AxelNeuman88's manga / #Seinen(8)

A small city by the sea, a passing tourist, a lonely girl wishing desperately to be whisked away. It is a brief and touching story of human ordinary life as if it is a page of someone's biography or diary entry. The feeling of melancholy and hope that Toume Kei breathes in his stories make them absolutely breathtaking.

I fell in love with the rhythm of this story. You can imagine a musical soundtrack to each and every moment quite well. The drawings are stylish, dynamic, and bold. The story is curious, bizarre, and original. The characters are refreshing, vibrant, and simply awesomely written. I suggest this story to everyone as it is not only exquisite written, but a great example of a story that gives you enough answers to go by, but does not suffocate you with heavy plots or too much information. Please, read it and I hope you will enjoy it as much as I!

In a dangerous and dirty city full of sin, an old and seemingly senile man cuts everyone bearing ill will with his trusted katana. Who is he? What is his goal?

was searching for this story for many years and finally, here it is, as bizarre and lonely as I remember it. The story is strange, cryptic, poetic and so so full of undertones. It's like when you wake up from a long and realistic dream, confused and disoriented, trying to grasp the reality of what happened. The story is a puzzle the solution to which was long lost, every word is deliberate, but what was the overall meaning? As the author - Mizumaru Anzai - had died in 2014 and did not give any glimpses on what was his thought process for this one, we can only guess. Instruments were often made from the bones of animals, a whale's teeth often were used for piano keys. Is that related to the story? Who knows. Is the story connected to the feeling of dread and anxiety that often comes at the end of the summer as the sunny days leave for the rainy seasons to take their places? Possibly. We will never know the exact answers, but the beauty of the vibrant red (is it blood or higan flowers?) and the "kokin, kokin" will be imprinted in the minds of many.

In a story that is equally cool and thoughtful, the main character is a strong female lead, but is human, with feelings and sorrows, which is a pleasant change from the overall "heartless cold-hearted b*tches". The MC is a stunt woman, who wishes to be a Hollywood actress. Her brother's wedding forces her to travel from the US to Japan. Forced to rent a room in a hotel, she is faced with a devastating fire that is ready to claim the lives of two frightened children.

Usually, I approach stories like that with a grain of salt, finding them pretentious and often banal. But this one, with its morbidness and gloomy art, the uniqueness of the story told in 8 pages.. it resonated with me. In the afterworld, there is a bar. Nothing special, just a small and dingy bar at the crossroad between Heaven and Hell. A haven for those stuck between heaven and hell, waiting for their angel's share. A man comes in, so sure that he is destined for hell, but is that right? And why does he get the exclusive angel's share? The story provides a lot of food for thought. Is the bartender in reality God who sees the remorse in the man? Is being the 10000th customer enough to get in Heaven? Does really a lucky number cleanse your sins and allows you to bypass Hell and a long wait in the Afterworld? Is really luck what gets in you Heaven? Why him and not the 10000th customers before him, was the number just made up? For those who do not know, "angel's share" is just a term referring to the whiskey that evaporates When the liquid is slowly maturing in its cask.

Na-chan's father is an odd man, collecting things that many throw away, seeing beauty in what people find repulsive, refusing society as society refuses him. He lives under his own rules, speaks strange languages, and talks about things that are far from mundane or understandable to us, the common folk. When he dies, Na-chan is left alone, with people around her telling "good riddance" and "finally". And then, she seems to get it. But what exactly? There is a certain tragedy in this story that is hard to define in simple, human words. Maybe the unknown language that the man has spoken would be able to do so. Was Na-chan's father a schizophrenic and if yes, was the trauma of his death and her forced relocation the push for Na-chan's schizophrenia to develop? Was it the "small stone" that forces "the world to collapse"? Or was he the holder of some truth that after his death was transferred to his daughter? Was it neglect the way of their living or a form of protection from the cruel, unbalanced world full of suffering? Why the death of this man, essentially a hermit in a city, was accepted with such happiness and relief? There are a lot of questions that cannot be answered, but the story made me reflect on how I treat this kind of people, people that I cannot understand or find repulsive or strange or bizarre due to their style of living. Do they maybe hold some secret of the universe that I will never get? Well, or maybe they are just simple lunatics trying to live day by day until the world is destroyed as "its collapse is only a question of time". Just like me.