Amongst the manga that is all too frequently either spectacle-pandering or stretching its storylines into interminable length, Three days of Happiness feels different--not pretentious, but breaking the illusion of comfort. It is not a novel that is out to divert you: it is a novel that is to disturb you, to make you reckon. It is a bleak reflection on death, value and the thin coinage of human existence. There are few publications that even attempt to pose the question: what is the inherent worth of a life led, when it was calculated solely in pleasure or recognition? In this case, the solution is not emotional or reasonable.

It is a simple story that is actually a deceitful one: Kusunoki, a young man who is considered worthless by the society, sells his remaining lifespan to some unknown being in exchange of 3 million yen. As a reward, he even has three days to live. It sounds like a gimmick on its face a fantastical set up but that is just the thing. Each day of the peeping Yoshihiro days is like a window, which concentrates the reader on the meaning of life. The manga does not squander time on grand spectacles, love stories, but it pays a painstakingly careful attention to the details of human involvement, those little things, those little delights, and the irrevocable sadness that comes with the realization of self-awareness.

The insufferable brilliance of Three Days of Happiness to a critical reader is its frankness. It is not a heroic journey as it is understood by Kusunoki. He never finds some unknown power or transforms the world; he just learns to see. He is exposed to lives that are in some way interwoven with his own, which he is not in charge of in any way, and through these we are welcomed to uncomfortable realities about our own role in being complicit, our own lack of concern, and the social structures within which it is specified that one person is more worthy than another. It is a cruel grace of this style: the manga is confident enough of its readers to take its quietness and indistinctness and the cruelty of the realities of life.

The philosophical ambitions of the work are reflected in the artistic work. The drawings are not extravagant or exaggerated, but there is a certain silent responsibility to them. The words of the characters, the scenery, the subdued conflict of light and shadow, all these help to emphasize the impermanence of the human condition. It is an approach which honours the intelligence of its reader, and never addresses him in insolent display, but, on the contrary, challenges him to the slower and more prudent contemplation. This restraint is a mark of a sophisticated person in an age where manga is inclined more to suddenness than to reflections.

It is impossible to talk about Three Days of Happiness without referring to its emotional impact. It is no story to be calming, it is a story that requires reflection. At the last pages it is not possible only to put the book away, but one can hear the questions echo, they remain in the mind like the persistent afterimage. It poses the question: in case you had the certainty of how much time you have left to live, how would you utilize it? What are your ways of balancing society and personal satisfaction? And what is even more disturbing, how much of our own lives are silently squandered in the quest to achieve some superficial metrics?

This manga cannot be read casually. It belongs to those who are ready to sit down in uneasiness, to enjoy the details, to face the horrible ambiguity of human life. Three Days of Happiness is an art and philosophy, which exists in a rarefied frontier; and which works, as it does not attempt to oversimplify life into lessons to be learnt or happy resolutions. It is ruthless in its vision, and to those ready to deal with it on its conditions it is a piercing and a most humane experience.

It is easy to lose sight of the fact that much of manga can serve as a form of entertainment, but Three Days of Happiness reminds us that the art can also be reflective, rigorous and terrifying silence. It is an art of storytelling that treats the reader with the respect of his or her intelligence, it is a masterpiece of emotional economy, philosophical profoundness, and philosophical depth. To be able to complete it is to be able to keep a mirror within the chest not of the characters within its pages, but of oneself.