Oyasumi Punpun

she pushes him to the ground and unzips his pants

Actually there is an ellpse between those two pages, so it isn't clear at all if it was she who pushed him or him who laid down, and if she did push him, we have no idea how forceful she ws being. The first time, I read it as Punpun being "...okay..."...

But really, this is a really, really weird rape. I thought all rapes were like the one in Irreversible or the Comedian in Watchmen. I never imagined a rapist as an emotionally devastated person with whom you always had an overwhelmingly positive relationship molesting you with tears in their eyes and begging for you to let them have their way. To me the rapist was always "That stranger who will catch you in the darkness, beat you up until you can't move, and then destroy your orifices without even using lubricant".

Rapes by acquaintances or family members are actually the most common form. A lot of people don't like to think that people that they are close to could do such things, so these cases get swept under the rug a lot. Violent rapes by strangers are vastly overrepresented in the popular culture.

Also, thinking that anything in Irreversible has anything at all to do with real life is hilarious.

Ok, I don't really read Oyasumi Punpun, though I am lurking because it seems interesting and I may pick it up, but I have to ask: why is Irreversible's page reversed (examples on top, description at the bottom)?

Because it's an awful Euroshlock piece of crap, and deserves to be treated as such.

edited 4th Oct '10 2:44:13 AM by EnglishIvy

^ Well, thank you for making fun of me like that. When a work apears to go for the realistic angle, I tend to accept it as being about real life and only actively disbelieving if there is an express motive to. I mean, why write such a plot if it isn't to make a statement about Real Life? If you want to do unreal stuff, that's what Speculative Fiction is for.

Then again...remember The Room...

^People I know who saw it thought it was awesome, as in awe-inspiring.

^^ Because, like in Memento, the chronology is reversed. Every paragraph is inverted. Time destroys everything (gee, what a dramatic way to popularize the second principle of thermodynamics).

edited 4th Oct '10 2:46:59 AM by RawPower

I... don't follow. What kind of morals do Slice of Life series impart, then?

edited 4th Oct '10 3:04:27 AM by EnglishIvy

It depends. Some of them are comedy for the sake of comedy, others are drama for the sake of drama. However, most, as far as I know, draw from Real Life experiences and stories, mutated for the sake of the narrative. Of course, they ae always biaised: it is a selection of Real Life events to shape a story. However, the main appeal is "it could happen to you". If it were pure fantasy (with a small f), it would have no emotional value whatsoever. To say that a show ostensibly set in Real Life, with no fantastic stunts or action of any sort that indicates Artistic License, has no connection to Real Life whatsoever, is to deny it all value and meaning. It's not even a story anymore, it becomes a deliberate lie.

Sorry, I know my thoughts lack clarity. I need to ruminate this a bit more.

Hm. See Anatomy Of Hell: that story is about two weirdoes who are not representative of most people's reality, if any's. They don't even represent repressed desires in an escapist way, like Porn Tropes or Badass. And they are all pretentious an angsty and take themselves seriously. It's not a story anymore, like, say, a Soap Opera, nor is it a joke, like a Comedy: it is a lie without honour or humanity.

I don't really see how any kind of fiction should be taken as instructive, even if the creator tried to go for the realistic angle you don't know in touch with reality the creator was.

I don't really see how any kind of fiction should be taken as instructive,

• The Iliad. The Odyssey. The Aeneid. Were essential pedagogic readings for children's education. (My God...). Went on to be revered as "claasical literature" from the XV century onwards.
• The Bible, The Qran, to the relevant religions.
• Brave New World, Ninetten Eighty Four, Animal Farm, Farenheit451, The Giver, The Old Man And The Sea, No Exit. Asimov's Three Laws-Compliant robots. Were all treated as instuctive. Essential cornerstones of 20th century culture.
• Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, Apocalypse Now. Are the war movies that atught most people most of what they think they know about Nam. Same for Saving Private Ryan and WWII.

Do you see where I am going with this?

I still don't see how they count as instructive. I like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty Four and all that, but I treat it as more of a "hey this is something interesting you should think about", not "I'm teaching a moral" or "This is an instruction manual for Life".

No, I'm not sure where you're going with this.

edited 4th Oct '10 2:52:36 PM by melloncollie

...

Let it be said that not all people think like you. Perhaps some people overevalute cultural produces.

I know that not all people do, I'm clarifying what I meant when I said the word "instructive" earlier.

Well, I've noticed something while reading this.

Is there something wrong with Punpun? Was it caused by the rape? After that event, he seemed to have started acting... strange, even if it was only in his head.

edited 23rd Oct '10 8:41:53 PM by Zersk

Pretty much.

I've also noticed the huge amount of Mood Whiplash going on in this series.

edited 23rd Oct '10 10:41:44 PM by Zersk

I think Punpun was acting pretty strange before then too. He's not a happy or well adjusted kid.

True, point there. But it did seem that being raped did push him right off the edge.

Huh, I caught up.

So what happened at the end of the most recent chapter? I can't really tell. Did Punpun's mom commit suicide? Cancer?

edited 23rd Oct '10 11:25:42 PM by Zersk

I'm pretty sure she died of the cancer the doctor suspected she might have before the time skip.

Just gone through a HUGE binge of this manga. I seriously don't recall reading any rape scene, I must've missed it somehow :S Which chapter was it?

I went from chapters 1-89. And it was okay. When it started to go through Punpun's teen years and when his Uncle left the main flow of the story, I felt it began to lose lustre. I'd say overall it's very accurate outlook on a family all affected with depression, and the visual analogies are done quite well and the art is top notch. Punpun is a likeable enough character but I don't know...The pace is starting and lag and the whole plot needs a kick up the arse. I hope Aiko's resurfacing does the job.

I'm just happy to live in a society where mental health therapies are less taboo and help is openly available. Sadly, I live in the UK and my experiance with the health system has been far from peachy but it's better than absolutely nothing. I reckon CBT would do wonders for Punpun.

edited 29th May '11 6:08:55 PM by wiseoldtabbycat

So yeah, speaking of recent chapters, tetrahedron!Punpun was a little frightening. Just because of how alien looking it was.

I'm surprised this thread hasn't been updated in over a year. Huh.

Anyways, volume 11 was released not too long ago.

This thread looks dead. Just as I was lookin' into this.

I finished this work as a part of an agreement with a friend, and I really wish I hadn't. It was engaging, and the art was interesting, but it was really frigging depressing and I eventually got sick of the constant cat and mouse between Aiko and Punpun in the last few chapters.

And hey, look at that - the black spot (as I've decided to call him) is present in Soara's eye. So the cycle is more or less doomed to repeat itself. Great.

...I'm thankful for the generally optimistic ending for Punpun. Like obviously things aren't going to change for the next generation, but at the same time Punpun's life sorted itself out and he's still friends with Sachi and everyone else, so I'm glad. Even if he did assist a murder.

On the trope page, it says that Punpun's fate is unclear in the final chapters. I'm pretty sure he mentions probation in Chapter 145, which would mean he did some time, but eventually got out on good behavior and continued living, and his relationship with Sachi is, to me, a platonic life partnership, with them both caring deeply for each other and being there for each other, but without a romantic relationship. Which, coming from a series like this, is pretty cheery.

I didn't suffer from Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy because that darkness is part of what made Punpun engaging to me in the first place and the drama between the characters was extremely compelling and well-written to the end. the fact that things kept getting worse just made me feel MORE invested, not less.

the art is also RIDICULOUSLY INCREDIBLY good for someone who hasn't been a mangaka for that long. most of my favorite mangaka have been working for over 2 decades, so asano is honestly a goddamn prodigy.

edited 1st Sep '14 9:41:09 PM by wehrmacht