Name: No exploration, only explanation.
Item: Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan
Rating: 50
Author: Whom

No exploration, only explanation.

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Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan is 8 chapters long and fits in a single volume. There's nothing wrong with being short, of course, a story told in a short period of time has the advantage of being able to be much more focused and only deal with what it cares to. There's no expectation to fill in details and the rules for pacing become much looser. However, this short manga completely throws away the natural advantage that the form it takes affords it, and bounces between the questions of the death penalty + redemption, a romance story, grief, loss, suicide, recovery, family, and a few other thematic tendrils that never really go anywhere.

This all makes the main focus, meaning the questions surrounding the death penalty and redemption of those who commit heinous acts, muddy and under-explored. What we're given can be summarized (leaving very little of substance out) like this: "People do bad things, but they are not always inherently bad people, some do bad things because of their own situation. How much can we forgive due to circumstances? Should someone be killed for something they would never do again, making them no longer a threat?"

Those are big and important questions that it looks as if Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan is going to try and wrestle with. Unfortunately, it doesn't really. It does a decent enough job at showing that those positions exist and, to its credit, gets a bit of emotional backing for each. The thing is, that doesn't give you much. If you've thought about this issue once in your life, which I assume most readers who make their way here have, you're already familiar with everything this manga has to throw at you. I would never expect or hold a piece of art / storytelling to the standard of having to give me a revelation about the nature of a conflict like this or even to have a completely unique take, but I would expect something other than what one would expect to be the starting point.

Putting emotions to things that are already understood by the reader is an entirely acceptable goal, however, and I don't want to give the impression that I have a problem with a story where that's its only ambition. The problem with that, in reference to this story in particular, is that it doesn't focus on those emotions enough or tell a good enough story of romance and loss for it to work. It's more concerned with presenting the ideas as if they are revelatory, wasting precious time that it could be using for justifying itself in other ways.

I haven't read the novel that this was adapted from, so I could never claim to know where these problems were introduced. I could see them coming from a clumsy adaptation, but I can't say for sure. Still, it kept me invested, the facial expressions were particularly on point, and it didn't do anything outwardly wrong. I just can't give it much credit beyond being somewhat entertaining, and it clearly was grasping for much more than that.