Dragon Head

i bought the first volume intrigued by the cool cover (which glows in the dark in this edition. i couldnt resist). it stood on my shelf waiting for october, the best month for horror. now it's covered by another manga id rather display, because i hate nobuo's guts. of course i understand all the later commentary on him, how he was just a scared little boy misunderstood by ako and teru. however, it doesn't excuse what he does to ako in the slightest, and if anything, teru and ako prove it cannot be justified. i love them both dearly, despite everything they go through, they remain good, especially ako. as the manga itself says, what people do when theyre afraid is simply their choice, nothing more. both of the kids only ever hurt others to protect themselves, and both of them struggle with that, despite having an actual justification for killing others. while ako remains the moral centerpiece of the story at all times, teru has moments where he can feel himself getting pulled into the darkness like others, but again, he recognises that he would never act like that in normal circumstances and CHOOSES to only enact violence when necessary. that's why i despise nobuo - yes, he was scared, but sexually assaulting ako would be unacceptable no matter what situation they found themselves in, and if anything, it shows that nobuo generally must have had a pretty misogynistic view of women and was capable of doing something like this without the disaster hanging over his head.

on the topic of ako's experience, i wish it was explored more. she only expresses her pain when she leaves the train, which i'm glad she did at least once, but it still feels a little too much like it was only done for shock value and not much more. there was opportunity to go in depth at multiple points of the story - she's literally chased by men who want to capture her and keep her as a sex slave, later she's forced to work together with the captain often, and while im glad that the developing romantic relationship between her and teru is very subtle, could be interpreted as platonic honestly, it would be nice if there was some mention on how her trauma affected the way she approached relationships. that being said, i truly love ako, she reminds me of ripley from alien in the sense that she sticks to her moral compass no matter what anyone says and despite everything, she's very strong and brave. when she was first introduced, she was a bit of a damsel in distress, but the roles switch when teru gets sick. i was afraid she would be a portrayed as weak and worse than boys and men, but i was positively surprised to say the least.

i also love teru, he's such a nuanced character. a boy in the apocalypse, experiencing survivors guilt, constantly thinking of his family, how he was giving his parents a hard time and how he could be mean to his sister. i especially liked how he talked abt the latter, its common for some media to portray siblings as very loving, while other times theyre so antagonistic towards each other its almost like theres no love between them. i imagine it can feel hard to connect to your older sister as a teenage boy, but despite that, he also often mentions missing her. it felt very realistic and i feel like its rare to have a boy express his love for his sister, especially in a non-creepy way. squeezed my heart because i knew something bad must have happened to his family, but it was heartwarming to read about his feelings.

the philosophical musings dont land for me, they felt very repetetive, we could have gotten more insight into the characters instead of repeating the same sentiment. this and the very underwhelming ending definitely made it less enjoyable. what works is the artwork, especially the scenery, and the emotional scenes. i cried a couple times over the kids having to experience something like this, and when they finally met a competent adult who truly cared for them, it made me bawl my eyes out. the pacing is good so i read most of it in one day, but i cant stop thinking about how much better this could have been.