguing but wholly depressing story.  Everything is intertwined and throughout characters surface in unexpected places and their actions and rolls don’t always reveal themselves until later in the story.  Through the entire thing, even up to the end, you are left with a dread and a feeling that humanity is really despicable.  If I had one complaint, it would be the feeling that the story ended too abruptly.  Part of that could be from lingering confusion as to the final outcome with a few of the pivotal players, part of that could be that’s the way it ended and you have to just take it as it is.  The series really reminded me of a cross between Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Manhole.  If you are a fan of dark stories laying bare the sinister side of humanity then you will enjoy this convoluted and complex story of unruly children.  The tankobon is available commercially in North America and was released by a company called Fantagraphics Books.