Short but intense, emotional and deep story. A man named Kumada has two children in a working-class neighborhood of Osaka, due to a debt some moneylenders burn his house with his family inside whom he manages to rescue and after going to get them he pays prison for many years because of his revenge.

From then on, his wife and children will have to make a living without that threatening father figure, who at the same time represented protection from the outside. This is why Kumada's son will suffer harassment from the neighborhood guys with whom he has no courage to confront and his daughter hanging out with boyfriends related to delincuency and so on.

When his children are already teenagers, Kumada returns without warning and becomes an inspiration for his son and daughter, he seems to behave like a real animal (with over the top situations and reactions that make you laugh, the crazy admiration of his son who see him as a god, his daughter with the "yes daddy" way of speaking and talking about how manly he his, the nonchalant way he behaves, how afraid is everyone when he is near, his horse cock etc) but at the same time instills in his sons that he has to harden himself and protecting them from whatever happens to his daughter and wife.

Little by little it is discovered that behind all that hardened facade (and reality) Kumada above all else wants the best for his family and to repay for the time he wasn't there with them.

The best thing about Oyaji is being a great portrait and description of the environment and life where his characters are. Everything that is seen is true, it is a mirror of the world, something very unusual in manga and more so in this concrete reality. Of so many whose biggest dream is to create the family they never had and who due to their circumstances, once they create it lose it because of their way of life, entering prison and feeling the pain of repeating with their children the story that they lived themselves leaving them abandoned, that's why when he returns he will make everything straight with the problems of his family as if is life depends on that.

Kumada is a great character, one of the best characters I have seen, one cannot be affectionate and good to everyone depending on what circumstances you live in, and the only way to manage to live with a certain tranquility is when those who can complicate your life fear or respect you, as it happens with him when he returns to his neighborhood, but never be a threat to your own family as Kumada's father was.

A true jewel, how wonderful the night at the local fair, the moments that Kumada lives with his family, the description of the environment, the memories of his past; what a special manga.