I was actually thinking if this kind of outlook about life and people are covered in a media. I'm glad that I found this masterpiece. I discovered Inio Asano originally through Solanin (which is also a masterpiece for me,) but discovering Punpun was a different impact.
The last chapters are like nothing else ive read before. I was staring at my ceiling for 30 minutes trying to process what the hell happened. One of the greatest manga ive read in my life
When i read it i enjoyed it. Like, PunPun was me. I was depressed and this manga suited my feeling. Right now i am not like that. Positivity is my trait and i love it.
@@SeaGee yo. Hi... can you read and recommend 1. Ijimeru Aitsu Ga Waruinoka, Ijimerareta Boku Ga Waruinoka? 2. We Shall Now Begin Ethics Both are short mangas (under 30 chps!) And yeah shout out pls! Also cool i was able to suport you from 10k
I wish I knew that back then because a few years ago I was depressed pretty badly and just so coincidentally encountered this manga and decided to read it and it amplified my depression so much that I even ended up dropping school for a while...it was so bad that my memories of that period are somewhat blurred and less time sensitive with a feeling of time confusion cuz I didn't even bother getting out of bed much and got my sense of time fucked up by doing so. Fortunately that period of time has passed and my fucked up mentality got better with time and I am pretty much a normal functioning human being again :D
PunPun is the manga that finally dethroned SBR from my favorite animanga. It is a truly masterful work, where everything is perfectly done. Pacing may slow down at some points, but so does life, and PunPun is a story of life. If you’re ready, read it. If you’re struggling, don’t. If you want to see the ‘slice-of-life where life slices back’ here you go.
I think you have to be at a certain point in your life in order to enjoy Punpun - out of school and over the usual things that have happened in your teenage years(family matters, crushes, etc.) because Punpun makes you relive those things, but also not old enough to consider them just unimportant drama. That said, the second half of the manga hit me very hard...
Asano said that Punpun is actually a love story, this man wanted to do a love story and made the most convulted, horrifying and beautiful thing on the medium lmao
I barely read Solanin a couple weeks ago and I enjoyed how relatable it is! Hits the heart strings! I read up to the second volume of punpun and I can’t help feeling so intrigued by the characters! The little abstractions of philosophies the characters have add to this mesmerizing feeling. I’m diggin it so far!
Punpun has always been one of the stories that I was unsure about reading but I was never sure if I was mentally prepared for it. I think I should give this a try
You said it right there at the start of the video, although without realising it. "How do you like your stories? Genuine." If a story is genuine, then I'll be more inclined to give it the time. Doesn't matter if it's happy-go-lucky or full of despair. At the end of the day, it's fiction; it's all the exact same. I read Punpun and I thought it was great, it didn't hit me in the same way it did many others, but I liked it because it felt genuine. At least, most of the time. I know that some people don't see it as such, some people are more sensitive or feel emotion when they read fiction and can have their mood decide what they're capable of handling at that moment. I just think, if Punpun is going to absolutely crush you, then go right ahead and read it. If you turn your back from fiction like this, you're just blocking yourself from a chance to get stronger.
Punpun fir me was definitely an interesting series, it was the first time I had to take breaks like u said and process what we see. However one aspect that was 'comically confusing' was peagus' story line. Later revealed to be a classic shonen plot taking place in the series gave me a whole new look at the character who opposed punpun thought's. The series overall is tragic and that's what grips you to see how deep that dark whole goes and one of those cliche tags we see all books and movies get are usually terrible but this series has been given to perfectly describe it is unparalleled "a slice of life that slices back."
Thank you for this review. Sounds like this manga takes you somewhere mentally and emotionally that I’ve been for most of my life and am still fighting to get out of, so am very grateful for the heads up to pass on it.
Great video! It's the only manga I have read that captures my own childhood so well, without the dramatic aspects of course. It was like a blast from the past that you didn't know exist. Such a great manga!!
I hear that it is depressing, but is it nihilistic? I'm down with supporting and reading dark stuff, but I'm nor really into nihilism, since I hate dealing with media that communicates that everything sucks and that we should just give up. As long as Punpun has a good message, despite of how dark it may be, I'd like to give it a go.
Im not too far into it yet but i love the heaviness of it The only way to get past anything is to wade through the sludge and let it consume you so you can learn to accept it and media like punpun gives you an excuse to pull the all negativity out of your soul and confront it face to face
After I read it, it upset me really badly but all in all I loved the story and it changed me in the positive way. (I think haha) Despite that I totally agree with you and I can’t recommend it to everyone because the content is really upsetting and not for everyone. Still love it and great vid
While we are on the subject of mangas that deals with a trasitional phase of life, I recommend you check out "Holyland". As a teenager, I absolutely devoured it, and although I see a lot of technical flaws with it today, it seems to capture something about those early years in a profound way. (Off topic I know and sorry about that but there is no community tab on your channel. You don't need one but that's where I would have posted otherwise.)
Not off topic at all bro. When teenage Punpun living by himself, it is very similar to Yuu's life at the start of Holyland. At that point they would probably have understood each other very well
I'm always down for manga recommendations too. I actually went through Holyland at some point during COVID lockdowns but never made a video on it. But yeah gotta say I am enjoying these coming into your adulthood type of manga
Great video! Glad it made me found this channel too :) When you said sometimes you had to stop just to process what you just read, yep, feel you hahaha Some friends had told me this manga was depressing but I still didn't expect how it made me feel and I really loved that, even if it didn't make me feel exactly good, idk. On another note, please what's the piano song that sounds at 2:25? (well and most of the vid I think) it sounds SO familiar but I can't recognize it and ahhhhhh
as odd as this might sound i read all of Oyasumi Punpun while in a depressed state in my life and while you would assume it would have made my depression worse by the time i finished the manga i had a new found sense of hope and Happiness.
I’m at the lowest point of my life and I read Punpun. I can’t really tell if it helped or made it worse. I loved it though. Makes going back to some regular shonen or slice of life pretty hard imo.
Same it was more entertaining than anything. Tried to put myself in his shoes at first but then it kept getting more and more outlandish with every bad decision he made.
Unpopular opinion but Punpun was so incredibly boring especially the side story with the cult thing or whatever... The story was trying so hard to be deep and depressing that it just became edgy and corny 😂 80% of what Punpun thinks about all the time is sexual assault. Sachi Nanjou was by far the best character.
Fair take. Honestly I don't think that's too unpopular an opinion. For some, Punpun was something really confronting and challenging. For others, it's just cynical for the sake of being cynical. That's the nature of stories though I guess. I'll absolutely agree with you on that cult side story. Really hoped that was going somewhere important or interesting but ah.. yeah I guess not
I read this on and off throughout my high school years. I would binge chapters for a few days then kinda go off back to living and whatnot. I did this with multiple very long and overarching mangas like Vinland Saga and To Your Eternity. Especially if I was going through a bumpy moment in life, even if I wasn’t fully aware of it at the moment. But Punpun got me through some shit, lots of girl troubles and family issues too. Even personal shit I had goin on whether it was related previously mentioned issues or just to figuring out how to grow as person. Punpun felt too relatable at times of my life. I remember being at being at a very rough transitional stage in my life, I was just out of high school. I dropped out of college and some more shit, and hadn’t finish the manga by then and I was like fuck it why it. And man.. it was so depressing but also somehow so cathartic. Being able to dive that deep into the abyss with something holding my hand, but then also gliding back up to a hopeful and generally happy outlook at the end. It put my battery in my back truly.
I read punpun back when i had some of the hardest days of my life. I don't want to call it depression or some kind of mental illness since in my opinion it was to be expected and a normal evolution for my then kind of weak teenage self. And quite honestly punpun felt like one of the only things (possible THE only thing) that actually understood me. Back then i was feeling almost exactly what the manga was trying to make me feel. Reading a manga about a lost teenager as a lost teenager felt more comforting than anything else back then when i could hardly believe that what i was living was reality. I wouldn't call it unsettling personally, nor extremely depressing, just unapologetically grounded. What i would call unsettling is something like redo of healer or some other shitshow of a manga like that but punpun is seriously grounded. It makes you face questions that you maybe haven't faced yet and even if it might feel bad, by facing these toughass questions you really do come out a much wiser man. If you just don't want to feel bad sure, don't go into it and don't push yourself to read it if you can't. But don't stop yourself if you find yourself not being able to stop reading even if you're struggling. It might become a good friend. Or not idk
Another interesting manga that is constantly being brought up as "you need a right mindset" before reading. This video will help me. Thanks as always! edit: 4:08 this answered my question. It's not the right mindset for me yet.
The point of this video is literally to tell the target audience of Punpun not to watch Punpun because it might be difficult for them. Absolutely shameful and cowardly outlook in my opinion
The intention was to give a quick insight into the series, particularly around it's dark subject matter so people can make up their own minds. Not that people should avoid it because it's difficult, but to give a heads up on content that folks might want to avoid. I really enjoyed the story actually. Perhaps "was really engaged" would be more accurate. But I also recognize there were points in my life that this would've just fueled fires I was trying to put out. Nothing shameful in protecting your mental health in dark times
I made the terrible mistake of reading this manga when I was at a horrible place mentally, so for the people who haven’t read it and are interested in reading it please make sure you’re in a good mental headspace PLEASE.
