It's been a really long time since I've reviewed anything but I'd like to get back into it, I have a lot of favourites that I have a lot of thoughts on. This review doesn't contain any major unmarked spoilers in the "Introduction" or "Critical Review" section, but the analysis contains some.
#Introduction

Boys on the Run is Kengo Hanazawa (known for I Am a Hero)'s second manga, beginning serialisation the same year as his first manga, Ressentiment, ended. Although Hanazawa is one of my favourite mangakas, Ressentiment is easily his weakest manga, and, aside from some themes on artificial intelligence and technological advancement, is basically a cesspool of the lowest parts of otaku culture (makes me wonder of his time as an assistant on Ichi the Killer rubbed off a bit on him lmao). While it tries to provide a sort of sympathetic angle to the main character Takuro Sakamoto, he is a truly pathetic guy drowning in loneliness who needed, desperately, to be saved, who instead ended up being fed off of by everyone around him. He's almost impossible to root for. Although people may consider somebody like him a parasite, many people were leeching off of him too. It ended up painting a very cynical and misanthropic picture of society and it had an extremely rushed ending due to it being axed (like pretty much every other Hanazawa manga, I hope Under Ninja doesn't share the same fate) which left you very unsatisfied and feeling pretty down. Boys on the Run, to me, is the Anti-Ressentiment.

Toshiyuki Tanishi is probably one of the most pathetic, unlucky, gross, and weak main characters I've ever seen, but also one of the most likeable and inspirational and one of the only characters I could feel myself genuinely rooting for with every fibre of my being. His journey is very humbling and he is one of the biggest and greatest underdogs, and someone a lot of guys can relate to, especially teenagers and young adults. Despite this, there are a lot of universal takeaways from his story which are relevant to everybody, especially now in a generation that seems oddly more aimless and disconnected than ever before, which I will try to unpack and give my thoughts on in this review.

#Critical Review Reading this is one of the most visceral experiences I've ever had with any media. If you can't handle really awkward and cringeworthy moments, this is NOT the manga for you. Pretty much every chapter will have you wince in pain, the second-hand embarrassment is palpable and you'll wonder how he can even find it in him to keep going. He gets pushed around by everybody and lets misfortune come his way. When confronted with anything head on, he stutters, and then he runs. Based on the ratings, I can tell this wasn't really well recieved over here. In Japan, it must've been at least a bit popular, given that it spawned a J-drama and a movie adaptation starring popular band Ging Nang BOYZ frontman Kazunobu Mineta as Tanishi. They also made a song for the movie with a great music video which I'll talk more about later. The song is fire, it captures the essence of the manga very well.

Personally for me, I absolutely loved this manga! I wouldn't go so far as to call it underrated, I can understand a lot of the low ratings for this one, but I'd say it is underseen and should be talked about more. Subtlety goes out the window and Hanazawa and Tanishi go balls out (sometimes literally). The manga is like a train wreck that starts failing upwards. Both the comedy and the romance in the manga are written very well imo, no manga has been able to get such a raw reaction out of me so consistently. You get very invested in Tanishi and his relationships and it feels very raw and messy in a good way.

The entire cast of characters is great, the standouts being Tanishi and Hana Ooiwa, who appears later on and has a fairly well done portrayal of being deaf (and disability in general) by manga standards. Everybody is realistic. They all feel like people you'd meet in real life, from the womanising corporate bully Takahiro Aoyama to

Spoiler, click to view

the unstable first love interest Chiharu Uemura.

The synopsis is a little misleading though. Technically yeah, this is a story about how and why a guy goes from a worker at a dead-end job to becoming a boxer, but if you go in expecting a boxing manga you'll be disappointed. He hardly does any actual boxing and more (attempts) to use his skills in real world situations.

One major downside for some would be the art... it starts pretty amateurish but noticeably improves by the end, his evolution as an artist especially present in his following manga I Am a Hero. Hanazawa has a very distinct way of drawing faces which hasn't evolved much even in his current (as of writing this) serialisation of Under Ninja. They look a little ugly but are very expressive and I'd argue they are much more realistic than most manga or anime artstyles, perfect for the kinds of stories he tells.

Honestly, when reading it for the first time I felt a little underwhelmed by the ending, I felt like it didn't give me the huge sense of satisfaction that I was expecting. Looking back though, I realised I misunderstood the core of the story. I don't really have any problems with it, and it's definitely Hanazawa's only well written ending. I'll be going more in-depth into it and the manga's themes in the next section.

Thoughts and Analysis: A Boy on the Run (Spoilers)

Tanishi and Takuro (from Ressentiment) are very similar characters circumstantially. Both are pathetic, both are horny and really desperate for sex despite having terrible luck with women, being overweight and conventionally unattractive (though Takuro's ugliness defies conventions), both are awkward and struggle with everyday social interactions, both are working dead-end jobs, and both are put in a situation that seems very hopeless. Tanishi, however, changes. Tanishi is insecure and self-centered, failing to understand what people around him truly want. He spends his days jealous of assholes who have more than him and cursing life's unfairness. "Nice guys come last" kinda mentality. He wants money, he wants women, and he wants people to respect him. He loses his girlfriend to a dickhead. He gets beat up by everybody and their mum. He tries to fight, but he is too self-absorbed and overconfident to win. He doesn't understand how to get what he wants.
He wallows in shallow self-pity, even shaving his head to look like Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver. It is only in his first fight with Aoyama where he has a truly humbling experience.

Spoiler, click to view

He fails miserably and quits his job. He runs. But, this time, the loss is so humiliating he finds the resolve to try and better himself. Through boxing.

If mangakas are the Gods of their manga, Hanazawa is not a benelovent one. In fact, he might be one of the most cruel and sadistic ones. You can definitely sense a bit of projecting in his manga, with most of his protagonists being seemingly self-inserts (especially Hideo in I Am a Hero), but while some might take issue with this it makes his manga much more interesting to dissect imo. Tanishi is seemingly the unluckiest of his protagonists. He gets dragged through hell and back, but not without reason. He needs to be humbled. Throughout the manga, he goes through every form of hardship humanly possible, stubbornly clinging to his pride and hoping things will get better. And, very slowly, his mindset began to change. He enters and loses more fights, but he grows more and more with each one.

Eventually, he is forced to swallow his pride and in the most humiliating way possible for the sake of the girl he loves. Ironically, in only his underpants and a cape, it is the first time in the manga he looks like a real hero. The girl, Hana Ooiwa, is initially is boxing coach, and she is deaf. Her disability reinforces the manga's theme of life's unfairness while offering a parallel to Tanishi. She got dealt a very bad hand in life, but she embraces it, learning to live with her disability while making the most of things. She doesn't sugarcoat reality but accepts it for what it is and adapts.

She has an abusive deadbeat husband, Gen, an ex-boxer who sleeps with other women. Eventually, he agrees to divorce Hana if Tanishi, who is very out of shape, can beat him in a fight. What ensues is a brutal, raw and awkward match which is very undignified and tough to watch, but most importantly, Tanishi does not give up. He keeps going and going and going, getting up again and again no matter how bloodied and bruised he gets. With Hana's advice, he eventually lands a knockout punch.

Spoiler, click to view

And, in the ending, he finally commits a truly selfless act. Tanishi has started to get involved with Shuumai Shishido, the son of the ex-boxer. At this point, Shuu is a budding Tanishi. Constantly humiliated by bullies, he feels alienated and disillusioned with everybody. He is jealous of the bullies being favoured by everybody else the same way Tanishi felt at the start of the story. On a "bring your parents to school day", with no parents showing up for him, he creates a homemade bomb to throw in his classroom to try to get back at the world. To prevent Shuu from leading the kind of life he did, he takes the fall for him by bursting into the classroom and catching the bomb before it detonates.

It is in this final chapter (excluding the short epilogue), the story comes full circle. The manga opens with a panel of sunflowers, one facing the opposite direction, with the question "Why am I running?". The one sunflower turned away illustrates the feeling of alienation and disconnect that both Tanishi and Shuumai felt at their respective points in time. The sunflower visual motif is very intentional imo, appearing multiple times throughout the story as well. Its meaning is best explained by Tanishi himself, in a rare glimpse of his childhood.

Once more, it appears as the final panel of the manga before the epilogue. Ema (絵馬), small wooden plaques on which Shinto worshippers write prayers or wishes to hang them at shrines, are hung around the classroom. One kid's says "my dream is to become a cool doctor like Chopper [One Piece], one wishes "I hope I can drive safely", and another "I hope I win the lottery". Amongst these simple and childish but earnest dreams, Shuumai drew the three sunflowers, basically identical to the opening panel. Having just been saved, by two people who he could finally call family, he cries.

Spoiler, click to view

The second page of the first chapter is a panel of Tanishi in front of an ocean mural, well, running, for no apparent reason. He is running aimlessly away from people, wallowing in self-pity, cursing life's unfairness while refusing to do anything about it.
It is at this same mural, running away, where he first meets Hana. A very fleeting and coincidental encounter that changes the course of his life. In the final chapter, he is once again running in front of the mural. This time, he is no longer running away. He is running with Hana, hand in hand, on his way to save Shuumai. He is no longer on the run. He is running forward into his future.

He then goes to prison for five years. Why? Apparently the fathers of the other children in the classroom misunderstood what was happening and pinned him down, causing the bomb to detonate (without any casualties). The final and weirdly out of place and mean-spirited "fuck you" to Tanishi, or at least that's how I first saw it. Now, I view it differently. I think initially, my reservations were because I looked at him from a emotional and relatable lens rather than an objective and critical one. He gets his comeuppance for acting as he did, as an asshole, and such a drastic consequence cements his evolution as a character. Although that might've previously made somebody like him cry out in life's unfairness, he takes it. He took on such a heavy burden selflessly, no longer insecurely chasing sex and shallow desires. Despite this, I still feel like there was a lot of missed potential here that could've set up an amazing and very impactful ending and it ultimately didn't deliver on that front.

Spoiler, click to view

When he exits prison, Hana and Shuu are waiting to see him. Shuu is now a fairly successful professional boxer, he too running forward into his future. Tanishi has finally found his cause. He has found people he truly cares for, who he would do anything for, no matter the cost to himself. He has found his family. He has found his purpose.

Spoiler, click to view

A Generation on the Run

Like Tanishi, this is a generation on the run. Many people, especially teenagers and young adults, are drifting about aimlessly, disconnected from one another. So many people are lonely, have self doubt or low self esteem, and some people have simply been dealt a bad hand. The way I see it, this manga is Hanazawa's call to tackle things head on and live for and understand others. You can't wait for something or someone to fix you, you need to do it yourself.

Tanishi's journey is almost almost comically arduous, brutal, and painful, but in the end he humbles himself, takes things into his own hands, and finds his purpose. It took a lot for him to come to this realisation. Such a seemingly pathetic guy can affect so many people's lives. In his own strange way, Toshiyuki Tanishi is a hero.

Spoiler, click to view

There are some screenshots from the Ging Nang BOYZ music video which really sum up the themes of the series imo. In it, random people on the street are interviewed about their hopes, dreams, wishes, and everyday thoughts and feelings. Some wishes are grander than others, some are more childish, but more importantly, they are the real and very human wishes and thoughts of a drifting generation. Kind of resembles the ema in the final chapter, I think intentionally, but they carry an air of sadness to them. You are left finishing the video wondering how many of these people achieved their dreams.

Although life is sometimes unfair, you have to accept it. Stop running away. Turn around and run head on. Never give up. When you fail, try again. Don't be self-centered. Nobody is truly alone. No matter who you are, no matter how pathetic, ugly, and helpless you are, with the right mindset you can find people to help you. Let them into your life. Act for other people. Don't act as if you are already dead. You are alive.

Conclusion

While nowhere near perfect, Boys on the Run is one of the most memorable manga I've ever read and definitely one of my all-time favourites. I really love this story and while it might not land with everybody I'd recommend it, especially if you can in any way relate to Tanishi. A valuable message, and a painful, passionate, messy, raw and most importantly real story.