Punpun

_[This is a summary of notes I took while reading it,
and the reason why, try as I might, I could not find the
will to read a single more chapter and had to drop it.]_

SPOILERS up to Chapter 30

The environment is always depicted realistically, which means it’s always just the very unremarkable city, and there is little to no show of emotion in a relatable way from PunPun.
I can’t look at some panels from Oda without crying, for example, because he draws human emotion in such powerful ways that deeply connect to the most instinctive and primal parts of my brain. It’s like he has a direct line to my heart.
While in Punpun I get the exact opposite feeling, his lack of human features makes it extremely hard for me to relate and feel in that instinctive level… and he is so very boring in general.

Punpun to me feels like he is a leaf ?floating on the ocean, being swayed here and there with no interesting will, purpose, or assertiveness. He doesn’t go after the future he wants, and that makes the story very passive.
And a passive story isn’t necessarily bad. But everything else seems so shitty all the time and people so dystopically crazy, that instead of having a “positive counterpoint” to the passivity, I get a negative counterpoint.
It’s a downer without counterpoint and without deep philosophical thoughts, and without drama impactful enough to make me cry.
I tried very hard to keep reading, hoping I would get more interested, but even the most exciting “cliffhanger” from chapter 30, is just another unremarkable event that’s even less remarkable than the boring lives of average people.

##The high point for me was chapter 6:

When he was fantasizing about the Nobel Prize it made me smile ?. But even on all those genuine moments where the impact would be the greatest, I am underwhelmed by how Punpun doesn’t have human facial expressions for my brain to relate to. My mirror-neurons are not activated. He is cute, but that’s usually it — no matter whether he is sad or happy, he always looks just like a cute doodle.

~
~

##Then there are parts, like this page, which I think are really good:

The whole scene, the simple 2 panel page, the close up in the first followed by the panorama shot from above in the second page. It’s really well done. And the artist does these perspective shots again several times. They’re very good.
If Punpun had an actual face this could be such a strong moment, or cute, or something else, but I don’t even get to know what, because in my mind the mood is broken by Punpun being a doodle before any deeper emotions can form.

##I think this panel from chapter 16 highlights best why I’m gonna drop PunPun:

This represents his whole life. This life represents the mood of the Manga. And that life is just not interesting enough.
It was a bit funny at parts, some interesting things were said, some panels were beautiful, and some characters made me a bit curious about their minds.
But not enough, not enough of any of that. It’s just overall below the threshold of interestingness to keep me reading while I have wonderful masterpieces in my reading list that take me in journeys which are so much deeper in every single one of the reasons I could have to come back to PunPun.

It didn’t have any end goal I was interested in, and provided no big reward along the way either.

I’m mildly curious about how this could develop further 100 chapters down the line, so maybe someday the Punpun mood will strike and I’ll pick it up again (although it’s extremely unlikely). Until then, if these first 30 chapters were any indication, I just cannot see myself using my time to read 30 more chapters of Punpun while I could be reading 30 chapters of Dr. Stone, or Promised Neverland, or Berserk, or One Piece, or so many romance manga I wanna get into.

I wish I could read it all, but life is limited,
and if I read a book per week I’d still only be able to read 3360 books in 70 years. Compared to the 44,507,623 books in the New York Public Library alone, and over 3 million wonderful works of art in the Hermitage Museum alone, and all the movies, and anime, and all the rest of life too.
With a whole universe competing for my limited attention in my short life, it is no insult to a work’s value and distinctiveness when I drop it. It’s just testament to the fact that I have a hundred million books competing for only a few thousand spots in my lifetime, so cuts have to be made along the way. And I gotta pick only the ones that resonate personally with me the strongest.

So at least for now,
I have to say,
Oyasumi,
Punpun.

Conclusion: It's not necessarily “bad." It's just too underwhelming for me to want to pick it up again, when if I look up from the manga my own daily life 100 times more interesting, exciting, inspiring and insightful. And while there are so many other manga in my list which give me better personal positive value for my limited time.