This review contains spoilers!!!!

Oyasumi punpun is one of those manga i hesitated a lot before deciding to finally finish up as the first 15 chapters gave me the feeling this manga has good chances to be a complete failure. The reason behind this is the huge amount of nihilistic and pessimistic elements Ino Asano was putting in almost every page and the random use of symbolism and escapism. I usualy don't have problems with the use of such elements in the story, nihilism is an important theme in '' monster'' and escapism is present in ''vinland saga'' and i have both of them in my top 5. But to have every character drawn in a creepy way, all time doing weird and random stuff isn't a good way to portray a meaningless world especialy since the manga is meant to be a realistic depiction of life. Using random symbolism so often doesn't make the story any deep, and continuously making references to escapism doesnt count as a valid critisism. So the result after 15 chapters is that i was unable to say what oyasumi punpun is about, and i couldn't understand how Ino Asano's mind was working. I literally felt it was the work of a drunk person drawing random shit and writing whatever comes to his mind. So i was intending to drop this manga as i felt i have no connection to it. But the high rate was bothering me and i thought maybe i was missing the point of the series, maybe there is a meaning to what i couldn't understand, maybe the story is yet to be explored and maybe the the mangaka will explain why is he using all theses nihilistic elements and escapism references. So what has changed now that i have finished the manga???

Well, i was simply disapointed. The story was still the same, just random events and non connected arcs. I did like some parts of the manga where the writing was good, for example, yuuichi's arc was good in terms of characterisation and character development, but his story didn't have any impact whatsoever on the other characters. It was an isolated story that didn't give any addition to the plot. And the same thing can be said about the other stories. Seki and shimizu had their own story, punpun and aiko had their separate adventure, punpun and sachi's relationship didn't impact the others, punpun and yuuichi, punpun and his father, punpun and his mother... And of course the cult has his own story. All the stories were disconected or at the best have very limited links. This may be done deliberatly by the mangaka to portray some kind of distancing in japan's society, but this can't reflect the reality as it is unimaginable that all these characters stories aren't connected while punpun is almost every time a part of a relationship. The consequence of this choice is that there was no real plot going on, and the current events are independant of prior ones, and so it's easy to forget what happened in the previous part especialy with a terrible monotony in the rythme which i'll discuss in the next paragraph.

The rythme of this series is one of its biggest issues. You barely notice that there is something progressing, it' s not due to a slow pacing , but rather to a terrible monotony in the writing. The rythme is the same almost throughout the whole series that you can't tell where is the buildup and where is the climax. This again might be intentional, in order to describe the boring life of japan, but to maintain this rythme the whole time was exhausting. Worst than this, the monotony isn't only concerning the rythme, but also what happening to the characters: the same idea is always being repeated, two characters will end up having sex after a random succession of events. It is as if the mangaka doesn't have any other ideas to progress the story other than relying on sexual desir. We've seen this over and over that it became predictible even in the most hopless situations.

The characters in this manga are a bunch of mentaly sick people. Every character is a psychopath or at least having something wrong with his mind. There is literally no sane character that could be described as a normal person, even midori who seemed like a normal sane girl ended up unjustifiably riding punpun's dick when he was still in high school.
This weird way of portraying the characters made it impossible for the me to understand any of them. You can't know what a character could be thinking or what he will do except that he or she could at any moment be having sex with someone. This will lead me to talk about what drives these characters and to what extent the managka explained that.

Well, Asano Ino never explained what truely drives the characters and what pushes them to take an act, all he has done is describing what they were doing or showing their weird psyche reaction especialy in punpun's case. But what he was showing was hardly realistic as he usualy uses some meaningless symbolism that he never tried to explain. So the result was that the characters felt unrealistic although they are meant to reflect what society is like.

Now talking about the themes of oyasumi punpun, Asano Ino should be praised for tackling some topics concidered as taboos. He really had the guts to talk about sex, crime, suicide, marginalization, bullying.... But the major themes of his manga was the boredom and meaninglessness of human life. But how did he approach these topics??
What the mangaka did is describing a society where theses themes are presents: throughout all this work he addopted a descriptive method to talk about social and psychological problems without reaching their depth, i mean without talking about the causes of these problems and trying to find some solutions. This descriptive method is reflected by his work art, the way he draws the panels is similar to camera shots, as if he was taking photos from real life. The art style is simply amazing, obviously the best part of the series, but even this best part has problems related to the story telling and the descriptive method i've just talked about : eventhough the art is gorgeous, it wasn't a backup to the story, as the sceneries were often independent to the dialogues. There was also an overuse of pannels describing the space that were irrelevant to what is happening.

So, going back to the descriptive approach, Asano Ino managed to describe a world of complete boredom, a world where there is only suffering and depression, but he stopped here, he didn't analyse what causes this suffering and how can human beings potentially overcome this situation. No, actually he did give an answer to the second part of this problematic (the solution part) : his answer is there is no solution, people can't escape the boredom of life, they can only live in suffering or depression. But how did he come to this conclusion?? Well simply he didn't come to any conclusion as this was the hypothesis that constructed the manga, it's a conviction that he forced into the story, the same way he forced the idea that '' god doesn't exist'' without saying why or how he or his characters figured it out. He also forced the idea that escapism is bad, without even trying to explain why. Asano Ino' s nihilistic view of the world was forced upon the reader without even tackling the philosophical problematic of the meaninglessness of life. maybe he thought that describing a society where the characters either suffer or escape the suffering by believing in gods or any other potential existence, is sufficient to demonstrate that life is meaningless, but he was completely wrong as his proof is the thesis itself.

I'm not against the idea that life could really be meaningless, or that what is left for humanity is either suffering or boredom, but what pissed me off is the abscence of any type of argumentation to proove this idea. Philosophers have already discussed this topic and those who agreed on this idea have some solid arguments. But the mangaka never tried to explain this. So the result was that what all the manga was about is describing a distopian society that doesn't reflect the real life, because in reality there are some people who live in happiness, because events are not only the result of coincidences as Asano is trying to portray. Escapism isn't necessarily bad because it can lead to a better life or to happiness even if it's just an illusion. The problem with this manga is that it was a one sided aproach, you can't talk about suffering without talking about happiness, you can't portray a world of complete depression neglecting the possiblity that some one is living in happiness.

The last thing i will discuss in this review before the conclusion is the ending. OMG this was one of the worst ends i've ever seen. From the moment punpun and aiko killed aiko's mother, the manga went downhill. That scene were they killed the woman was one of the worst plot twists i've witnessed, it was random, meaningless and forced. The writer was so desprate to make the characters fall into depression that he started forcing meaningless twists with no sense of realism: first punpun fixed the injury of aiko who has been stabbed by her mother, then we are going to ignore punpun's stabbed leg, aiko randomly gouged out punpun's left eye because he only needs one eye to see only her, they randomly had sex in the woods while the police is looking for them as if their survival doesn't matter... And then randomly aiko committed suicide while just before she said she doesnt want to die. This sequence of events is the most laughable and stupid one i've ever seen, and to finish the shit the last chapter will be about a character irrelevant to the plot, a charcter you haven't seen since more than 50 chapters, and the idea of this final chapter is that all that awaits humanity is depression, as if it's new in the manga!!! the writer symbolically ended up the manga with a scene similar to that '' love at first sight scene'' in the begining of the series, implicitly meaning that there will be the same mistakes, and that humanity couldn't escape her fate. This ending was is an insult to anyone who values himself as person who thinks, if the mangaka was planning this end from the begining then he didn't need 147 chapter to come to this bullshit, 40 chapters will be sufficient to force upon the reader his pessimistic view of the world, and to be honest chapter 70 is the summary of all this manga and would be enough to convey Asano's messages, he really didn't need all those characters in the story and he could have writen the cult's ridiculous story in a one shot.

All in all, oyasumi punpun was a failure for me, a failure because it could have been handled better, a failure because it had a lot of potentiel to be great. There was some moments i really liked, there was some really good parts especialyYuiichi's arc, there was a character called Sachi that had potentiel to be a great character, but the mangaka didn't know how to end her story. The art work was amazing, but overall this wasn't an enjoyable read except from some parts, as all it lefts you with is a meaninglessness depression. There is no depth or substance to the story whatsoever as it only describes the dystopian situation of total depression. I read manga an watch anime to learn something new, to see a better world and to have great moments including sad an depressing moments, but this manga didn't help me discover anything new in life, as it's a 147 chapters description of Schopenhauer's pessimisme, if only it had a philosophical approach, my normal and ordinary life is way better than the life Asano Ino portrayed in his work, i can't recall it had some great moments that left me impressed, there wasn't not even what can be called sad moments as it was depression all the time. i couldn't understand the characters and thus couldn't connect with them and finally i didn't feel bad for those who died. However, i do understand the popularity of this series and i even can accept its high rate because there is a lot of people who can relate to this manga, and to be honest this is the type of manga that can only be good if you are able to relate to it. So for those who can connect with such kind of manga, this can be a fantastic read for them. For those who have experienced so much depression and live in a negative atmosphere, Oyasumi punpun can be a mirror to their life and thus they can find is great, but for those who value their existence and lives, for those who seek enjoyment and knowledge from reading manga, this is not a work i would recommend, because it won't add anything good to your life except that it will remind you, ironicly, to value more your existence.