✎┊ RECS [pt.4]

Hello! ♡

For today, I wanted to share these manga because despite being so different from one another, they all made me think about vulnerability in some way or another. I've always had a soft spot for stories that let their characters be imperfect and fragile instead of always trying to make them strong. These are the kind of manga that stayed with me after I finished reading them. They made me think about them for a while so I wanted to put them all together and share a little piece of what each one made me feel.

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Happiness by Shuzo Oshimi
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/happiness_oshimi_shuzo/

Happiness follows Makoto Okazaki, a quiet high school boy who isn't exactly happy with his life. He gets bullied and feels uncomfortable around other people so he spends most of his time trying not to stand out. Then one night a mysterious girl appears and completely changes his life. After being attacked by her, Makoto wakes up with a terrible new hunger and slowly realizes that he has become a vampire. At first this new existence seems almost like a strange kind of freedom. He is different and no longer quite the same weak boy he used to be. But the more he learns about being a vampire, the more frightening it becomes. What follows is a story about hunger, loneliness, friendship, love and the terrifying feeling of changing into someone you don't recognize anymore.

[MY THOUGHTS]
Makoto doesn't suddenly become this cool, confident vampire who has everything figured out. If anything, becoming a vampire makes his life even more confusing. He is still a lonely teenager trying to understand himself, except now he has this horrible hunger inside him that he can't simply ignore. That's probably what stayed with me the most. The vampires almost feel like a metaphor for growing up. Your body changes, your feelings become stronger, you start wanting things you don't completely understand and sometimes you can feel like you're becoming a stranger to yourself.
It's dark and sometimes really disturbing but underneath all of that I found it surprisingly sad and tender.

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Yomawari Sensei by Osamu Mizutani
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/yomawari_sensei/

Yomawari Sensei is based on the real experiences of teacher Osamu Mizutani who spent years helping troubled teenagers in Yokohama. Instead of waiting for these kids to come to him, Mizutani would actually go out at night looking for them. He encountered teenagers who had run away from home, struggled with drugs, experienced abuse or simply had nobody they felt they could trust. This manga tells the stories of these encounters and the relationships he builds with them. It isn't really about one big dramatic adventure. It's about individual young people who are struggling and one adult who decides that he isn't going to look away.

[MY THOUGHTS]
This one really touched me. There are manga that make you cry because something dramatic happens and then there are manga like Yomawari Sensei where the sadness comes from how real everything feels. What I appreciated most is that Mizutani doesn't treat these kids as "bad children". He tries to understand what happened to them. A teenager who is running away, drinking, taking drugs or getting into trouble didn't simply wake up one morning and decide to destroy their life. There is usually something underneath it. I also really liked the idea of a teacher who literally goes looking for the kids everyone else has given up on. There is something incredibly gentle about that. He doesn't always have a magical solution and he can't fix everything but he keeps showing up. That stayed with me.
It's a heavy manga but there is also a lot of warmth in it. Sometimes being there for someone is already a very important thing.

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Takopi's Original Sin by Taizan 5
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/takopii_no_genzai/

Takopi is a tiny alien from Happy Planet who comes to earth with one simple mission: make people happy. Unfortunately, the first person he meets is Shizuka, a little girl whose life is anything but happy. She is being bullied at school and dealing with problems at home and Takopi simply cannot understand why someone would have to live through so much pain. Because he comes from a world where problems can supposedly be solved with cute magical gadgets, Takopi keeps trying to make things better. But human beings aren't quite that simple. Every attempt to help creates new consequences and eventually Takopi becomes involved in a heartbreaking chain of events involving Shizuka and the people around her.

[MY THOUGHTS]
This manga broke my heart and honestly I think the cute little Takopi makes it even worse. You look at him and think you're going to read something adorable about a little alien spreading happiness. Then suddenly you're sitting there wondering how something that looks so innocent can be part of such a painful story. What I love about Takopi is that he genuinely wants to help. He isn't evil. He isn't trying to hurt anyone. He simply doesn't understand human sadness and that makes everything so much more tragic.
He thinks that if someone is unhappy, you just need to find the right solution and make them smile again. But sometimes people carry pain that can't be fixed with a little gadget or by simply changing one event. I found the whole manga incredibly sad but there are also moments that made me think about childhood and how easily adults can miss what children are going through. Definitely one of those stories where you finish reading and just sit there for a while.

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Kanojo no Omoide by Katsuhiro Otomo
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/kanojo_no_omoide/

Kanojo no Omoide is a scifi story that takes place in space. A group of astronauts comes across an abandoned space station and what begins as an ordinary investigation slowly becomes something much stranger. The station seems to contain traces of a woman's past and the deeper the characters go, the harder it becomes to tell what is real and what is simply a memory.
The story mixes scifi with psychological horror and explores the way regrets and old emotions can become almost impossible to escape. For those who don't know, this story also became the basis for the famous Magnetic Rose segment of Otomo's animated film Memories.

[MY THOUGHTS]
I really love the atmosphere of this story. There is something about horror in space that already feels lonely but Otomo takes that loneliness and makes it emotional. The scary part isn't simply that the characters are trapped somewhere mysterious. It's that they are being pulled into somebody else's memories. And memories can be quite terrifying, don't you agree? I also really enjoy how beautiful the world feels despite the darker story. The attention to machinery and all those tiny details makes everything feel incredibly believable. But for me the most interesting part is the idea that someone could become so attached to their memories that they stop living in the present. It feels sad more than anything else.

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Nickelodeon by Seiman Douman
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/nickelodeon/

This is a collection of short manga stories rather than one long continuous story. There are dozens of little stories here and they jump between different moods and genres. Some are funny, some are strange, some are creepy and some are unexpectedly sweet or sad. You never really know what you're going to get when you turn the page which is probably one of the biggest charms of this collection.

[MY THOUGHTS]
I have such a soft spot for weird little manga collections like this. This feels like opening a box of random little stories and never knowing what you're going to pull out next. I think that's what makes this kind of anthology so fun. It doesn't need every story to be a masterpiece. Some can simply be silly. Some can be strange. Some can be beautiful for five pages and then disappear. And I like that. There is something really charming about a manga that doesn't take itself too seriously and is willing to be weird just because it can.

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Tokyo These Days by Taiyo Matsumoto
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/tokyo_higoro/

Tokyo These Days follows Kazuo Shiozawa, a manga editor who has spent around thirty years working in the manga industry. After leaving his job, Shiozawa tries to step away from the world he has dedicated most of his life to. But it's not that easy. He starts meeting old colleagues and people from his past and these encounters slowly make him look back on his career and the choices he made. It's a quiet story about manga, aging, friendship, regret, creativity and the strange feeling of looking back at a life you've already lived.

[MY THOUGHTS]
This manga feels like a quiet conversation with someone who has lived a long life. I love that it isn't interested in making the manga industry look glamorous. Instead it shows the people behind it: tired people, passionate people, difficult people, lonely people and people who have spent decades trying to create something meaningful. Shiozawa has stayed with me so much that I've come to love all his works (I recommend to check them all out). There is something bittersweet about watching someone step away from the career that shaped their entire life. Even when you know you need to move on from something, that doesn't mean you stop loving it. And Matsumoto's art fits this story beautifully. His drawings have this imperfect almost dreamy quality that makes the whole manga feel like a memory. I love the trait of his pen. It's not a manga I would recommend if you're looking for constant action or dramatic twists but if you like quiet stories about people and the things they leave behind, I think this one is really special.

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Kono Yo no Owari e no Tabi by Nishioka Kyoudai
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/kono_sekai_no_owari_e_no_tabi/

Talk about particular! This manga is a strange atmospheric journey through a world that feels distant from our own. Rather than giving us a straightforward adventure with everything clearly explained, Nishioka lets the reader slowly discover this weird world alongside the characters. The journey feels mysterious and sometimes unsettling with a strong sense of loneliness and the feeling that the world around the characters is hiding something.

[MY THOUGHTS]
This is one of those manga that I don't really want to explain too much. I think part of its beauty comes from not understanding everything immediately. It's very melancholic and it has a particular charm to it. There is something very dreamlike about it. You can look at a scene and feel that it means something, even if you can't quite explain what that something is. I especially love the atmosphere: everything feels a little empty, a little strange and a little sad. It's the kind of manga where I don't think you should worry too much about finding one perfect interpretation. It definitely won't be for everyone, especially if you prefer stories that explain every detail.

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44th Period: Survival Class by sangC
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/44th_period_survival_class/

One day, mysterious black circles begin appearing around the world. Anyone who falls into one simply disappears. Things become much worse when one of these strange circles swallows an entire school, trapping the students inside a terrifying and mysterious world. Now Doyun and the other students have to find a way to survive while trying to understand what happened to them. The familiar world of school quickly becomes a nightmare filled with danger and things that definitely shouldn't be there.

[MY THOUGHTS]
I really enjoy the basic idea of this one. They're stuck together and that makes all of their relationships much more important. The horror has a very different feeling from something like Happiness. It's more of a "keep reading because I need to know what happens next" kind of horror. These are just ordinary students who suddenly find themselves trapped somewhere terrifying with no idea what is happening or how to get home. I love that feeling of seeing characters who are scared and unsure but still trying to keep going. There's something very human about that kind of vulnerability.

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Hoshi Mamoru Inu by Takashi Murakami
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/hoshi_mamoru_inu/

This manga follows a man who, after losing his family and his job and struggling with illness, leaves everything behind and sets off on a journey with his beloved dog. What begins almost like a simple road trip slowly becomes something much more heartbreaking: a journey between two companions who don't have much left except each other.

[MY THOUGHTS]
I cried, I don't know what else to say. This one really hurts in the quietest way. There is something so vulnerable about watching a person who has lost almost everything still holding on to the one little bit of love he has left. And the dog is what makes it especially heartbreaking. He doesn't judge and he doesn't ask questions but simply stays beside his person. I think that's what got me the most. The story is very simple but that simplicity makes it feel incredibly human. It's sad but there is also something very gentle about the bond between the two of them. It's definitely one of those manga where I would recommend keeping tissues nearby.

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And that's everything for today. See you next time!