Decided it's about time to reread all of Asano's short stories collections. Outside of Before Dawn, I remember almost nothing about them aside from vague story outlines so this should be fun. Gonna read them in the order I first read them instead of publications order.
Before Dawn and the End of the World
My favourite part of this collection still has to be the trilogy,
Sunday, 6:30 PM, about the Esono family. Telling the story from the perspective of each family member and linking the story to an older one was really great. I do like the main theme of the stories of getting over your unsatisfied current life and trying to do something better out of your life. There is the son Katsuhiko, who is just slacking off in life until he meets his old crush Koda. I did find second half confusing, especially when Koda calls him and tells him everything was a lie, but I do appreciate how the romance didn't play out that well for him. The second part of the trilogy is about the sister Wakana and her pretentious crush Yusuke. There is not much to it outside of seeing the 18 years old hipster brat, Yusuke get the shit beaten out of him in the end so he realizes that his smug attitude isn't needed and that he actually likes Wakana. The third part of the story is about the runaway dad of the Esono family, and the runaway high school girl, Ozawa. I liked seeing the dad talk about his ideal family dream and how it came crumbling down. It sorta reminded me of Harukana Machi-E in a way.
One cool thing is the Ozawa storyline. It first began in
Alfalfa, which was published in July, 2005. She was just an angsty rebellious high school girl who decided to run away from it all and that was the end of the story. But then she made an appearance in
Sunday, 6:30 PM which was published in September, 2006. She was the girl that met the runaway dad and tried to comfort him. I'm not sure if Asano really planned this out since I think he published all those stories randomly over the span of few years, but I thought it was cool to see her back in a different story a year after. She had another story dedicated to her in
The End of the World. There was no date of publication, but it was probably written sometime in 2008. Nice little romance story showing her angsty side and how she grew up after meeting Esono and is now more socialable and has someone she likes.
Before Dawn is still a complete mindfuck. It's a good one, but writing a short story about ~8 characters in 25 pages and still have it make sense is very hard to do. The story was also rather bizarre and surreal. I would have really liked it if the all the characters in it appeared later on in this volume, but it's impossible since this story was written years after many of the stories in this collection.
Other story worth noting is
Tokyo. I didn't like it the first time I read it, but I appreciate it more now only because there is a little self-insert of Asano as the main character. Unsatisfied lonely manga artist who feels his art is lacking and isn't good, broken love, magical realism, all great stuff. The conversation at the end at the time travel machine with his Natsuki (both the past and the present one) really got me this time.
What a Wonderful World was also another good story if only because of the twist at the end once you find out who is the person sending the letter. Immediately made me reread the story just to see the connections and hints dropped in the letter.
Random notes:
- Some beautiful Asano
photoshop magic
- Oh hey,
this is Eiko, from
A Day in the Melancholy Life of A-Ko the Daydreamer making a cameo appearance in
Summer Memories
- What a
cute couple lol
- I would pay some good money for a
shoujo manga written by Asano
- I might be going crazy, but this girl definitely looks like
Meiko right? It's from the story
How to Spend a Day Off which was published 2 years after Solanin. It's either a small cameo or Asano is just recycling character designs.
- Some more beautiful Asano
photoshop magic.
- I love the
time machine shot. So good. Also this
other scene was pretty neat too.
- So good Asano
city porn shot. I always see this page posted a lot in those /a/ manga threads. The clouds could do a little more touching up, but everything else is perfect.
-
Hot Ozawa making out scene. Also get your mind out of the gutter cause the
next page isn't dirty.
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City of Light
Why do these prologue chapters never make any sense at all? This time not only was the chapter focused on multiple characters (some of them appear again), but there was this weird narration that made no sense at all. Of course reading the entire volume and getting to the last makes things more understandable and even then my mind can't comprehend everything.
There is another chapter about an uninspired mangaka and I still feel like this is Asano especially if you read the author's note at the end. The notes felt too similar to what happened in this chapter. Not extremely a special chapter especially since
Tokyo did the whole mangaka angst much better and had more refined writing. I did go back to read the flashback in the chapter again cause I had a feeling Notsu's friends appeared again in
Home, but that might be because they just had similar character designs by coincidence.
Bus Stop is the only story that I remembered before reading this again. A boy coordinating suicides for money does seem very far-fetched, but I don't think realism is a main concern, especially in this story. It's a very weird dark mystery and tragic love love story. Feels a lot different from the usual stories, has more action and suspense rather than just youth bitching about life.
Home ended up being my favourite story of the collection. For one thing, I did like how the story humanized Houichi. In the previous story he was portrayed as a killer lunatic who has no qualms in killing kids, but now he is some just guy raising a child, Momoko, with his buddy Satoshi. If only he got the happy ending ;_; Dude should have just stayed home with Momoko instead of risking his life trying to kidnap the father of the girl from the story,
Hectopascal.
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What a Wonderful World
Well this certainly was very different. I think it was Asano's first manga and it really shows in the art. It feels simpler, lacks a lot of details, and I could be blind, but I don't think he was photoshopping at the time. A lot of the city shots looked drawn normally. It really explains why some of the background work is lacking in details or just looked empty. Also it feels like the art lacks some sort of filter that the later manga have. Not sure how to explain it but if you look at
Before Dawn and then this you will see a stark difference between the two.
Story structure wise this was very different. It focused again on bunch of different characters, but this time they were more connected. At least some of them, the Bear hostage story was very isolated and none of the other characters appeared in it. Luckily, there is this
handy chart done by Seth Hahne. It seems mostly accurate although the only thing missing is the connection link from Slacker to Teacher who used to date before the beginning of the story. Also I wouldn't have minded if the actual relationship was explained in the link cause some of them are as random as two characters walking by past each other like Tamotsu and Kota.
The stories in themselves resonated more with me than City of Light. They had more variety and touched on better themes. Well, the central idea of refusing to grow up and being uncertain of the future is still there, but there was more creativity to them especially near the second half of the second volume with the supernatural elements.
There were two bullying focused stores in the collection. While one of them went into surreal elements and by the end it turned out to be a happy end for the main character as she ended up becoming friends with the bully, the other one about Hozumi ended on a dark note. Seemed like there was no satisfying resolution outside of Hozumi realizing he is fucked up. Bullying will go on, the teachers still think he is a model student, and terrible life for Noda will continue.
I don't know if I have any favourite stories that stood from the rest. Some of them felt pointless like the one about Yokoyama's girlfriend. Didn't really understand the point of it. Most other stories, however, either had a nice atmosphere and feeling to them or made some great points in the end. I did like that one story about Tamotsu, Endo, and Syrup trying to pass their college entrance exams. It had the right mix of angst, selfish whining, and crazy elements, especially the Syrup guy. Bear's story was also some great fun. The contrast between how fucked up the situation is for both the characters against his funny bear costume was really good. Only bad part about the story is how it's very isolated from the rest of the characters as can be seen by the chart.
Horita got the most focus out of every other character. He appeared in around 3 different stories. The first one with Toga when he helped her out and this one confuses me the most. I never understood where it fits timeline wise cause at point shouldn't he be dating Teacher? So then I don't understand how Toga would fit in the picture especially at the end with here request of asking him to join the band again cause the next story he is in, he is a normal office worker. His "death" chapter was very awesome. Reminded me a lot of the one in Soredemo even though the setup isn't unique. I do love the cynicism of the manga in which he ended up dying not because he heroically saved the boy from the truck, but because the truck changed its course and ran over him instead.
The ending really bummed me out. I never really found most of Asano's stories to be sad since almost all of them end on an optimistic hopeful note, but this one was different. The situation is still a depressing one for both the characters given the disease the girlfriend has and I don't think it will get any better. It's more of a bittersweet ending, but when you think about it, it's really depressing especially the last couple pages ;_; fuck. On the other hand, I really wouldn't mind a reading a full manga dealing with that same scenario. Makes for a good story to show the devotion to your loved ones.
Random thoughts:
- Just look at this
city shot. So ugly, lacking all the crucial details. This really doesn't compare at all to the ones in Before Dawn
- Another one, while it lacks the details, it's still such a
great looking page.
- Bear is such an
awesome character. Such a complete disregard of the dire situation he is in. Even when he is about to get killed by the yakuza, he doesn't
give a fuck.
- This sequence of
two pages are really amusing. Really a pretentious way to show that life is awesome lol
- The
left side of this picture is much better than the right side.
- Asano drawing
ugly people. It's really lacking compared to the ones in Punpun.
-
;_;
-
More tears. Looking at that page after reading the
ending makes it more sad.
