Boy's Abyss
a review by analas
a review by analas
Boy's Abyss is basically— although that's not an entirely accurate definition—the offspring resulting from a loveless relationship (in which, of course, the sex is terrible) between Goodnight Punpun and The Flowers of Evil.
This sentence can make it sound like I hate this manga and this is absolutely right. I hate Boy's Abyss and that has nothing to do with the subjects the manga touches. However, before clarifying why I feel this way about the manga, I would like to point out three things:
Now without further ado, let's go to Boy's Abyss.
The art is beautiful, that's undeniable. There are some particularly disturbing panels and I appreciate these double-page spreads where characters expound what they think and feel in a crazy way, showing how much it has tormented them. In contrast, I deeply dislike the visual comedy here, the "goofy reactions". In fact, I think all of the comic relief is bad. It's too out of tune with the manga's tone for the most part, it's like it's become another work.
Two examples of this problem:
And it would be great in other hands, more careful hands, because Ryo Minenami fucks everything. Talk about someone who loves twists but doesn't know how to do them.
Boy's Abyss looks like something written by a teenager who thinks he's depressed because he's self-diagnosed through some internet test, but deep down, he just wants to get some pussy. I did not intend to use vulgarities in my review, but I don't believe there is a more precise way to define it than this. There is no deep message here, no careful exploration of the characters' condition, no careful exploration of how certain traumas lead to certain consequences—much because the author himself prevents it, as in one particularly infuriating case I'll comment on in the Characters topic—nothing. Nothing deeper than "Your life is just yours" or "Idols are people".
Don't expect anything uplifting, anything you can take for life. Just expect cheap tragedy and all that comes with it, the ending should end up being along those lines.
Here's something I genuinely liked as I read it and even later until I realized how the author had weakened it with something I'll touch on Characters. As much as I think the city could be explored a little more, its atmosphere is still heavy. A place where people go to escape from themselves, from their own problems. A place where terrible people, whether naturally or through upbringing, take root and raise children in their image. The kind of place you just feel you shouldn't stay. One of the few things I don't have much to criticize.
Reiji Kurose - He's one of the lesser problems, to be honest. A bland protagonist, with very little personality. Nothing more than a basic victim of a bad environment. And he fucks a lot. And it's a little ridiculous how there are these moments when he just comes to Nagi like: How about we commit suicide?
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Nagi Aoe - Terrible. That's what Nagi Aoe is: An absolutely terrible character. She should be the most important character after Reiji, but her relevance goes only to her inviting him to commit suicide. And that's it. In fact, it's more like she messes up the story. There is so much more going on around and Reiji is obsessed with her because the author wants him to be. Nagi is an obstacle for the other genuinely interesting parts of the story to happen. She's a terrible trigger for the (little) development that Reiji has, because all she did in the story was have a few conversations with him and fuck him. She doesn't seem important, as much as the author pushes that she is and to top it off, she appears pretty little to someone who should be at the center of the story.
Reiji's obsession with her just doesn't seem understandable, on any level. As opposed to, for example, mentioning the aforementioned manga: Kasuga's fixation and later inability to forget about Nakamura in The Flowers Of Evil and Punpun's obsession with Aiko in Goodnight Punpun. What I mean is that his obsession with her , why he is obsessed with her, isn't sufficiently explored to seem understandable. It seems more like this is my problem with Reiji, but it's a lot about Nagi's role in the narrative.
Going back to the fact that Nagi is the most important character after Reiji, we have the following problem: Her development is poor, extremely shallow. She is an idol who has no reason to live and that's it. In the 69 chapters I've read so far, that's all. She has no reason to live and so she does whatever anyone orders her. I swear, she appears little and her apparitions say next to nothing about her. I would venture to say that she has less development in all of these chapters that she has been at the center together than, for example, Ai Hoshino from Oshi no Ko has in the first 9 chapters of the manga.
And there are still problems with this development.
And if so, what kind of experience led her to this level of mental disgrace? It must be explained, but I simply do not believe that the author will be able to explain satisfactorily with some event or series of events that led her to this state.
Oh, of course, there's also the problem that Nagi is practically a tool. She can do anything if anyone tells her to and that's it.
Finally, I can't forget how her work as an idol, for the time being, was totally put aside. The most that was explored, if you can say it was explored, was in two passages with Reiji recognizing that she is a person. Laughable.
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Sakuko "Chako" Akiyama - I like her, although I'm sure Ryo Minenami will find a way to ruin her, the only thing I like without reservations about this manga. Chako is not an extremely well-written or complex character, she is the best you could hope for in this manga, as well as being extremely likable and cute. She definitely doesn't deserve to be in this shit, in this town. I really root for her, that she leaves this place, hopefully accompanied by Reiji.
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Yuri Shibasawa - Her. She's an efficient, genuinely hateful villain with some rather disturbing moments, but she suffers from a problem that is the inconsistency later in the story, in which the author tries to reconcile her insanity with her unhealthy affection for the protagonist and a calculating facet that hadn't been shown at any point in history before. Two of those things would be understandable, but the three just don't match, especially given the way this calculating facet breaks the way she had previously been established as a frustrated and oppressed woman by the life she lives who has given in to insanity with the situation.
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Gen Minegishi - At first I didn't like him. So I started to like him and I started to find him interesting and finally, it got to the point where I realized how inconsistent he is too. It's not like you can't have a character who acts the opposite of how he feels, tsunderes exist and all that. The problem with Gen is that the way he acts is too opposite to how he feels. Totally understandable that the shit he experienced changed him, but mind you: If he loves Reiji, why has he been for a long time treating him like a fucking slave? As if he absolutely didn't care for him and even despised him when he went so far as to kill to protect him? It just doesn't sit well with me.
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Yuko Kurose and Kosaku Esemori (Akira Nozoe) - First, what I thought about them, which I don't think should be discussed separately.
I sympathized with Yuko at first, despite the weight on Reiji's back. She really sold the image of a mother who sacrifices herself for her children and for her mother and you could clearly see that she was suffering.
"So this guy has a cuckold fetish?" was the first impression I had of Esemori and the second impression wasn't much better, as his interactions with Chako made me immensely uncomfortable, expecting the worst. He was a mysterious figure and I was interested, I wanted to know what was up with his double-suicide attempt with a girlfriend in the past and all that.
Then, of course, came the flashback about them and I really enjoyed that part. It developed very well about the city, as well as about Yuko and Akira. I liked the way Yuko showed how horrible this place was. And well, when there was the passage where Yuko said she wouldn't leave the city because she wanted to have a child there, I had a thought:
She wants to have a child in this city because she wants to raise someone like Akira, who will see beyond this place, who will want more, someone who will be for someone else like Akira was for her. A healthy seed in this sick soil. However, living in this place destroyed that pure purpose that she had and she degenerated. Another victim of this city.
What did I get? Yuko Kurose wanted to have a son in the city to raise him the way she was raised, making him suffer as she did, to have someone who understands her fully and dies with her.
__AND NO, ESEMORI DID NOT MARRY NAGI BECAUSE SHE REMEMBERED HIM ABOUT YUKO. OF COURSE NOT. HE MARRIED HER AND TOOK HER TO THE CITY WITH THE PURPOSE OF PUTTING HER ON REIJI'S PATH.
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And so, the corrupt victim that was Yuko Kurose ends and with it, the way the city was crafted, well crafted through her as a really awful place because... HOW WAS YUKO EVER A VICTIM IF THIS WAS HER OBJECTIVE AT THAT POINT OF LIFE?
Honestly, I'm going to stop here because I'm tired of talking about this manga. I think we have here a great example of Ryo Minenami's appreciation for plot twists without being able to do it decently. No, I'm not going to talk about the Yuko-Gen relationship and all that. I'm tired.
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Shounen no Abyss is a huge waste of potential. A manga that could have been amazing with characters that could have been amazing and a story that could have lived up to the potential it had. A work that I continue to read just to see the next bullshit that the author will do and what the conclusion will be for the only character I appreciate.
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