blood on the tracks
as soon as i have a modicum of free time, i waste it... i read blood on the tracks by shuzo oshimi on a whim. it's a manga about a boy with a very overprotective mother who pushes the boy's cousin off of a cliff. i can only ever write so much when i want to complain, huh?
first of all, that manga was way too fucking long. what do you mean this shit went on for 17 volumes and 6 years? every page has four panels at most (and usually only 1 or 2), so you can get through the full thing in an hour. of course, like all manga, dedicating a spread or a page to a single panel image is an effective way to convey strong emotions. but you don't need to waste space so brazenly for scenes that don't have impact like that. this manga should have been three volumes at most. the fact that it even has a "post-timeskip arc" is ridiculous to me because i believe the epilogue should have at max been a single volume. it felt like it was it felt like it was neverfucking ending slogfest by the end.
the actual story was fine i guess. it was compelling enough to keep reading. i'm really fine with seiichi regressing and becoming a worse person, it's only that the ending dragged on so long after it that it got mid as hell. however, while reading, you can't help but get frustrated at the other characters in the kid's life— namely the dad, who just seems so passive throughout everything and never properly acknowledges what he could have done for his son. although he apologizes and says he wishes he could've done more, bro doesn't even like, consider therapy for his 14 year old kid who saw his cousin fall off a cliff. even if the story takes place in the 90s, there's a flashback to 2017 where he could've at least been like "oh if only child therapy was well known back then..." but instead his useless ass just dies.
seiko was utterly senseless, and i guess that's the point. i think it was an interesting choice for the author to write her as having a verbally abusive childhood, and then projecting that onto seiichi in a hyper-overprotective manner instead (though she did end up getting verbally and physically abusive after the cliff incident). her most interesting moment, IMO, is when she abandons seiichi in the middle of his trial, which leads him to look crazy and awful instead. however, one thing i think they should have focused on more is the freudian aspect. it's honestly weird how little attention it gets outside of a few chapters in the manga— like, why are you writing a scene where seiko kisses seiichi but then never acknowledge how it traumatizes him again after the timeskip when you do still focus on her verbal and physical abuse? it's just very strangely a big deal and glossed over at the same time. either fully acknowledge that it's part of seiichi's trauma or remove that aspect of her character entirely.
after reading, i realized that shuzo oshimi was the author of the flowers of evil, which is one of my least-favorite manga ever. i'm sure it's probably good but it was just too disturbing to read. and i do think the point of the manga was to make you feel disturbed, but flowers of evil just had you thinking "14 year olds do not fucking act like this" at every moment. i'm saying this as someone who likes the author of lychee light club. blood on the tracks, meandering as it was, did a pretty good job of making it disturbing and kinda realistic at the same time. actually i've been complaining constantly that blood on the tracks isn't realistic or makes sense so scratch that.
speaking of 14 year olds who do not fucking act like this, i forgot that i read a couple chapters of children by yuu ichimiya a few months ago. it felt so boring... i really like stories that focus on fucked up childlike innocence, but it's not interesting once the kids know that the things they are doing are wrong. like i do not give a fuck about the warriors of hope from danganronpa. it's more interesting when it's a character such as big mom from one piece, who (while being an adult) has an innocent mentality that leads her to making the lives of everyone else worse. or such as in [redacted] where the final twist is that the baby was unintentionally the killer (this is not the simpsons).
the most positive element of blood on the tracks was probably the artwork. the artist did a good job of conveying expressions and he drew the female characters so beautifully. it was definitely a step up from the flowers of evil. anyway i hope everyone in all of his manga just die.