Sundome
Throughout my life I’ve seen things, watched things, read things, experienced things, Sundome was really an experience.
*SPOILERS AHEAD*
I don’t think there’s much about Sundome’s story that I could say much different than many others before me have already said, so I’ll get into the parts that I think were well done.
I will give Sundome props for staying true to a serious illness, It didn’t have any weird, “HEY LETS MAKE HER LIVE SO PEOPLE WILL BE HAPPY” type things. I’ve seen it with Clannad, I’ve seen it with Great Teacher Onizuka, but I didn’t see it here. Though I do love to live in a fantasy world where everything has a golden Hollywood ending where all is happy, but I know this has never and will never be the case with reality. That’s great because when you build your story off a base of realism, and end with realism it’s oddly touching. With me, it takes a lot for anything to make me legitimately sad; this manga is most definitely one that did this. To be quite honest, I knew Kurumi wasn’t going to make it through this whole manga since her first nose bleed. Which made me hope that I was wrong, which wasn’t the case because I was right, to watch a person slowly fall apart over time isn’t something easy to deal with, but Hideo(Protagonist) dealt with it in the most realistic manner possible, with true acceptance. I suppose it was just easier for me to relate to because I’ve had to go through the various emotions leading up to the death of someone I truly care for. Throughout the story Hideo went through each of the Kubler Ross model of Grief, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. The manner in which he went about each of these stages truly added to how the tone of the final chapters felt, which I can’t praise this author enough for making me feel the same way I had in the past.
The Characters in Sundome were for the most part very 3-Dimentional, relatable, funny, and realistic. I found it really great that I feel as if I could say I’ve met people throughout my life who were just like these. What else is great is that they aren’t portrayed as what they are on the surface. As you read on you get to see how the hormonal sex obsessed teenagers evolved into someone you can really care for.
The art of Sundome besides the excellent use of shading isn’t anything special, but it doesn’t need to be. I’ve always thought that anime’s & manga’s don’t need to have great art to be great. It’s the story and characters that make the literature excellent.
Sundome is most definitely something worth reading. It seems that people get turned off of it because of what they think the portrayal of sex will be. The same with Onani Master Kurosawa, which by the way is an excellent piece of literature. I thought that was going to be some stupid ecchi crap before I read it. I was very very wrong on that and I’m happy that I’ll never make that mistake again. So really, don’t judge a book before reading it.