__Introduction. __ Oyasumi Punpun (Lit. “Goodnight Punpun”), is a coming-of-age drama manga by Inio Asano, who is notable for his other works, such as Dead Dead Demon’s Dededede Destruction. It follows the life of Punpun, a child drawn like a bird (but is seen as a normal person to others), through middle school to his early 20’s. He has a dysfunctional family, has gotten into quite a lot of traumatic moments, and he is, very, very hypersexual. Do keep in mind that this review will contain some spoilers. I will also not talk about the subplots regarding the other characters, only Punpun’s own story and his family members.

__Trigger warning for: Rape, depression, pedophilia.
__

__Plot, Characters, and Personal Opinions.
__
The story starts off with Punpun’s and his family’s introductions. Papa is a man who lazies around and is a violent alcoholic, but is generally kind to his son, and Mama is someone who generally does not care for the world around her. Punpun is introduced as a young boy with ambitions. He is fascinated by space, and after learning that his crush lives an unfortunate life, he plans to go to space with her. His uncle has taught him to call upon God with the chant: “Dear God, dear God, tinkle, tinkle, hoy!”. Everything starts to go wrong for him when his father gets jailed for attacking his wife.

Starting off with my personal opinions of the story- I just did not like it. To me, “Oyasumi Punpun” is just angst porn, written to be seen as relatable to others, to read and nod, “Oh, just like me…”. I, too, come from a dysfunctional family, with an aggressive father, and a suicidal mother, just like Punpun. However, what differs between Punpun and I, is that I do not blame the others for what happens to me, and I do not try to justify my actions with what has happened to me.
The main problem with Punpun is that often he gets intro trouble himself, and he starts blaming others for what he has done. “I am suicidal because of my upbringing, and I cannot, for the love of my life, get therapy, because what is therapy anyway?”. “Sure, I did sexually harass multiple women in my life, but I got raped! Well, I did harass someone before getting raped, but I am a man! It’s not my fault I’m hypersexual!” Punpun blames what he does for what has happened to him and blames the others for it, not in his own words, but with his actions. Punpun decides to ruin his life for himself, makes decisions that will ruin it for him, and blames others for his decisions. He does not try to get any kind of help, not from someone he trusts, such as Sachi or his landlord, or even a professional. He is aware that he is mentally not doing well, and that he had a horrible childhood. But he uses his bad upbringing as an excuse for his horrible acts. According to Oyasumi Punpun’s Wikipedia Article, the mangaka himself has said that he “created the manga for readers who could accept immorality rather than see the protagonist as a role model”, but from seeing the other reviews for Oyasumi Punpun on Anilist and even in other websites not relating to anime, the opposite has happened. Punpun’s actions is no excuse for harassing people, and his only resolution should not have been trying to commit suicide, when he did not even try to call for help for his depression.

Regarding the subplots involving the families, all except for Papa’s felt incredibly pedophilic to me. The uncle is a pedophile, Mama is a pedophile, and the uncle’s wife is a pedophile. Almost all of the subplots not involving Punpun’s friends and the cult are pedophilic, and the author always tries to find an excuse to their pedophilia. How can a 16 year old “seduce” a grown man in his 20’s? And why is he going along with it? Why is he saying that a 16 year old girl seduced him as an excuse? A 16 year old cannot seduce an adult, and to try to do that as a child means she was groomed to act like that, or was made to think it was okay. The manga trying to portray this 16 year old seducing a man as something that “kids just do” is immoral and disgusting. And what about Mama falling in love with a very young boy? Why is this portrayed as romantic? Why is her falling in love with a young boy seen as her last way of being hopeful about her life? Is that the excuse for her? Because she is suicidal? Mama is disgusting, and she, like Punpun, does not try to get psychological help, both for her depression and for her pedophilia.
Continuing with my rant about the subplots, the parts with Midori is what made me hate this story more than I ever felt while reading the chapters before it happened. At first, she was my favorite character, and I thought, “Oh God, finally, a normal, sane character!”, but alas. She gets into a relationship with Punpun’s pedophile uncle, excuses him ghosting her and cheating on her, has a child with him, and the worst of all: she rapes Punpun. Because he looks like his uncle/her husband, and because she misses him, she rapes him. And Punpun can’t say anything because up until that moment, he saw her as the mother figure he never had. He is scarred for life, hates her guts, and what she did to him influences several of his other actions, including him harassing other women and trying to commit suicide. There are a lot of sub-plots involving pedophilia in general, including Punpun and his friends finding a “chubby loli” AV.

__Art Style.
__
The art style is a mix of realism and 2000’s manga style, similar to the works of Chica Umino. It is pretty, and very, very expressive. One thing I like about the art style is that even the female characters are unique and distinctive. Punpun and his family being left as crudely drawn birds to put the reader and their family in their places is a very well done idea, however I do feel like the story would’ve made sense if they had proper designs anyway. Though since they’re easier to draw, and the backgrounds are very well detailed, that is a plus when it comes to making detailed art. The God character being portrayed as a photorealistic, creepy picture of a guy with an afro smiling, to me, is perfect. It immediately gives the idea to the readers that this characters is not to be trusted. I do like the mangaka’s illustrations a lot.

Though I don’t have to mention this, if you’re reading a fan translation, you might come across very racist depictions of black men.

The fan translations make it worse by making their speech very broken and in a stereotypical way, making it unpleasant to read. Reading the official release is a better idea, as it has fixed the art depicting the black men to look less like a minstrel joke, and has fixed the dialogue as well.

The writing.
Though the plot, to me, is very bad and not enjoyable, the writing is nice to the eyes. They have a poetic vibe to them, making the reader think they actually do relate to Punpun. The way Punpun and his friends talk is expected of their age, especially when they’re younger. I like younger Punpun’s meltdowns and his fast and upset thoughts about everything happening around him. Those feel relatable to me, at least.

__ Conclusion.
__
I didn’t like the story. I think it can be seen as an art piece of some sort, but it is not a good story to me. Author has a fixation with making every single adult figure in Punpun’s life a pedophile and then justifying that. I have not read his other works, but I will, and maybe I will review them as well and compare them with Punpun. The art is good. You can read this if you feel like reading or maybe feeling something, but it is definitely not a masterpiece, and despite the mangaka not wanting it to be a depressing manga, he failed to do so. Papa deserved better. #JusticeForPapa2013. That’s all, folks!