I watched the anime in japanese with english subs several years ago and I really liked it, but I wasn't able to appreciate it back then. Why? Someone had prepared me for a comedy, so I expected a comedy. This series is even classified as a comedy. It's not a comedy. NHK is dark. Real dark. It's a story about a bunch of very sad, tragic people. The manga is even darker. How dark? There are several suicide scares all throughout. By the end, the suicide scares become dramatic for different reasons than someone no longer wants to live because life sucks, instead the suicide scares become dramatic because suicide is used as emotional manipulation by main characters against other main characters.
I recently watched the anime again, this time in english and I was prepared for a tragedy this time. When I finished, I thought it was brilliant, so I had to read the manga. Here's the thing: The anime stops about halfway through the manga and so it makes up an ending. It makes up a lot of other stuff too; It does it very well, but it doesn't prepare you for the manga.
In the anime, it seems that each character has their own emotional baggage, and it seems pretty minor, actually. In the manga, it seems that each character has a themed fucked-up-ness. I think every character has a themed psychology problem like batman villains. The main character, Sato, is an irresponsible, habitual liar with various phobias, anxieties, and delusions who by all rights should be homeless by now. Misaki is not some cute girl with problems due to a hard past anymore, actually, she's a rich girl with a serious psychological disorder who wants to make Sato her emotional prisoner. Even early on this character makes you nervous. Yamazaki is a misogynist and pedophile. I think the two problems could be related? Hinata has depression and is a druggie. There's something else wrong with her too.
I started speed reading from chapter 30 on, so maybe I missed some stuff, but I don't think the ending made sense. Granted, the ending doesn't need to make sense because it's a story about a bunch of crazy people, so whatever. At the very least, the manga's ending wasn't satisfying. It had an open ending. I hate those. It showed us promise of the characters all getting their shit together and that everything would work out like we all hope, basically it stopped at an otherwise arbitrary point. I kept reading because I wanted to see something. It's not enough that you hint that It would happen and say the end. Actually, you could even see that there's room for things to fall apart.
Anyway, so whoever decided that this was a comedy is an idiot and a liar. Either that, or they're an abuse victim who never learned better. But, because the material is so dark, then obviously you have to insert humor wherever you can or else no one could stomach it. It'd be too depressing. I recommend the anime though. I think it has appeal to people who don't even like anime because it is a good story and it's not a typical anime. It's got a very fun style and direction. Just don't prepare people for a comedy when you recommend it to them. It's to dark to be a comedy.
No comments:
Post a Comment