Hana Ga Saita Yo

Goodnight,Punpun (おやみプンプン Oyasumi,Punpun) is a manga written and drawn by Inio Asano (浅野いにお; Namegata, September 22, 1980). Besides being the longest work of the mangaka, composed of one hundred and forty-seven chapters collected on thirteen volumes (tankobon). Published between March 2007 and November 2013, it is, beyond any doubt, his most significant and representative work.

Oyasumi,Punpun is the classic work not to be judged by its cover, or after reading only a few pages. In fact the mascot-like appearance of the protagonist, is nothing but a smokescreen. Asano himself confirms it:

I wanted [to] take the readers coming to the book because they thought Punpun was cute, and upset them. (laugh) I wanted to say to the reader, “Here’s a different kind of manga. Look at what kind of depths of reality manga can plumb.”

Asano Inio

This statement reflects upon Oyasumi,Punpun‘ solid and monochromatic embossed covers. The first volumes, focusing on Punpun’s childhood, ae vivid and bright colours; the subsequent ones progressively lose saturation, until they reach the two last tankobon, the penultimate completely black and the last one completely white. As if the author wanted to represent the downfallen spiral path of depression in which Punpun tumbles throughout the story.

And Asano succeeded perfectly, at least with me, since every time I find myself passing by my library casting a glance over the volumes, I can’t help recalling the whole story of its protagonist.

Despite its being experimental, Oyasumi,Punpun maintains a strong existentialist identity, in line with all of Asano‘s previous works. Due to its allegorical features and complexity, I decided to add an index to the article, to help readers move through the text and in order to keep a smooth reading, for the sake of clarity and simplicity.

Synopsis
Critical review
- 1 – An allegorical summer triangle
  - 1.1 – Punpun Onodera (Altair)
    - 1.1.1 – The shapes of the Ego
  - 1.2 – Aiko Tanaka (Vega)
    - 1.2.1 – Anguish and terror in Kagoshima
  - 1.3 – Sachi Nanjo (Deneb)
    - 1.3.1 – Metamanga
- 2 – Ineluctable demons
  - 2.1 – Time: an inevitable alteration
  - 2.2 – Family is composed by … people.
  - 2.3 – Deus in absentia…opus dei
  - 2.4 – Pegasus : the preacher generated by the earthquake
    - 2.4.1 – Manga of the absurd
    - 2.4.2 – A court of fools
- 3 – Utsumanga : a punpunian epilogue
Afterword

Synopsis

Punpun Onodera is a normal 11-year-old boy living in Japan. Hopelessly idealistic and romantic, Punpun begins to see his life take a subtle—though nonetheless startling—turn to the adult when he meets the new girl in his class, Aiko Tanaka. It is then that the quiet boy learns just how fickle maintaining a relationship can be, and the surmounting difficulties of transitioning from a naïve boyhood to a convoluted adulthood. When his father assaults his mother one night, Punpun realizes another thing: those whom he looked up to were not as impressive as he once thought.

As his problems increase, Punpun’s once shy demeanor turns into voluntary reclusiveness. Rather than curing him of his problems and conflicting emotions, this merely intensifies them, sending him down the dark path of maturity in this grim coming-of-age saga.

-source: myanimelist.net

Critical Review

Analyzing Oyasumi,Punpun is a difficult task. Not because it has abstract or difficult to decipher themes, such as those present in Nijigahara Holograph, but due to the extreme intimacy of the work.

As an relief valve, Oyasumi,Punpun represents a lenitive journey for its author to cure his existential malaise. A sort of confession, in which Asano puts all his discomfort on paper, making it real, so he can face it and overcome it. In it he scours every aspect of his being at that precise period of his life, flooding the pages of the manga with all his doubts and all his perplexities about society, his relationship with God and obviously his profession as a mangaka.

The latter was the cause that triggered the creation progress of Oyasumi, Punpun. Asano was dissatisfied and bored with his previous works, especially What a Wonderful World! and Solanin, considered by the author too “edifying”. To reach a wider audience, the author deliberately avoided touching the most obscure aspects of his human being, thus making his works incomplete. Precisely for this reason, immediately after the conclusion of Solanin‘s serialization, Asano told his publisher these words:

I’m done with feel-good stories.

Asano Inio

However he was aware that no one would ever publish a manga, or rather, an essay on his existential crisis, for this he created a protagonist with a “kawaii” appearance, and a story that begins with the most classic clichés of the Japanese production : the love at first sight for a girl who just moved from another school. Which, with the continuation of the plot, will become a very classic love triangle. In short, a story that many people would read. But it is only a facade. Behind it hides a rather narcissistic narrative, not in the sense of vanity, but in the sense that the love story told is between three aspects of Asano‘s personality. Both Punpun, Aiko, and even Sachi, are all transpositions of the author within the manga.

An allegorical Summer Triangle

Within Oyasumi,Punpun there are several references to astronomy. One above all the Milky Way, a strongly recurring element in the manga. What is the symbolism behind it? The purpose of Asano is to give a reading key to his work, and he does it from the first chapter of the manga, when Punpun receives a telescope as a gift from his father, who on that occasion talks to him about Vega, and the Summer Triangle.

A clear reference to the ancient Japanese tale of Orihime and Hikoboshi, also known as the myth of The Cowherd and the Weaver girl. Celebrated every year, on July 7th, with the Tanabata festival. It is no coincidence that this holiday is also present in the manga. Given the importance that this myth has for understanding the manga, I am going to write it down in its entirety:

Orihime (織姫 Weaving Princess), daughter of the Tentei (天帝 Sky King, or the universe itself), wove beautiful clothes by the bank of the Amanogawa (天の川 Milky Way, literally “heavenly river”). Her father loved the cloth that she wove and so she worked very hard every day to weave it. However, Orihime was sad that because of her hard work she could never meet and fall in love with anyone. Concerned about his daughter, Tentei arranged for her to meet Hikoboshi (彦星 Cowman/Cowherd Star, or literally Boy Star) (also referred to as Kengyū (牽牛)) who lived and worked on the other side of the Amanogawa. When the two met, they fell instantly in love with each other and married shortly thereafter. However, once married, Orihime would no longer weave cloth for Tentei and Hikoboshi allowed his cows to stray all over Heaven. In anger, Tentei separated the two lovers across the Amanogawa and forbade them to meet. Orihime became despondent at the loss of her husband and asked her father to let them meet again. Tentei was moved by his daughter’s tears and allowed the two to meet on the 7th day of the 7th month if she worked hard and finished her weaving. The first time they tried to meet, however, they found that they could not cross the river because there was no bridge. Orihime cried so much that a flock of magpies came and promised to make a bridge with their wings so that she could cross the river. It is said that if it rains on Tanabata, the magpies cannot come because of the rise of the river and the two lovers must wait until another year to meet. The rain of this day is called “The tear of Orihime and Hikoboshi”.

It is glaringly obvious that Asano has taken inspiration from this ancient tale to build the backbone of Oyasumi,Punpun. Obviously, given the strong intimacy of the manga, we are not talking about a mere modern interpretation of the aforementioned myth, but of a very personal version of the author.

The confirmation of what I have just stated is given to us by Asano himself in an interview with the mangabrog.wordpress.com website (I strongly recommend reading it in its entirety):

I’d intended on making a love triangle between Punpun, Aiko and Satchan from the very start. In chapter one, there’s a scene where Punpun’s dad looks through a telescope and talks about the summer triangle, and I put that in there so that, reading back, I’d remember that Punpun was supposed to be about a love triangle.

Asano Inio

If Punpun and Aiko are Hikoboshi and Orihime respectively, what is the role of Sachi within the legend of The Cowherd and the Weaver girl ? The answer is obvious: Tentei, the Sky King, the one who divided the two lovers by interposing the Milky Way between them. Exactly as Sachi, through his art, attempts to drive Aiko away from Punpun’s mind.

Not surprisingly, the romantic relationship between Sachi and Punpun takes place thanks to the dedication left by the latter to the painting entitled “The Milky Way”, painted by her.

However in the legend of Hikoboshi and Orihime there is no love triangle, so that no character is associated with the star Deneb. Why then did Asano want to include it? We return to what I mentioned a few lines ago, Oyasumi, Punpun is a manga that scours the soul of the author, as per his own admission:

I’ve been frightened for a long time now by the thought that I could be killed by someone, or even become a killer myself. Punpun came about when I decided to make a manga out of what would happen if that fear became true…

It can never be completely erased, I think, but as I made the manga it felt like I managed to put it behind me, little by little.

One of my reasons for making manga is to resolve my own personal doubts and fears. If you compare the me who started Punpun and the me I am now, I’m a lot better now. A lot of the irritation and fear I had back then is gone now, and I think it was creating manga that helped me through it.

Asano Inio

The tale of The Cowherd and the Weaver girl is therefore not the only key to reading Asano‘s manga, but it is mandatory to read Oyasumi,Punpun as the representation of the author’s psychic apparatus, using Freudian terms. In fact the protagonist can be considered as the Ego of Asano, the mediator of awareness; Aiko instead represents the Es, the self-destructive drive push of Punpun; and Sachi obviously the Superego, also called the ideal ego, what Punpun admires and wants to become.

Unfortunately it is not so simple to analyze Asano‘s work, as it is necessary to filter what has just been said to his personal vision of the world. For this I will go in the next paragraphs to analyze one by one the three characters mentioned above.

Punpun Onodera (Altair)

Punpun is the representation of Asano‘s ego in the manga, which survives, undergoes experiences, is forced to relate to the outside world, and is subjugated by the contradictions of the society in which he fails to integrate. I purposely used passive verbs, because Punpun is a passive character, he passively suffers everything that fate pulls on him.

All this is due to the fact of not being able to contemplate the gray, according to Punpun, life can only be in black and white. Every word, every action, every choice becomes a deadly sentence for him. He lives as a prisoner of his past, or rather of his moral integrity. What oppresses Punpun for the duration of the manga, is not having betrayed the promise he made to Aiko at the time of elementary school, but it is what he says to her in the very first volume: “I will protect you forever”. Punpun hates himself not because he has displeased Aiko, but because he has not respected his own words. Individualistic pride.

An example, at the time of middle school, when Punpun, despite having won the bet with the senpai Yaguchi on the badminton tournament, and despite knowing that Aiko had forgiven him, why did he then decide not to go back together with her? Simple, he didn’t care what Aiko thought of him. Punpun is only interested in what Punpun thinks, and he cannot forgive himself for having betrayed his words years before. He is in constant struggle with his past self.

An existential condition that transforms Punpun’s life into an eternal self-destructive spiral, so much so that he arrives at considering suicide as the only viable solution to his problems. However, the meeting with Sachi will lead him to reconsider his existence. With the latter the protagonist does not establish a normal love story, but she gives him a new reason to exist, to write the story for her manga, making him feel to be part of something. Not surprisingly, it is one of the happiest times in the whole life of Punpun. Unfortunately the happiness is fleeting, and soon the ghost of his past inevitably returns to infest his mind.

For this reason, Punpun tries to escape from his past, and therefore from his existential condition, by stealing the identity of his neighbor, Takashi. Unfortunately it is a completely useless attempt, and even rather stupid, so much so that when he meets Aiko in the end of the manga, Punpun reacts as if he had seen a ghost … yes, the one of his past. Plunged back into reality, he finally decides to face it, realizing that this is the only way to continue living.

The triangle between Punpun, Aiko and Sachi is a metaphor for the difficulty that the author had in growing as an individual and as an artist. An evolution blocked by his self-respect. Let me explain. Asano pours all his personality into his work. Solanin‘s publication represented the most difficult and depressing period of his life. That sentence he said to his publisher: “I’m done writing feel-good stories!”, contains all the dissatisfaction he feels about his work, as Asano was no longer reflected in what he had written and thought in his previous manga. However completely turning over a new leaf was impossible for him, as it would have been like betraying himself. If the concept was not yet clear, I leave the task of explaining it to Asano:

This is something I think I’m ready to talk about now, about how manga artists themselves actually become bound by the things they put in their manga. There’s this line in chapter one of Solanin, about how adults are just walking, talking “oh, whatever”s.

Solanin is a story about rejecting that. It’s about how adults who go around thinking “oh, whatever” are losers. And because I’m the one who said that, I couldn’t ever let myself brush anything off with “whatever”. I wrote it, and now I’ve got to live up to it; I can’t just tell myself it was something I said a long time ago.

That’s the state of mind I was in when I started Punpun, which is why Punpun the character became similarly unforgiving of grey areas, and also why I forced myself to stick with the series to the end.

Asano Inio

A statement that makes us understand how Punpun is actually the transposition into the manga of Asano‘s mental state at that particular period of his life. Aiko, on the other hand, depicts self-respect for his past ego, Aiko is the personification of the previously written manga that chained him and prevented him from continuing along his path of individuation; while Sachi represents his reason for living, the only thing that allows him to relate to the outside world, namely the love for the profession of mangaka.

The shapes of the Ego

Unfortunately it is difficult to guess how much of Punpun’s childhood and adolescence corresponds to that actually experienced by Asano, given that little or nothing is known about the author’s past. What made me think of a hypothetical autobiographical component lies precisely in the way in which the author wanted to draw the protagonist inside his manga. Let me explain. Reading several interviews of Asano, I cannot avoid the thought, not that he lies, but that he answers the interviewers only with half-truths. In fact, I strongly doubt that the decision to represent Punpun initially as a little bird, and then in the various other forms, is only a choice to capture the attention of the average reader by showing him something “kawaii”. I am convinced instead that this choice is closely linked to the intimacy of the story.

Thinking about it for a minute, the first part of the manga, the one that contains Punpun’s childhood, it is told like a fairy tale, or rather a distant memory, and very fictional. Reading it several times, a question came to my mind: if I had to draw myself as a child, how would I do it? Without taking into account the myriad of photos that my parents made me at the time, but using only my memory, how would I represent myself? I couldn’t, because I don’t have memories of “how” I was as a child. Those few memories I have concern important events, such as those that happened in Punpun: the first crush on a schoolmate, a quarrel between my parents, a change of surname, an adventure like the one at the miso factory, or betraying the trust of the person I cared about most.

This is why I think Asano‘s choice of drawing Punpun as a childish sketch is also due to the fact that he cannot represent himself as a child, simply because he does not remember it.

The name Punpun is also a blatant lallation, the Punyama surname too. Just think of how everybody, when 3-4 years old, distorted its own name. It is exactly from this that this weird name derives. Furthermore, the change of his last name in Onodera worries the protagonist so much because it represents the first crack in the glass dome of his childhood.

Furthermore, as Punpun gradually grows, the author begins to give importance to some details that during adolescence seem to be the most important thing in the universe, like the hairstyle or the first mustaches that grow, combed properly to show everyone he has become “adult”. Growing up, Punpun begins to give importance to the clothes he wears, to his look, to distinguish himself from others.

Another confirmation of what has just been written is the use of the various and varied “transformations” that Punpun has during the entire manga:

Sexual organ – In the period in which his puberty explodes, Punpun often recites some rather childish expressions, but at the same time extremely paradigmatic, as when referring to an hypothetical girl he says: “I want to do the old in and out!”. The sexual need that haunts every kid in full hormonal explosion, enough to get Punpun to impersonate his own penis in several occasions, for example during his first sexual relationship with Midori.
Hyottoko – What I’m going to write now is to be considered a mere conjecture. Asano states in an interview that it has no particular sense, it is purely goliardic. Probably the expression of this traditional mask, in addition to representing a person blowing, can also seem a grimace of astonishment. However, I find the few moments in which Punpun takes this form somewhat ambiguous. In one of the many myths concerning this mask, it is told how Hyottoko was a boy with obvious disabilities. His job consisted in blowing on every fire of the village to keep them active, a simple job that made the boy feel part of the community, despite its problems. In short, a story of integration and common sense, about belonging to something. Exactly as happens in Punpun when he is proposed by the president Shishido (the personification of common sense) the job of real estate agent; or when he finds out that the guy who accompanied Sachi was her ex-husband. Moments in which Punpun feels accepted again.
Pyramid – This transformation occurs at a more mature age, around the age of eighteen. After the death of his mother, the refusal to go and live with a father who he no longer recognizes, and above all the feeling of alienation towards society, lead Punpun one night to run naked in the streets of Tokyo shouting out loud. The next day the protagonist wakes up in the shape of a pyramid. An emblematic choice of the author, which seals Punpun’s promise to commit suicide within two years. Just think of what the pyramid was for the ancient Egyptians: a tomb. Sachi manages to free him from it, in one of the most symbolic tables ever designed in a manga.
Hikoboshi – In the end of the manga, after meeting Aiko again, two horns pop up on Punpun’s head. Many readers mistakenly thought that the protagonist had turned into a demon, given the love-hate relationship he established with Aiko. However, as Asano also confirms, Punpun’s horns are those of an ox. Punpun, embracing Aiko again, turns into Hikoboshi, the cowherd. A metaphor for their love escape, which takes them away from everything and everyone.

What to say, a stroke of genius with which Asano manages to transform an extremely personal element such as his mental state, into a mascot to catch a wider audience.

Aiko Tanaka (Vega)

Without hesitating too much, I immediately say that Aiko Tanaka is the main character of Oyasumi,Punpun. Simply because it is she who weaves the thread of the plot. It is no coincidence that Asano compares it to Vega, the brightest star in the Summer Triangle.

Although Aiko appears significantly less than many other characters, just think of the central part of the manga in which she is practically absent. However her presence is always perceptible, very reminiscent of the character of Arie Kimura of Nijigahara Holograph.

Aiko is the cause of Punpun’s desperation, it is she who prevents him from living his life freely chaining him to the past. As I previously explained, this is nothing but the metaphor of Asano‘s inability to continue drawing manga without contradicting what he had said in his previous works. Precisely for this reason I compared Aiko to the Freudian Es. The source of Punpun’s self-destructive feelings is generated by a childhood memory (the failure to escape to Kagoshima), which constantly wanders in the protagonist’s unconscious.

The past is immutable, what we have said, what we have thought, cannot be altered. In the case of Asano, the manga he wrote cannot be deleted with a “rubber” blow. And Aiko is the perfect representation of this concept. Between the elementary school girl who holds Punpun’s hand under an “evocative” starry sky at the miso factory, and the twenty year old girl who is about to take her driving license, nothing has changed. She has the same haircut, the same sad eyes, she is still a virgin at twenty years old, and she has the same desperate family situation.

Just the relationship with her mother Mitsuko is of fundamental importance to understand the reason of the extreme gesture that Aiko makes in the end of the work. From the few segments of the manga dedicated exclusively to her character, it is easy to see how Aiko, due to her mother, is forced into a life that is nothing short of depressing. Mitsuko does not allow her to be a model, forcing her to work (in a textile factory, obviously referring to Otohime, the Weaver girl) to satisfy her mother vices, and to do all the housework; in short, she prevents her from having a life, from continuing on her path of individuation. Not even in her sleep Aiko is left in peace, just think of the various nightmares in which she pees herself, a symbol of lack of self-esteem; in the last nightmare that she has, the cause of all her nightmares also appears: Mitsuko.

Doesn’t what I have just described seem familiar? Well, the relationship between Aiko and her mother is a hyperbole of the relationship between Punpun and Aiko herself, only with reversed roles. Aiko is the one who destroys Punpun’s self-esteem, a feeling immortalized in the poignant sentence that the latter recites towards the end of the manga:

…so thank you Aiko, for giving me despair

Punpun Onodera

Anguish & terror in Kagoshima

After this long introduction it is possible to analyze the main event of Oyasumi,Punpun: the murder of Mitsuko Tanaka. This event gives rise to what should have been a love escape for Punpun and Aiko, but instead turns out to be a journey of despair.

Indeed the love-hate relationship between Punpun and Aiko is somewhat ambiguous. A whirlwind of discordant emotions, where moments of innocent sweetness alternate, with raptus of self-harm and brute physical violence. The question arises: why did the author choose to represent such a controversial relationship?

Well, since the fortuitous meeting at the driving school, Punpun cannot understand and convince himself of how Aiko has become such a stupid girl, or rather, why she appears so terribly childish to his eyes. This can only be explained by Asano‘s words transcribed in the previous paragraphs. The author, through the eyes of Punpun, sees in Aiko his past self, the personification of his previous works, which are eternal and unchanged over time; so comparing her with his present form, evolved and changed by the experiences of life, he can only look at her from top to bottom. This is why Punpun considers Aiko a silly girl, because the author is looking at a younger and more childish self. Taking an example, it is like when you sit down to watch video clips of your adolescence, and the only comment that comes to mind is: “But…how stupid I was ?!” However it is thought with a feeling of affection. And it is from this feeling that the contrasting relationship between Aiko and Punpun has origin.

Despite this poor consideration for Aiko, what is the reason that pushes Punpun to help her anyway? The only intent of the protagonist is to save Aiko from the miserable life to which she is forced by her mother Mitsuko; but he does not do it out of love, he does it exclusively for himself, to regain his self-esteem. This is what drives him to realize, at any cost, the promise made to Aiko at the time of the elementary schools, so as to be able to remedy the error that tormented him, and that has conditioned his entire existence.

Trying to save Aiko is tantamount to setting off on a path full of anguish that can leads only to death. And Punpun begins to walk when he, together with Aiko, killed Mitsuko. After this disastrous event, the relationship between the two begins to suddenly get worse. To commit murder is something that cannot be erased either from one’s mind or from the public eye. Like writing a manga. Punpun is a murderer, he feels to have fall on the lowest level of humanity, and seeing Aiko as the cause of what happened, he can’t hide the resentment he feels towards her. However, his goal has not changed, he must keep that promise, his word. The journey to Kagoshima is something disturbing.

There are many events with which the author tries to make the reader understand what really symbolizes this journey of despair:

Punpun’s fist hit Aiko’s mouth, causing her to lose an incisor. Obviously it’s not accidental. Aiko’s perfect set of teeth was an anomaly for Punpun. When he promised to take her to Kagoshima, Aiko lacked a tooth, so Punpun wanted to correct this difference in his mind. In short, the past does not change over time.
While they are traveling by car, Aiko asks Punpun to pull over because she needs to urinate. They stop near a grove and there is a quarrel between the two. Aiko fears being killed by Punpun. Why she fears him? Aiko is afraid that what happened with her mother will happen again. Aiko knows she killed her mother to free herself from the chains of the past, and she sees in Punpun’s eyes the same intent. As I have written extensively, for the author Aiko represents the boulder of the past that blocks his personal evolution path.
The scene set in fast food is extremely symbolic. Punpun and Aiko sit facing each other, and as often happened in their short escape, they begin to argue. Aiko is jealous, she wants Punpun “to have eyes only for her”, so she hits him in the eye with a fork, but she does it superficially, she can’t get to the bottom. This scene is the perfect metaphor for the entire work. Aiko is a part of Asano, she represents his past, she is jealous and afraid of being forgotten, put aside. In spite of this, she is unable to mortally wound Punpun, as it would be tantamount to killing herself. Aiko personifies the thanatos in the soul of the author, the set of all his destructive impulses. Punpun’s disappointment and anger arose from Aiko’s failure to kill him, representing Asano‘s frustration in not being able to take his own life. He does not have the same determination as Seneca, or rather, unlike the latter, Punpun still has a reason to continue living: Sachi.
Finally arrived in Kagoshima, after a brief idyllic moment, Punpun and Aiko fall into the inevitable despondency of their situation. Aiko immediately understands Punpun’s intentions that, after keeping his promise, he wants to kill her first and then commit suicide. With Punpun’s hands tight around her neck, Aiko screams at the top of her lungs that she doesn’t want to die, while Punpun justifies his choice as the only solution to his destiny of solitude. At this point Aiko reveals to Punpun that it was she who killed her mother Mitsuko. For the first few seconds Punpun finds it hard to believe it, but then he is convinced and leaves his hold on Aiko’s neck. This episode should be interpreted through the author’s vision. Punpun stops himself from killing Aiko, and then himself, after knowing he’s not a murderer, not to be judged by anyone. Asano finally realizes that when he wrote his previous manga he was another person, different from the one he is now. But his journey of acceptance is not over, he has yet to break the chain that binds him to his past self, Aiko.

Above all, the last point is the one that leads to Aiko’s final act. After the police find Mitsuko’s body, the hunt is on for her daughter, Aiko, the only suspect for the murder, as the only person to have a connection with the victim, and above all a reason to kill her. Aiko, feeling trapped now, decides to take her own life, and save Punpun from a miserable life in prison. What is the real reason for her act?

To fully understand Aiko’s suicide, one of the most poignant, meaningful scenes I have ever read in a manga, it is a must to reconnect it to the event that originated it all: the murder of Mitsuko. Aiko has been trying for years to leave her mother behind, but she never succeeded until she killed her. Aiko then tried to erase her past without facing it correctly, acted impetuously and for this reason, even after killing her, Mitsuko continued to persecute Aiko until her death. Aiko understands that she is a burden on Punpun’s life, the same one her mother represented for her, which is why she decides to take her own life before dragging her loved one into the oblivion.

Aiko dies in a sultry 7th of July, the day of the Tanabata. The exact day when Hikoboshi and Orihime are allowed to meet after the punishment inflicted on them by Tentei. Not a coincidence, but the proof of the future that will be up to Aiko and Punpun: to be able to meet only once a year.

Asano, with Aiko’s suicide, wants to show the exact moment in which he consciously accepted to bury his past, now he no longer lives obsessed with it. Aiko took her own life, she wasn’t killed like her mother, that’s the meaning of suicide: acceptance.

Sachi Nanjo (Deneb)

Sachi is the third and final character that closes, like the star Deneb, the summer triangle of Asano‘s soul. Sachi metaphorically represents the relationship that the author has with the profession of mangaka; showing the reader not only his passion in drawing manga, but also all the contradictions and difficulties with which he clashed during his career.

Asano probably had a first interest in drawing, as brief as it was fleeting, at the time of elementary school. Years later, during high school, the idea of transforming his passion for drawing into a real profession begins to take shape, but it remains one of the innumerable ideas that everyone has during adolescence. But it is still too early to make this kind of choice. However, around the age of twenty, after high school, the idea of becoming a mangaka returns forcefully to occupy Asano‘s mind. And it is at that time that his career begins. What was a fleeting passion as a child, will eventually become his life companion.

Does this story sound familiar? It corresponds in fact to the various appereances of Sachi during the course of the plot. Her first appearance occurs when Punpun still attends elementary school, precisely during the treasure hunt at the miso factory. Short and fleeting. Sachi appears a second time during the first date between Punpun and Azusa, both in their first year of high school. For the first time Sachi’s artistic vein touches the depth of Punpun’ soul, but it only lasts an instant. A first taste of what will be their artistic collaboration. Several years later, in the midst of an existential crisis, Punpun accidentally meets Sachi in a bar, and from that moment begins the romantic relationship we all know.

Finally back together, Sachi and Punpun begin to chitchat. But it’s just to break the ice. Sachi remembers Punpun very well, she never forgot the dedication he wrote to her painting “The Milky Way” years before; that story so childish, but so intimate. Sachi then takes the opportunity to propose to Punpun to write the story to her next manga, but Punpun declines the offer because he is locked up in his pyramid tomb. However, Sachi does not give up, and tries in every way to convince the protagonist to accept her offer.

Some time later, while together they are walking a subway, Sachi, tired of Punpun’s negativity, tries to make him come to his senses by openly facing his discomfort. A wonderful scene (Ch. 83-84), from which one can understand the symbolism that lies behind the character of Sachi Nanjo:

“It’s as if she was criticizing the old me.” – Sachi starts the discussion with Punpun with these words. The meaning of this is obvious. Sachi represents the mangaka in Asano, ie the part that manages to express his pain through drawing, which is why she turns to Punpun with these words, because she sees his introversion and his inability to express his feelings. The same condition as she was a few years before. The mangaka aspect of the author who urges his inner self to open up to people.
“This face of mine…I’ve had, plastic surgery on it.” – These words of Sachi are quite ambiguous. However, it is very simple to explain them. Sachi had plastic surgery in such a young age, because during her childhood and adolescence she was mocked for her physical appearance, both by her schoolmates and by her family, for this reason she could not feel accepted by society. She adapted his person to the judgment of others, creating a mask to survive in the world. This is the reason why I said that Sachi is a metaphor of Asano‘s super-ego. His mangaka side, it’s the only part of his being that is accepted by society, and the only one he can show publicly. While Punpun and Aiko are kept well hidden from the public eye.
“My face, my body. I choose every aspect of myself with my own will. I hano no need for a past.” – Words recited immediately after those previously reported. Sachi says that she has voluntarily adapted her appeareance to society, that it was her choice to use plastic surgery, no one has imposed it on her, she did it exclusively to please herself more. But she is wrong. Sachi does not understand that she was forced to do so, not by someone, but by herself. Until she accepts her past, she cannot really understand herself. Her past still haunts her. With these words Asano shows the distance that existed at the time between his mangaka side focused on the future, and his inner self chained to the past.
“It’s as if I’m looking at my childhood self that I’ve decided to abandon long ago. And somehow, it makes me feel guilty.” – Yet another confirmation of how Sachi is the personification of the Asano‘ mangaka’s aspect, who recognizes in Punpun that part of himself, negative and inept for social life, which until a few years before dominated his soul. Why does Sachi then feel guilty, despite having left her past behind? Simple, she tried to discard it, to delete it, without first understanding it. This feeling will continue to haunt her until she understands that part of herself. Until she understands the origin of Punpun’s pain.
“All you do is lick your own wounds. Normally, nobody should even think about helping someone like you…” – This is the magic formula that takes Punpun out of his pyramid, the tomb built by his own mind. This phrase does not only serve to make poignant the scene in which it is said, but it is also among the most significant of the entire work. In fact, what we read is the desperate cry that Asano addresses to himself: “You must manifest your innermost thoughts! No matter how dark or distressing it will be, it’s the only way to save yourself from death, from your pyramid.”

Sachi’s way of thinking is not entirely wrong, but it is weaken by a single major flaw: she thinks she has freed herself from the chain of the past. Sachi just doesn’t consider it, she pretends it doesn’t exist, in reality her mind is constantly besieged by her memories. As long as she does not process her childhood and adolescence correctly, she will never be able to progress on her life path. But who resembles her past the most? Punpun, she actually say it. Not understanding her past, it is obvious that Sachi cannot even understand the pain of Punpun. And it is exactly this that leads the protagonist to choose to run away with Aiko instead of being with Sachi, leaving her to vainly wait for his arrival in front of the abortion clinic.

Initially Sachi tries, even awkwardly, not to be interested in the fate of Punpun, focusing on writing her manga. However, when she completes it, Sachi is unsatisfied, feels that something is missing, is incomplete. Her missing piece is her past, Sachi was not sincere in writing her manga, she deliberately eliminated the dark part of her soul. Exactly like Asano. No coincidence that the tables of Sachi’s manga are those of Solanin (the character of Takeda is unmistakable), the same manga that led the author to create Oyasumi, Punpun.

Sachi, gripped by guilt, then decides to find a way that allows her to get to know Punpun thoroughly, and then understand what torments his existence. Sachi embarks on a pilgrimage that leads her to meet people who know Punpun’s past well: his family.

The first step is Midori and Yuuichi Onodera. The latter explains to Sachi how Punpun’s sole desire is to want to express his thoughts and feelings again as when he was a child. Yuuichi adds that Sachi to be able to fulfill this desire for Punpun, and therefore to be a good life companion for him, she needs to know better the real Punpun. A touching dialogue, which emphasizes how Yuuichi is simply advising Asano on the right way to write a manga. Indeed, it is as if Yuuichi was asking Sachi (the author’s artistic self) to be the vehicle that allows Punpun to express its existential malaise to the world.

After visiting Yuuichi, Sachi returns home and goes back to work on her manga. But in front of the drawing table she understands the meaning of Punpun’s uncle’s words, and she is assailed by the urgent need to save her beloved one. To do this she must change the way she relates to Punpun, this time she must really put her past behind. Her will is enshrined by the cutting of her beautiful raven hair, a gesture that in Japanese tradition represents a firm change from the past. This is the reason that leads her to embark on a new journey, to Fukushima, the town where Punpun’s father lives, the last person left who knows well the protagonist’s childhood.

Completed this metaphorical spiritual path, Sachi is finally ready to save Punpun, she is finally worthy of becoming his new Otohime. And that’s exactly what happens in the manga finale. Sachi interrupts Punpun as he prepared to recite the last word of his requiem: “Goodnight …”

A beautiful scene, with which Asano explains to his readers how, clinging to his passion in drawing manga, he managed to overcome the most difficult period of his life. Sachi Nanjo is the personification of this passion.

Metamanga

As I have already extensively described in the previous paragraph, Asano pours into Sachi Nanjo every aspect of his being mangaka, from the difficulties of the profession, to the look he shows in public. Yeah, it’s no accident that Sachi wears glasses just like the author, or that in her youth she dyed her hair blond. All small clues that show to the readers the right interpretation of this character. One wonders then why Asano represented this character as a woman, rather than a man. The answer is obvious, if Sachi had been male she could not have correctly represented the vision that the author has for his profession: a motherly love, and the mother is the woman par excellence.

The various discussions between Sachi and his publisher of Big Comic Spirit, the same magazine on which Asano publishes his manga, are extremely allusive. In particular, it’s very important the scene where Sachi and Punpun meet the publisher to show the manga they made. The first thing that catches the eye is the impressive resemblance of the publisher with Asano: the long blond dyed hair, the glasses, the slightly beard on his chin, the similar look in the clothing. This fact, in my opinion, transforms the discussion between the publisher and Sachi, in an interior dialogue of the author. In fact, it’s seems to be witnessing Asano‘s self-persuasion process to finally be able to write Oyasumi, Punpun.

I am going to report the main points of the discussion in favor of my thesis, however it would be more appropriate to re-read the entire chapter, the 91st to be precise:

The editor begins with a report on the recessive state in which the manga industry is. He continues taking as an example the manga Fukasawa (who years later will become the protagonist of Reiraku) who finds himself passing by, with the intention of explaining to Sachi and Punpun that authors like him do not bring good sales, as they write works for a niche audience. Finally, he adds that modern readers only want beautiful stories filled with good feelings. That is the same doubt that gripped Asano after writing Solanin, probably due to a real discussion with his editor, or dictated instead by the aforementioned and indisputable market data of the manga industry.
The plot of the manga written by Sachi and Punpun is then briefly summarized by the editor; everything sounds too much familiar. A 20-year-old unemployed boy who casually meets his old schoolmate in Tokyo. A few days after they met, she committed suicide. The boy realizes that the world keeps on spinning as usual, so he too decides to go move on with his life. Yes, Asano anticipates the end of the manga by almost fifty chapters.
The main criticism that the editor moves to the manga drawn by Sachi, is that writing of her own existential disorders is nothing but self-satisfaction, “it’s about some emo-kid”, which only generates annoyance in the reader. Sachi defends herself by saying that what she writes is what she feels at the moment, it is real, it is the truth. Writing a heartbreaking story is not for her, it would just be a big lie. Here too, it is quite clear how all this, is a reference to the problems that Asano had with his own editor at the time of Solanin.
When the editor points out that even the girl’s suicide in the history of her manga is the fruit of her imagination, it is fiction, like telling a totally invented story. Sachi replies that if it were necessary to approve the manga she would be happy to make her story real by committing suicide on the spot. What Sachi wants us to understand is that the girl in her story is none other than her, but at the same time we know it is instead an anticipation of Aiko’s death. Consequently we can say that Aiko and Sachi are the same person, or rather, together with Punpun they represent the three aspects of Asano‘s personality.
At the end of the discussion comes the part that pushed me to think how this whole discussion actually took place only in Asano‘s mind. The editor asks Sachi about who she is fighting, who or what is causing her all this existential pain: society? Publishing? Herself? Seeing the girl confused, he advises her to be clearer the next time she writes a manga, and then reminds her that there are not many people interested in what she thinks or feels. A shining example of Asano‘s existential doubt about the creation of Oyasumi, Punpun. I want to write a work in which I pour myself, but I am aware that the manga market revolves around something else, so is it worth writing?

It is curious how Punpun, as usual, silently suffers the whole discussion. It is only Sachi who argues with the editor. As a demonstration of how Asano, before the publication of Oyasumi, Punpun, hid his true self.

However, it is in the end of the manga the chain of events that inspired the choice of the title of this paragraph: Metamanga, the manga within the manga.

In the period in which he decides to undertake the journey to discover Punpun’s past, Sachi is working on a manga, which from the tables shown (as per the image in the paragraph) there is no doubt the reference to Solanin. In addition to reaffirming the concept of Sachi as the mangaka aspect of Asano, this choice by the author is emblematic of the message that Oyasumi, Punpun wants to convey. From it we can deduce how to write Solanin was only Sachi, without the help of Punpun. Asano writes and draws this manga considering only his point of view of being a mangaka, influenced by the indications dictated by his editor (conscience), completely excluding from the equation the inner, personal, existential factor … in a word Punpun.

The emblem of this concept is her pregnancy. Sachi becomes pregnant with her ex-husband, but she still wants to give birth to her baby. This child is not Punpun’s son, just as Solanin. Both are born without taking the protagonist into account. In the finale, Punpun accepts that child anyway, even if it is not his own, a symbol of how Asano eventually succeeded in accepting even the work he hated so much in the past.

All this deeply upsets Sachi, it is impossible for her to keep Punpun out of her life. This is the reason that pushes Sachi to undertake the aforementioned journey, she wants to know who Punpun really is, so that she can live peacefully with him. Once this journey is over, Sachi is ready to welcome Punpun back into her life. The latter, one step away from oblivion, is saved by Sachi and taken to the hospital. When he regains consciousness, Sachi informs him that she is working on a new manga, and shows him a sketch of the protagonist: it resembles exactly Punpun. First Solanin and now Oyasumi, Punpun, Sachi as Asano. The metamanga.

Ineluctable demons

Asano, after having exposed his personality in the three protagonists, invests the remaining pages of the manga in describing his demons; those transcendent, perpetually incumbent forces that infest his daily life, his existence.

Obviously the author does it using the same method with which he described his ego: personifying these anxieties in characters of his work, as if they were avatars projected from his mind. Themes like: time, the sexual instinct, the relationship with God, take the form of characters, objects or even hallucinations.

Asano‘s genius lies in having studded Oyasumi, Punpun of narrative arcs entirely dedicated to secondary characters; stories often parallel and totally disconnected from the vicissitudes of the protagonist, with the sole purpose of describing his point of view on those issues on which we have no control, but that influence our daily lives. For this reason they’re considered by the author “secondary”, because intangible, ineluctable.

Time : inevitable alteration

The concept of time is certainly one of the most discussed topics in philosophy, literature, painting, and practically every other form of art. Its inevitable and impartial flow caused sleepless nights to many people, and Inio Asano is obviously among them.

In Oyasumi, Punpun, the author does not illustrate his conception of time through the protagonist’s point of view, but expresses it directly from his perspective, as if he were forced to become part of his own work.

In the first chapters of the manga, those focusing on Punpun’s childhood, there are several rather bizarre illustrations. Just think, for example, of the school principal and his deputy who play hide-and-seek around the school, making expressions that are surreal to say the least. Another example is the elementary school teacher, who throws himself on the ground in a schizophrenic crisis when he thinks of the eventuality in which Punpun had not done his homework. There are several others of these episodes, all however enclosed in the first part of the manga.

The goal of Asano is to show the reader how with the passage of time our memories, especially those related to our childhood, inevitably change (like the faces of the aforementioned characters). Our mind tends to alter important events of our past, ideally reconstructing what we cannot remember. Taking up one of the aforementioned examples, the memory that the author has of his school principal is altered based on the idea that he made of him. Asano remembers him for the authority that he exercised, for his ability to appear in every place of the school, however to him it was not clear what his job consisted of. The author transposes all of this into the principal who plays hide-and-seek around the school. The same interpretation can also be given to the professor who throws himself on the ground. This scene represents the terror that the author would have felt as a child if he had gone to school without having done his homework. Asano then goes on to replace the actual reaction of the teacher with the one created by his fear.

The main scene of Asano‘s thought on the effects of the passage of time, is the Milky Way seen by Punpun, Aiko and the whole gang in the “unforgettable” treasure hunt that took place at the miso factory. Sachi, while speaking with Miyuki (Ch. 142), explains how that same Milky Way, seen and also painted by her, is nothing but a big lie. It is practically impossible to see a starry sky in Tokyo, much less be able to see a galaxy. Sachi continues by stating how children can see things that do not exist, this is their ability, being able to believe in the impossible. This is the motivation that kept Sachi alive during his adolescence: believing in becoming a mangaka. However now she has grown up, Sachi has thrown the past behind her, as I have already extensively described in the paragraph dedicated to her. Exactly the step that Asano could not make until Oyasumi,Punpun.

The scene between Punpun and a stranger in a kombini is emblematic (chapter 127/128). This stranger is dressed specular to Punpun (image of the paragraph), also with the typical striped t-shirt worn frequently by Asano himself. Punpun asks him what he thinks of Solanin, the manga published by Sachi. His answer is:

Nah, it’s pretty boring. All these characters are so clueless.

Stranger (Chapter 127)

Here we go again, Asano complaining about his previous manga. Furthermore, the real dispute is triggered by trivial reasons. The stranger frivolously throws a can on the ground, hyperbole of that expression: “Oh, whatever!”, so hated and criticized by Asano in Solanin. From this it is easy to deduce how the stranger is nothing but the same author after the writing of Oyasumi,Punpun, or rather, after having overcome his existential crisis. Asano has finally calmed his obsession with finding meaning in everything. Now, he can manage to live more carefree.

After understanding the nature of the stranger, it is possible to understand the meaning of the entire episode dedicated to him. Asano, a bit for fun and a bit for conscience, he wildly imagines what would have happened if they (his two personalities, pre- and post- the writing of Oyasumi,Punpun) had met. The outcome is obvious: his old ego would have literally bludgeoned what he has become. But time alters everything.

A surreal scene where past, present and future are mixed together in one by the author. Yet another demonstration of Asano‘ undisputed genius.

Family is composed by … people

Punpun’s parents also play an obviously important role in the manga. First of all I would like to analyze the reason why they are the only two other characters, together with uncle Yuuichi, to be drawn in a stylized way as the protagonist.

As I explained in the chapter dedicated to the protagonist, Asano recounts Punpun’s childhood as if he were trying to remember his own, so that he could represent it in his manga. When we think of our childhood, besides not being able to remember our appearance, we certainly find it difficult even to have a clear image of our parents. A child, before starting school, spends all of his time with his parents, or some other close relative. As a result, we tend to view them as our own kind. Try now to remember your parents’ appearance when you were a kid. Can’t you? There is nothing strange, our parents are nothing but this: mom and dad. It may take months or years, but in our eyes, they will always be the same. This is the reason why Asano always represents the parents of Punpun in the same way, and he never reveal their real names. They will always remain on everyone’s mind as “Mom and Dad Punyama”.

The same argument must also be applied to the character of Yuuichi, another person who has always been very close to Punpun, practically playing the role of a third parent. He’s the one who finds Punpun when he disappeared at the time of kindergarten, it is always Yuuichi who teaches him the concept of God, and the magic formula to evoke him. In short, in Punpun’s eyes he will always be the one and unchangeable uncle Yuuichi.

Explained the reason of the “phisical appearance” of the protagonist’s relatives, we must now go on to explain the meaning behind each of them. Asano did something memorable. Each member of the Punpun family hides one of the demons that grip the author’s mind:

The search for true love – Punpun’s mother is often described in the manga as a selfish woman, unable to sustain and maintain any kind of social relationship. Incredibly restless, as if she were always desperate for something in her life : love. Punpun’s mother is an inexhaustible idealist. Already at young age, she shows this side of her character. She escapes from his parents’ home, leaves university, falls in love with Punpun’s father, believing he was the right person. However during that one quarrel (caused by her, however) she is struck by the person in whom she placed her ideal of love. An incurable crack, which leads Punpun’s mother to divorce and start her search again. All she wants is to be loved and be appreciated. The episode at the hospital with Harumin it’s a testimony of this. The relationship between Punpun and his mother is masterfully rendered by the author. The protagonist cannot understand his mother even when she suddenly dies. Asano doesn’t know what real love is, he never found it. The death of Punpun’s mother symbolizes how the author has stopped looking for it, remaining totally indifferent to the fact, since having never understood this feeling, he cannot feel any empathy.
The good family man – I am clearly referring to Papa Punyama. A good man, perhaps too much, who firmly believes in the value of the family. We know from various flashbacks how he sacrificed his working career to satisfy every wish of his wife; how he was a good parent, so much so that he was Punpun’s favorite; of how the end of his marriage made him go out of his mind, leading him to live in repentance the rest of his days. When his ex-wife disappears, he tries to get closer to Punpun. But he is no longer the same person, staying so long away from his family, turned him into a ghost, he is absent, a prisoner of his delirium. Dad Punyama is a character who rarely appears in the manga, probably a symptom of the distance the author has from the concept he represents: family.
The sins of the flesh – Yuuichi Onodera is among the characters best written by Asano. It is almost impossible not to understand the symbolism that he personifies. Yuuichi is described by the author as a person with solid moral values, he’s totally disillusioned, so much so that he often loses his temper when discussing about religion. However he always falls victim to the same vice: lust. It all started when he betrayed his first girlfriend (an episode extensively narrated in a flashback). Having succumbed to the pleasures of the flesh shatters his alleged and indestructible ethics in thousand pieces. For this reason, considering himself unworthy, Yuuichi decides to never have sentimental bonds, and to live in the “atonement” of his sins, as he also states. Until the day he meets Midori. He falls in love with this pretty girl, and promises her eternal loyalty. Nevertheless Yuuichi also burns his second chance. He betrays Midori and, unable even to look at himself in the mirror, he runs away. Forgiven for the umpteenth time, he returns with Midori. The two decide to start a family, the child will be called Soara (Hope), Yuuichi’s last lifeline. Now, resigned to his weakness, he only has the “hope” of not falling again into his usual mistake. The character of Yuuichi therefore represents the weakness of the flesh, the sexual instinct that leads a person to betray not only his loved one, but above all himself.

Asano pours into Punpun’s family all his ethical and existential doubts concerning his idea of the family. Is it worth living in search of true love knowing that this almost certainly leads to chronic dissatisfaction? Is it wise to sacrifice one’s existence to create a family, knowing that a single quarrel may be enough to end everything? Does it make sense to establish a love relationship with a person if our mind often falls prey of our lust?

These are the doubts that the author raises in Oyasumi, Punpun. At the time of the writing of the manga, Asano was still unmarried, I wonder if after finding love and getting married, he finally managed to find the answers to the aforementioned existential questions.

Deus in absentia … opus Dei

Given the complexity of Oyasumi, Punpun, certainly could not miss the theme of religion, the relationship with the divine. Analyzing the way in which Asano expresses and transposes his vision into the manga, the author’s atheism clearly emerges. Certainly not a novelty, even in Nijigahara Holograph there is the same message. However, with this last work, too short and extremely cryptic, Asano had not been able to deepen this theme properly.

In Oyasumi, Punpun faith is not considered from the divine or transcendent side common to all religions, but rather as the need of human beings to believe in something, or in someone. A vital need for those who have a weak nature, for those who are going through a difficult time, for sociopaths or complete fools. The absence of characters actually devoted to a “canonical” religion is not fortuitous.

Asano, through the character of Pegasus, puts pen on paper his thoughts on the concept of God:

…God exists not as a singular entity but in many forms in the hearts of humans…

Pegasus (chapter 90)

Thanks to this single sentence, all those entities, more or less abstract, that appear in the manga can be explained. Starting from the protagonist I will give an overview of all these depictions of the divine:

Punpun – The protagonist learns as a child to call God whenever he was sad. Thanks to the magic formula taught to him by uncle Yuuichi: “Dear God, dear God, tinkle tinkle hoy!”. The intent of the author is to show how to believe in the existence of a divine being is easier at a young age, and eventually change into a habit that a person keeps with him over the years. But what does his God represent for Punpun? His conscience. Whenever the protagonist feels guilty for having committed something wrong, God magically appears. The only purpose of his every appearance is to demoralize Punpun, to make him feel the most despicable being in the world. Only in the finale, the protagonist manages to free himself from his God. Punpun’s guilt feelings are mostly related to Aiko, and when the latter takes her own life, with her all the guilt feelings of the protagonist disappear , and consequently also all the influence that God has on him. This is what leads Punpun to kill his divinity, or rather his conscience, in the magnificent scene in which he stabs one of his eyes (paragraph image). Punpun managed to do it because he thought that he no longer had a raison d’etre. Or so he believed.
Yuuichi – To reinforce the meaning of the very personal God of Punpun, the author decides to make even a bulwark of rationality like uncle Yuuichi collapse. In fact they are innumerable times that he declares he does not believe in any religion, or how he badly treats those who believe in a God, such as Mitsuko, Aiko’s mother. Nevertheless, even Yuuichi, when he decides to take his own life sitting on the train rails (chap. 39), realizes how his God was his sense of guilt, and appears to him in a form very similar to the one of his nephew. Even Yuuichi, having reached the lowest point of his existence, lives fearing and basking in the sense of guilt he experiences, his consciousness has risen to divinity.
The Cosmo-san cult – The borderline case of any religion. Asano is quite drastic in his thinking, for the author any form of religious worship is to be considered like a sect. Asano considers it foolish to believe in any religion, so he expresses his thoughts with an extreme example. This is why in the manga there are no characters devoted to Buddhism, Shintoism, or why not to Christianity. Starting with Aiko’s mother, Mitsuko, each follower of the aforementioned cult is shown as a fool. Just think of Pegasus, even his orchestra is after all a sort of cult. In a nutshell, for Asano religion is pure madness.
Seki and Shimizu – What unites these two characters is not their enviable friendship, but the existential discomfort they share. As much as they may seem to be the opposite of each other, Seki and Shimizu are actually much more similar than they may appear. Tormented by their past, Seki and Shimizu become introverts, however they developed a completely different self-defense mechanism.Seki because of his father finds himself in a broken family, and with economic problems. This situation leads him to grow and mature quickly. Because of this, Seki puts a wall of disillusionment and mistrust between himself and reality. He becomes apathetic, bored with life and people, doesn’t believe in anything or anyone, doesn’t take pleasure in anything. Not even having a job, or a girlfriend, causes him any satisfaction. However, this existential condition slowly turns into a deadly spiral, Seki needs to believe in something, in someone, to be able to reverse the process. Digging deep into his soul, he finally understands that he needs Shimizu, and not the other way around. Even the most realistic person in the world needs a personal divinity.Shimizu, unlike his friend, has a loving family, however the early disappearance of his mother, due to a car accident, indelibly blackens his soul. Frightened by the sadness of the world, Shimizu takes refuge in a parallel dimension, where his mother is still alive, and greets him every morning before going to school. He also has a deity with whom he constantly speak, the poop god. An imaginary figure that encourages him and convinces him that he can do whatever he wants, even casting a kamehameha. When Seki stops believing in him, Shimizu joins the Pegasus orchestra, solely because he believes in him. Like a divinity, if it has no followers it is destined to vanish, exactly what happens in the finale, Shimizu loses itself in his dimension, detaching himself completely from reality, as shown by the wonderful illustration present in chapter 142.These two characters therefore represent the symbiotic relationship between divinity and follower, both need each other in order to exist. However, it is not the only message inherent in these two characters. To a more careful analysis it is easy to reach even their most intimate meaning. The element that illuminated my mind was fire. Seki after the fire at the miso factory, develops pyrophobia. This fear is very similar to the one of Punpun for having betrayed the promise made to Aiko. Both take place at the time of elementary school and have repercussions for the entire existence of the two characters. Furthermore Seki is linked to Shimizu, a person who lives in his dimension of the past, just like Punpun is linked to Aiko, also a personification of the past. The similarities seem fairly obvious. Asano wanted to write a parallel story that would express his existential pain in different terms and with a different perspective. No coincidence that the final of Seki and Shimizu is practically identical to the one of Punpun and Aiko. Shimizu does not commit suicide, but disappears in his mind totally alienating himself from reality, the equivalent of a brain death. Seki, understanding himself, overcomes his fear, but the price he pays is expensive: he loses his friend forever. Although he is always at his side, Shimizu is mentally absent, he is in his own world; exactly what happens to Punpun, even if she is dead, Aiko is always there with him.

About similarities. In chapter 134, Wada leaves a tape recorder with a message direct to Seki. In it, Pegasus’ right hand explain the reason for his actions, pointing out the strong similarity between him and Seki: “We both have problematic friends”. But if the Wada story resembles the one of Seki, then by the transitive property …

Pegasus : the preacher generated by the earthquake

Although Toshiki Hoshikawa plays a secondary role in Oyasumi, Punpun (a character that practically never interacts with the protagonist cannot be defined otherwise), however his importance within the work is such as to have to dedicate a paragraph solely for him.

Toshiki’s main characteristic is undoubtedly his remarkable eccentricity. Pegasus, how he is called by his followers, is a character so out of line that it seems like a foreign body to the whole work. Unlike all the other characters, Toshiki’s presence in the manga does not seem to make any logical sense, other than being a sketch.

Pegasus talks about dark spots, the end of the world, meteorites, the Annals of the Akasha, astral travels, frequencies and the String theory. He has the motto “Good Vibrations!”, And forms a magic orchestra to play the perfect melody that will save humanity from extinction. Remaining on the subject, it is his character that creates a “dissonance” within a purely realistic manga.

In fact, Pegasus seems to represent the professional antithesis of the author. I’ll explain. Asano had never written a shonen manga, indeed, it can be said that he had practically never put shonen elements in his previous works up to that point. Probably because he thinks they are far from his art, or because he doesn’t feel inclined to create stories of that genre. Only he knows the truth, but the absence of shonen manga in his repertoire remains a fact, at least until the advent of Pegasus. The latter wants to “save the world”, with the help of a group of “magic warriors” ready to fight the “absolute evil”. In other words, the basic plot of any shonen manga. If this were not enough, we find confirmation in the aforementioned interview:

…the Pegasus Orchestra is actually a homage to shonen manga. I’m pretty sure no one understood this at all from reading the manga, but Pegasus was assembling a team that really was doing battle with evil.

If it weren’t for Pegasus and company, a meteor or something would’ve crashed into Earth and driven mankind to extinction, just like Punpun and Aiko wanted. The Pegasus crew saved the Earth at the cost of their lives, but nobody knows it. That was the concept.

Asano Inio

The wisest readers will have noticed how in the index of the twelfth tankobon, the part dedicated to the characters, is drawn as if it were just a shonen manga, so much so that the first time I saw it I exclaimed: “What’s that!? It looks like Naruto! “

Like everything present in Asano‘s works, even the choice to write such a particular character as Pegasus is not a random choice of the author. So what is the motivation that pushed Asano to represent a character so far from his vision in what is undoubtedly his greatest work?

Manga of the absurd

Actually Toshiki is not a character so far from Asano‘s perspective. Just like the other protagonists of Oyasumi, Punpun, Pegasus is also an aspect of the author’s personality, however this character is even more difficult to understand than the others. For this reason I decided to assemble all the fragments of the aforementioned interview that concern him directly, so as to contextualize in the most correct way this eccentric and wonderful character.

Let’s start with the main question: what triggered the need to create the character of Pegasus in the author’s mind?

… I wanted to use Pegasus as a mouthpiece for the sort of things I couldn’t make Punpun say, because Punpun was already defined as a character. Like, in his Tokyo gubernatorial election broadcast, Pegasus goes on about how the world is ripe for the picking, and it was right after the Tohoku earthquake that I was writing that stuff.

We’d had this disaster and a lot of people were complaining a lot, but what I was thinking was, “This is pretty much as good a world as there is, though!”

Asano Inio

The answer to my previous question is: the Tohoku earthquake. This event pushed Asano into the need to express his views on what was happening in Japan.

Another very important piece of information is the choice (self-imposed) of the author to create a character to express his thoughts about the earthquake. It is natural to ask why he made this choice.

It’s also very interesting that the last segment of the interview (shown above) reminds Solanin so much. Asano‘s urgent need to shout his anger against all those people who carefree live their lives thanks to their mantra of “oh, wathever”. Here is the confirmation of what has just been written:

I found that the earthquake exposed the morals that people normally hide. I didn’t use Twitter at the time, so I was totally silent because I didn’t have any tools to express myself, but I did follow what everyone was doing and saying, and it was really ugly, watching people attack others and getting so holier-than-thou about the whole thing.

I guess it was me letting off some steam, but in order for me to continue doing Punpun, he was a terribly important character.

Asano Inio

Yes, it is exactly that hatred towards the contradictions of society, the feeling that led Asano to write all his works up to that point. However, as I have explained several times in the course of this article, Oyasumi, Punpun is a growth manga, where the author tries to process his past self, to overcome the part of himself that wrote Solanin, the part of himself that was at war with the whole world.

Pegasus is a perfect son of the pedantry that characterized Asano‘s previous manga. Complaining on television, on unified networks, while competing for the role of governor of Tokyo, I think it is the maximum and extreme expression of pedantry. If the author had made this negative part of his ego transpire in Punpun, he would have compromised the whole sense of the work. Also because Asano created the parallel story of Pegasus for the exact same reason that led him to create the character of Aiko: to separate a negative side of his ego so that he can process it and then eliminate it.

A court of fools

After having exposed the nature of Pegasus, or the personification of Asano‘s pedantry, I now go to explain the meaning behind the twelve “magic warriors” that make up his entourage.

If Pegasus represents the pedantic attitude of the author’s personality, it is easy to deduce how his disciples are the metaphor of his audience, or rather, the perception that Asano has of his readers.

Before starting with the analysis of these characters, I give a quick overview of the various components of the Pegasus’ Orchestra. The vast majority of them are presented in chapter 71 of the manga:

Paopao Channel is a mature man, certainly over thirty, who shamelessly admits that he is an idol fanatic. He also points out that he is not a stalker.
Echo Back is an associate professor at the Faculty of Agriculture of a University of Tokyo. She is certainly over thirty years old. She likes to dance, but she is obviously awkward.
White Pig is a girl in her twenties, works as a saleswoman, she is dressed as a maid and she is convinced that girls can do magic.
Having-one-battery-left-is-troublesome is a web designer and he publishes indie magazine as his second job, he is in his thirties, he has a passion for OOPArt (historical finds of dubious dating) and giant mysterious organisms.
Love Infinite is a freeter, so he is in his thirties. Although he looks like a nerd, he gets along with sports, especially swimming.
Ass Hamburger is a twenty-year-old with a slight build. She is extremely shy. Her dream is to become a voice actress, which is why she is attending a specialized school to do it.
Guardian Angel Gibobogigi is a middle-aged woman, mother of two, with a passion for ceramics. Exactly like one of the frustrated women who bothered Yuuichi when he was teaching at the ceramic school, to be precise.
Contrary also in his thirties, a former member of a gang of thugs, he is now an honest postman.
Sweet pretty lonely heart, fluffybro is a professor of mathematics, he is over thirty years old, a friend of Pegasus since university. Obviously this is Wada Akinori, the right hand and co-founder of the Orchestra.
Pussy Princess attends the university faculty of economics. She is depressed because she recently separated from her boyfriend.
Freezie is obviously Shimizu. I have already discussed the nature of this character in the previous paragraph.
Weekly Big Comic Spirits he appears to be an African American, probably also in his thirties. More than a human being, he looks like a kind of ephemeral entity, a yokai. Extremely eccentric, and in possession of what would seem super-powers. The name given to him by Pegasus is the union of the names of the two magazines on which Oyasumi,Punpun was published.

What do all these individuals have in common? First of all the age, they are all in their thirties, the author knows he is writing a seinen manga, so he imagines his audience made up only of mature people. Moreover, they are all social outcasts. They are inept to whom modern society has turned its back. Being in a fragile psychological state, they are easy prey to the eloquence of Pegasus, as it is the only one that places hopes in them, it is the only one that makes them feel part of something.

Asano therefore thinks that all his readers are social misfits, just like him. Who can find interesting a writer only capable of judging other people? Only those who do not have a satisfying social life. The author is aware that he can and must complete his growth path alone, because his readers cannot fully understand his discomfort, they can only feel empathy in front of some scenes or identify themselves with the depression of some characters. This is the message behind the rethinking of most of Pegasus’s disciples during the attempted mass suicide.

Asano knows that he must take that step, he knows he must leave his past behind, he is perfectly aware of how the manga he will write from now on will no longer reflect his usual style of writing; this will lead to an inevitable loss of readers (disciples), but he must do it if he wants to save “his” life. Whether his prediction has come true or not, it is impossible to know for sure, probably not, but it’s sure as someone like me, and certainly other people, was stunned after reading the first chapters of Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction.

There are, however, special cases among these twelve disciples. Besides Shimizu, already discussed in the previous paragraph, there are two other characters that deserve a little in-depth study: Wada Akinori and Weekly Big Comic Spirits.

Starting with Weekly Big Comic Spirits, it is not accidental that he is the twelfth member, as well as the last one, to join the Pegasus’ Orchestra. The name, as I already mentioned, is a clear homage to the two magazines that allowed the serialization of Oyasumi, Punpun, that is: Weekly Young Sunday and Big Comic Spirits. This character is an allegory of the author’s relationship with the publishing industry. Starting from the first encounter occurred at an early age (see the incident with Aiko in chapter 10), up to being the fundamental piece for the realization of his dream of becoming a mangaka (exactly as it was for Pegasus for complete his Orchestra). The exaggerated eccentricity of this character, both in appearance and behavior, is the manifestation of the esteem that Asano has towards publishers and editors of the aforementioned magazines, so crazy as to publish a manga written by a guy who preaches his thoughts as if they were the absolute truth.
Wada Akinori is one of the most interesting characters of the entire work. Wada is not only Pegasus’s right hand man, but he even seems to be the mind behind everything. This is because he is the only one who really understood the mission of Pegasus. Wada is probably inspired by someone very close to Asano: a friend, a relative, a girlfriend; in short, a very intimate person who supported him morally during the darkest period of his life, someone who spurred him on a daily basis in choosing to revolutionize his world. There is another possible interpretation for the character of Wada, much more philosophical and completely disconnected from reality. In the recorded message he leaves to Seki, Wada defines himself as “a man dominated by the absolute, but the heart of men is anything but absolute”. A fitting definition for Asano‘s mental state of that period. However, Wada’s nihilistic vision is affected by the chance encounter with Pegasus. Fascinated by his eccentricity, he decided to revolutionize his perspective on the world. A Nietzschean, an Übermensch choice, in a word will to power. A theme already discussed by the author in Nijigahara Holograph. Wada as a personification of Asano‘s will to revolutionize his existence.

It is not by chance that they are the only two members of the orchestra who have never hesitated, not even for a moment, at the request to take their own life as ordered by their guru.

Utsumanga : a punpunian epilogue

The real epilogue of Oyasumi, Punpun is undoubtedly that “Goodnight …” interrupted by Sachi in the last pages of the 143rd chapter. The last four chapters of the manga can be considered as the scene that in some films comes after the credits, the one where it is shown how the characters will live after the conclusion of the story. But let’s analyze them in detail.

In chapter 144 we find Punpun, just awakened, on the hospital bed. Sachi is there with him, and starts talking to him a little. From the protagonist’s monologue it is possible to extrapolate two fundamental concepts:

“And if there are times you can’t communicate your thought to others very well, I’ll be there to tell them in your.” – The mangaka aspect as a medium to express the most hidden and obscure feelings of the author’s soul. Writing manga as a relief valve, exactly as Oyasumi,Punpun was for Asano.
“…I’m going to draw a manga that’ll sell, so I can get out from this hell created by my self-consciousness.” – Asano then admits that his existential discomfort was only in his head, and that after processing it thanks to Oyasumi, Punpun is now ready for his new opera, a manga that sells many copies, that collects as much public as possible, a funny and carefree manga, in a nutshell: Dead Dead Demon’s Dedededestruction. The author anticipates to his readers what his new artistic direction will be, and consequently his next work.

The 145th is probably the most touching chapter of the entire work. A year has passed since the previous chapter, or rather, since the death of Aiko, it is July 7th. Given that it brings back to the legend of Hikoboshi and Orihime, in fact it is the day in which they are allowed to be together. The same is true for Punpun, every year, on July 7th, he goes back to thinking about Aiko, and tells her how he lived the past year, as if she were still alive. A strongly symbolic chapter, where Asano wants to show us his nostalgia for that part of his past that he has painfully filed away, but that occasionally and melancholically come back to his mind. In this chapter it is even more evident the meaning of the character of Aiko, a child trapped in an adult body. Punpun remembers her as she jumps happily and carefree, while hiding behind a road sign, or on the amusement park rides; he remembers her as a child. The whole chapter represents a confession that Asano makes to his past self, to that childish aspect of his ego, who no longer exists.

In the final two chapters of the manga there is a sudden and unexpected change in the protagonist. The narrative moves on to the character of Harumin, one of Punpun’s school mates at the time of elementary school. Harumin represents the “normality”, a person who has managed to reach maturity without too many problems, a person who has managed rationally to put all sorts of existential problems behind him. The exact opposite of Punpun. Asano wants to highlight the contrast between the different life paths that led these two characters to adulthood. The chance encounter at the bus stop shows how much Punpun and Harumin are at the antipodes. Their relationship with the past is emblematic, Harumin lived by throwing so many things behind him that he could not even remember the name of the main character of the manga. On the contrary, Punpun has lived so long obsessed with his past, to the point of telling all of his childhood to Sachi in such detail that even the latter manages to recognize Harumin even though she has never seen him before, and despite twenty years in more than the memory that Punpun had of him. A shining testimony of how Asano does not consider himself a “normal” person.

Does this mean that Harumin is happy, while Punpun is a depressed person? Absolutely not. Harumin is described as one of those adults who continue to survive by reciting the mantra: “Oh, whatever …”, against which Asano lashed out fiercely in his previous work, Solanin. However, in Oyasumi, Punpun the author’s opinion is renewed, he no longer feels hatred towards them, perhaps even esteem. I say this because Harumin has a mediocre normal life. He has problems with work, he has a girl who doesn’t understand him, and sometimes he wants to kill someone. All problems that resolve by saying: “Oh, okay … It can’t be helped.” Asano probably still considers these people unhappy, but at the same time admires how they manage to avoid existential problems by reciting a simple mantra. Unfortunately for Asano (as for Punpun), he will never be like Harumin.

In the last pages we assist to a déjà vu. Harumin is discussing with a new student, Sasazuka Moe, who has just moved into his school. Being an apprehensive teacher, he tries to encourage her before presenting her to the class. A child falls in love with Moe at first sight. Exactly like the scene present in the first chapter of the manga, when Aiko introduced herself in the class of Punpun. A sort of Nietzschean eternal return. With this scene Asano wants to show how there are, and there will be, so many other Punpun in the world. The same problems that he experienced, have already been experienced by other people, and in the future will be experienced by others. A finale of good omen, which shows how he has overcome his discomfort, so as to encourage readers who recognize themselves in Punpun or other characters to resist and fight against the contradictions of reality. Emblematic of what I have just illustrated is the scene in chapter 85. In this Sachi confesses to Punpun the motivation for which she wants to draw manga: “I don’t want to write something that makes readers escape from reality, I want to write a manga that helps them to fight it. “

Despite this, Oyasumi, Punpun has a reputation for being one of the saddest and most depressing manga ever. Nothing could be more wrong. This manga in fact tells the inner path that led Asano to overcome his existential pain, to defeat his demons, to accept his past. The author finally realizes that what he said, done or written in the past, is the work of a part of his ego that no longer exists (Aiko). Now, his reason for living is the love that he feels for his profession as a mangaka (Sachi). Thanks to this Asano manages to fight the demons of his mind (Oyasumi, Punpun), and now he wants to use it to lighten up life to as many people as possible, giving them a few light-hearted hours away from the harshness of reality (Dead Dead Demon’s Dedededestruction). As the vast majority of his colleagues already do, after all.

In the aforementioned interview, Asano shows his concern about the misinterpretation of Oyasumi, Punpun:

What I was scared of before I did that scene [Mitsuko’s murder] was that people would start calling Punpun a “depressing manga” (“utsumanga“). It’s a pretty new term people use now, and I felt like it was pretty dangerous to have people labelling it that — I really hated to be lumped together in that category.

Asano Inio

Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, Asano‘s fear has come true. The author had the same fate as the protagonist of his manga: to have his own will inexorably crushed by other people; because Oyasumi, Punpun is not only considered a utsumanga, but is considered by many as the depressing manga par excellence.

The most curious circumstance concerns the end of the manga, as it has caused many criticisms against the author. People expected the manga to end with the protagonist’s death, simply because they considered Oyasumi, Punpun an utsumanga, not wondering instead the reason that led the author to choose this ending:

It’s too clear-cut an ending for the story. It wraps it all up a little too well. Living is harder than dying, see, so I thought this was the most painful, worst possible ending for Punpun, and that’s why in the end I went with this final chapter.

Asano Inio

This declaration is part of the typical “half-truths” of the author. Interpreting it through what has been written so far in this article, it is easy to see how Asano is talking about himself. Suicide is the “easy” choice, canceling out all existential pain in a moment, it’s a choice for cowards. So what is the solution to a life of anguish?

Asano knows that this is a quixotic battle, there is no enemy, everything is created by his psyche. What he has to do is resign himself and put his soul in peace. This is the meaning of the manga finale. Punpun accepts and learns to live with his mental disorders, finding not happiness, but a balance that allows him to continue living without sinking into the darkness of his ego.

-*Note : A curiosity. Not even with the colors of the covers of the last two tankobons, the author managed to avoid the utsumanga label. The twelfth volume is colored black, symbolically representing the darkest point reached by Punpun; while the thirteenth is of a pure white, to highlight how the protagonist managed to escape from oblivion, and how he finally reached a balance that allows him to continue living. This does not mean that Oyasumi, Punpun is a joyous or happy manga, it simply means that Asano has achieved emotional stability.

Afterword

Oyasumi, Punpun is undoubtedly the most complete work of Asano Inio, not because it is written in a better way, or because it has a plot or characters better than its previous manga, but simply because it represents the conclusion, the resolution of the author’s existential malaise; that same pain that had generated all his previous works.

It is indeed possible to consider Oyasumi, Punpun as Asano‘s definitive manga, at least until today. A cauldron that contains the fundamental essence of all his past work. From What a wonderful world! he extrapolates the choral element, in fact in Oyasumi, Punpun the point of view of the narration changes frequently, just think of the entire chapters dedicated to Seki, Pegasus, Yuuichi, Mama Onodera, etc. From Nijigahara Holograph the author instead takes up the cryptic and mystical aspect, reasonably weakened in order not to over-conceal the message of the work. Also from this manga also Asano takes up the theme on the perception of God, enormously discussed in Oyasumi, Punpun. As for Solanin, I don’t think I should mention it further, it is enough to say that it was what ignited the creative process of Oyasumi, Punpun. Not by chance after the completion of this last work, Asano decided to write a new epilogue for Solanin, ten years after its publication.

Oyasumi, Punpun represents the point of arrival in Asano‘s maturation path, thus closing not only a chapter of his existence, but also of his profession of mangaka. This does not mean that he will no longer write introspective works, but that he will try to focus his art on entertaining his audience with something more carefree and light-hearted. But we must never forget that Aiko every 7th of July returns to find him.

If you like the work we’ve done, subscribe to the site through the homepage, or follow us on our official Twitter account @_HanaGaSaitaYo_ . And if you can, please make a donation to the blog via the “Donate” page. Thank You.

Hana Ga Saita Yo

Synopsis

Critical Review

An allegorical Summer Triangle

Punpun Onodera (Altair)

The shapes of the Ego

Aiko Tanaka (Vega)

Anguish & terror in Kagoshima

Sachi Nanjo (Deneb)

Metamanga

Ineluctable demons

Time : inevitable alteration

Family is composed by … people

Deus in absentia … opus Dei

Pegasus : the preacher generated by the earthquake

Manga of the absurd

A court of fools

Utsumanga : a punpunian epilogue

Afterword

Truyện hoàn

Mộng Đổng Kính Duyên

Vương quốc điện ảnh

Dancer no Kiroku

Hokenshitsu no Ouji-sama

Truyện mới

Sợi Xích Thần

Kuutei Dragons

Bật Công Tắc

Nhật Ký Thông Lỗ