Oyaji

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You don't even have to be a fan of manly series to enjoy this heart warming story.

Oyaji covers the life of "Oyaji" whose returned to his family after several years only to find his children grown into terrible adults. To make up for lost time he reeducates his son & daughter for the family to be together again. This is the gist of the story but is delivered in a very dramatic & in a sad manner.

Throughout the few chapters we see how Oyaji grew to become the man he is today & teaches his children the importance of love & family & will do ... anything to preserve it.

As a whole this series is a quick read which must be experienced in one sitting. While there are few gritty scenes & explicit dick exposure, the tale contains a very intimate feel with its leading character reminiscing on his past & regrets. The reader can experience how sacred family is to him. At the end of this manga, you may learn a bit about yourself & feel like properly raising a family & cherishing every single moment.

Also if you're a man... you may get those manly tears. T_T

This manga was recommended to me. At first, I was a bit hesitant in reading this, but when I started to read the first chapter, I was dragged into reading more.

Oyaji is a story about an oyaji (old man/father), a badass oyaji that is. While the cover screams of something gruesome or uninteresting, don't be fooled.

The story is told in almost a linear format. The whole series tells a story of a single night where the oyaji came back home after 10 years of disappearance. There were some flashbacks here and there that speaks of how our characters were from before.

What makes Oyaji stand out ... from the rest is its drama despite of its initial impressions. We've got yakuzas, blood - lots of 'em, flying body parts, etc. and while those elements are mostly seen in dark, psychological and tragic series, what we got here is a very dramatic and touching experience - something that'll definitely change something within you.

The characters, oyaji and his family, have realistic personalities and experienced realistic events common in Japan's lower society. Each may be annoying at first, but as the pages go by, your love for them will grow. And if you may ask, oyaji is a badass. You'll love every single bit of him regardless of your hate or love for rowdy and violent archetypes.

The artwork is just like in every dark seinen out there. Weird faces and dark tones, it delivers the situation and atmosphere the author wants to. If you are reluctant on seeing those kind of artworks, please, I beg you, just give it a try.

All in all, Oyaji is a series that's very hard to drop by the very moment you read it. It is entertaining, it is emotional, it is badass.

In the current media world I always asked myself what is better simplicity or originality? Specifically what I mean with the terms "simplicity" and "originality" is the problems that arises from the way anime and manga or any other entertainment medium has when it comes to this two subjects. For example most new artists tend to come up with original ideas on various subjects like story, characterization, world setting etc but what they lack is the experience to execute such works and they result to cancellation because they cant put up the hype that for example the first chapter created, however there of course are ... exception of this cases that might actually archive such a feat but still put stylization over actual substance to they works aka Hiro Mashima or Oh Great. On the other hand we have simplicity that might be described in the world of anime/manga best by the so love/hated slice of life genre.
Such series tend to not use original ides but use simple archetypes of stories, characters etc but still archive a big feat by the experience their writers gained and of course the vice versa is possible like the originality case. So why do I mention this two terms? Well that is because I will review a show that combines both originality and simplicity and archives a magnificent work and that is of course Oyaji!!!
First of all don't bother looking at the cover page because it might wrongly put you off the series, actually only look at the synopsis or even better just think about this "After a few years of absence a father returns to his family only to find that his children have become terrible persons" it only needed that to get my interest and yes it was quite worth it but lets get started with the actual review.


The story revolves around the main character Oyaji (in Japanese it means father) who returns to his family after years in prison but unlike the way I thought it would go it started quite strange. What I mean with that? Well Oyaji is manly as hell, he is not talkative, he drinks like there is no day tomorrow and he has muscles I didn't even know existed, well what I mean with the strange beginning isn't the way he is portrayed but all the negatives about him that reversibly to his actual character inspired his family to change. That is the main basis of the plot that goes on trough the whole manga and surprisingly is rather thin when you think about it but manages to be quite good at the same time. Moving on to the other characters...well I would like present them more as the shadow that makes the light even more shine but besides that I wasn't really fond of their characterization precisely because they didn't portray as much as they could have (might be because of the short span of chapters) but besides the main character I really did like his wife that made the story even more heartwarming and heartbreaking than the kids or other side character could have shown, or I might even go further and say it is the stability her character has that is unlike most of the character in this manga that make her so likeable. So how should I start the art paragraph....hmmm...I can only say MANLY!!! Oyaji was written and illustrated by Tsuru Moriyama in the 90s, 80s... I would like to say but no it was published from Jun 30, 2000 to Apr 26, 2001 and uses contrary from its time a rather shonen-ish masculine character design to it that become popular because of Tetsuo Hara and Hirohiko Araki. A lot of people might not like it but it actually makes a fine contrasts between how the people look and how they really are and that is by all means a good way of showing the emotions presented from the outside (outer actions) and the inside (inner thoughts), anyway even if it is a bit unorthodox for today’s manga industry you might give it a chance.
Besides the character design everything was quite alright on the screen toning, background designs etc, although I must admit some scenes are to manly for a lot of people so you might see only black mambas around the waist region so be warned!!!

-Final Verdict-
With only 23 chapters Moriyama Tsuru made a manga worth the little time you might invest into it and by all means I would say it deserves at least to be added in your to read list.