Thanks to xSeth who recommended this great manga to me on Manga Matchmaker!

Minor Spoilers ahead!
#Premise

Watashitachi no Shiawase no Jikan translates to "Our Happy Time". It tells the story of Juri, a suicidal 29 year-old, who meets every week with death row inmate Yuu.

As a teen, Juri was raped by her piano teacher. Her mother never believed her, causing her to resent her mother and to spend the next decade of her life depressed and suicidal. After another failed attempt at suicide, Juri is taken by her aunt Monica, a nun, on a visit with a death row inmate. That inmate being Yuu, a man who had killed three people at a train station, including a mother and a baby.

Juri and Yuu's interactions start off rocky, as Yuu resented the idea of people from the church coming over to pity him. Eventually though, they start to open up to one another. Before long, Juri's weekly visits become both of their favorite day of the week, and these two people who had no reason to live slowly help each other find one.

Review

At only eight chapters long, Watashitachi no Shiawase no Jikan is a quick read. Because of this, I think it's worth a read regardless if you end up liking it or not. The length also makes it feel almost movie-like. Incidentally, there actually was a movie called Maundy Thursday based on the same Korean novel that this manga was based on.

To be honest, I actually found the first chapter to be quite underwhelming. The manga asks to you get invested in Juri without really knowing anything about her. There wasn't really anything for me to latch on to during the first chapter for me to care about this character. It takes until after the next two chapters for us to find out about both Juri and Yuu's backgrounds, which is where the story actually gets interesting. I honestly think that these should have been moved to the first chapter, or at least hinted at. It was really hard to believe that Juri could understand what Yuu was going through without knowing her background.

After that, it becomes this beautiful story about finding a reason to live, as well as overcoming hate; with Juri of course hating her mother for not believing that she was raped as a teen.

I really enjoyed this manga. The story is in a setting that really interests me. Similar to movies like The Green Mile and Miracle in Cell No.7, it lets us get invested in the story of a death row inmate, with the knowledge that they'll eventually be executed. I think this kind of premise is really interesting. One of my favorite mangas in fact is Bokurano which deals with the same idea of characters knowing they have a limited time left to live.

It is flawed, as I said, but overall it's a very moving story, that I think should deserves more attention.

Spoiler Section

I also want to talk a bit more in-depth about something that I didn't like about the manga.

I mentioned The Green Mile and Miracle in Cell No, 7 earlier. Both of these stories had death row inmates who were actually innocent. In this manga, Yuu actually is guilty, which I really liked. Some stories set in prison tend to portray inmates with an overly flowery scent to make them more likeable for the audience. The film Shawshank Redemption comes to mind. My issue is, that the manga actually chickens out by revealing that Yuu actually only intended to kill one person who he had a personal vendetta against. The mother and baby were only accidental victims who fell onto the train rails when he stole their umbrella. Like the other stories I mentioned, I felt like this was done in order to make the character more likeable and to make us believe that he actually didn't deserve to be on death row. I think it would have been a more impactful story if Yuu, consumed with rage, truly did intend to kill all of his victims. I really want to see a story where the character isn't on death row because of a misunderstanding. Many characters in anime and manga get backstories where they've intentionally killed multiple people, and it usually doesn't make the character any less likeable. I think that a story about a broken character who was driven to kill innocent victims is more interesting than as story about someone who had done it on accident.