To be fair the reason I didn't like it wasn't anything plot-wise or stylistic, I enjoyed all of that and the soundtrack is slammin'
It was just that it made me feel very uncomfortable with the treatment of the main character, he's like 12 and all these older girls are forcing themselves on him. Haruko legit molests him in episode 5 (I think?) but it's played as a joke. Idk I'm just very sensitive about portrayals of adolescents being exposed to sexuality for various personal reasons
I think it's more about like, his idea of what adulthood is and how none of the adults in his life act like adults. They're all more childish than him and his friends.
I think that's the thing: Eva is probs my favourite anime, and Oyasumi Punpun is my favourite manga, both of which tackle growing up and childhood trauma from a very serious perspective. They show bad shit happening to young people and the way those things damage them as they grow up.
FLCL showed traumatising stuff happening to the main character but it was all shown as lighthearted and funny and idk I don't find watching a young boy being molested by and then manipulated into falling into love with a psychopathic woman to be comedy material, so it just made me feel uncomfortable and sad. I was expecting it to maybe turn it all on its head in the last episode, but it didn't.
idk if Eva is my favourite anime, as its quality episode-by-episode can lag at times, but as an overall complete piece of art I really do love it. End of Evangelion is a true masterpiece
Where did you get your information about Punpun? It's incredibly sensitive and realistic in its portrayal of trauma and abuse and never even flirts with playing it for laughs, titillation or silliness
Sometimes characters do horrible things that they don't get their comeuppance for (because that happens in real life) but it's never made out to be anything but abhorrent behaviour that damages the people it's done to
The interwebs - but I've a very shallow understanding of it, you're the authority on it at this point. It does certainly look bleak though. Is it hopeful at all?
I'm not really sure if it's hopeful... it's hard to say. Maybe 'hope' isn't the right word for it — but it does approach acceptance as a theme, in the sense of 'life goes on regardless'. The final scene is very ambiguous in terms of how it could be taken, but the last few volumes overall are incredibly upsetting and bleak.
I overall found it to be very important and personally cathartic, but I'm also partial to bleakness in media, if it's done 'well'. If you need more of an identifiable glimmer of hope in your narratives, perhaps don't read it? It's not exactly short so I wouldn't want you to invest your time into something that would only serve to make you feel worse
I often worry about that kind of media. In alot of ways, PunPun looks beautiful, and it's very easy for someone with a mental illness to really romanticize a comic like that. It's not the mangaka or any artists responsibility really, but it is tricky when things can come off as cool like that.
I totally get that, but I never felt that way about Punpun at all — the art is beautiful, and there are moments of bittersweet beauty in the narrative, but there's nothing beautiful in the way Punpun's own trauma and bad mental health are portrayed. It's very harsh and realistic. I think it purposefully deconstructs that whole idea imo, and personally for me it really woke me up to my own romanticising of my own issues and forced me to actively confront reality a bit more.
I read it at one of the true low-points in my life and honestly without it idk what I'd have done, it was almost like a piece of art was sitting me down and calmly saying, "Is this what you want? Is this fun, or romantic? Maybe now is the time for change, before you get so caught up in yourself that you start hurting yourself and the people around you."
I found it an antidote to the whole notion of romanticising mental illness
Do you like Unoriginal? His early work was a little too new wave for my taste. But when Sports came out in '83, I think he really came into his own, commercially and artistically.
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Jun 22nd, 2020 02:05 PM
