Yomawari Sensei

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TL;DR: The manga is an easy 10/10 if you focus more on the emotions and lessons presented in this, but it can still be a good 7 or 8/10 manga if you focus more on the objective quality, since it is not too complex of a story and the conclusion of the manga doesn't feel like a true ending, it is just the point where the manga runs out of stories to tell. The art style is highly detailed and realistic, in tone with the grim, yet hopeful manga which presents slightly altered real life stories of young people that the writer of this manga ... actually met and dealt with in his life because he spends his days and nights trying to help them. The MC is the real life version of the writer of this manga who tries to help different youth in self contained chapters (the stories spanning from 1 to 3 chapters per story, usually), him, the children he tries to help and the people surrounding them being grounded in reality with realistic depictions of their flaws and qualities, actions and emotions. The manga has plenty of objectively good elements, but it shines the most when you take it as a personal, subjective experience, that helps you become a better self, while also helping you to better understand the people around you, especially the troubled ones.

While reading the manga, it is quite important to note that it is based on the autobiographical book of the writer and MC of this manga, Osamu Mizutani, who actually was a highschool teacher who spends to this day his time and energy to help ”problematic” youth, as they may usually be described in society. Mizutani, though, sees them as being only troubled, young people being burdened by the problems surrounding their lives, here having the usual suspects: bullying, family drama, self-destructive behaviors, bad influences and so on, them being the victims of the circumstances that they had to grow up with. The chapters are quite formulaic, usually spanning from one to 2 or 3 chapters depicting different youth the author tried to help in his life. While the events presented in this manga are based both on true stories and a different culture, the internal conflicts, the societal circumstances and the strenghts and weaknesses of anyone, young or old, are still the same, making it easy to relate to the characters in this manga and associate their stories to real life cases.

Setting
While we can assume that the stories are mostly based on `80s and `90s Japan (because he is born in `56 and and published his book in 2004), the places that are usually depicted, besides schools, are dark and solitary streets, parks and red light districts, to name a few, this fitting very well with the kind of stories that are told and the places from which the characters come from, they usually coming from low income and social status families.

Art style
The realistic art style complements the dark and gritty setting, while also giving life to the characters, especially in the scenes when they express their strong emotions.


Story and Themes
As I described before, the story could be described as „child of the week”, since the author presents new anectodes every few chapters without any continuity or correlation with the stories and chapters that came before. This is a manga about humanity, about understanding the young people that are considered hopeless, good for nothings and pests by society and guiding them on a better path than the one on which they were before, if you want to take the more adult, duty focused perspective, but it can also be a good way for people that want to understand how the „bad” people that are usually presented and shunned in real life come to be the way they are and also see a more human, positive side of them, not only the traumatized children that they are. What all the stories have in common is the possitive message of trying to get your act together, of trying to better yourself as a person if you want to lead a decent life and whenever you can’t do that, you should find someone that hears you, as loud as you have to scream and try to find that one person (although I think it depends on the people and adults that surround you, so it's quite subjective, not always being the best solution)
For this reason, the semi episodic format of the manga gives the readers a significant amount of stories with different characters, problems, solutions, emotions and outcomes, while also giving each character’s story enough time to be understood and to get its development, never overstaying their welcome. That’s why each reader may more or less relate to the stories and characters that are presented, depending on their on life experiences, making this manga a highly subjective and unique experience for every reader, with different morals and teachings which may or may not reasonate with every one of them. Even if you take the emotional, subjective parts of this manga, all of the stories have a sense of tension and suspense, along with high stakes, not knowing if the children will make it out better or worse at the end of each of their stories, so the manga can be appreciated both on a subjective and objective level.
An argument that could be made against the story is the fact that there is a huge amount of negative emotions and suffering presented, close to misery porn. While that may be or become off putting, there is a nice balance between stories that depict hopelesness and hope, between the stories with bad and good endings, although it is true that the scenarios depicted are usually filled with sadness, anger and fear and that may be too much for people if they binge this manga. The first chapter also nicely sets the tone and expectations of what is to come in future stories, staying true to what it sets out to do and what it shows.
Other slight arguments that can be used against the manga are the lack of complexity and story progression, what you get in the first chapter you will also get in the last chapter, each story feeling quite the same in terms of plot progression and tone (the endings being quite varied though) and making the ending quite anticlimactic because the story follows the same formula until the very last page. The presence of the many emotional scenes in the manga is also making it very subjective, the objective elements of the story becoming more of a crutch on which the themes, lessons and life stories stand, those being it's strongest points.

Characters
Since Mizutani is the only common character present in each story, I will start with him. While he is a highschool teacher, we usually see him after hours, as a night patrol teacher, spending his nights on the streets,actively trying to find new youth to help and to set their paths straight, from leaving behind their gangs, employers and friends, as they usually contribute to the problems in which the characters find themselves in. Some people may find him too perfect of a person for the fact that he dedicates his whole life, from morning to night, to help others, and while that is true to a huge extenct, it can't be defended the fact that he also made some of this youths hate him and made them go deeper into the darkness, while others actually off themselves due to the fact that Mizutani tried to help them, but he either couldn't dedicate himself enough to save them, didn't have the right solutions for each youth he tried to help or even made mistakes in his guiding that ended up costing another person's life. While he looks, and kind of is, like a saint that always wants to help others, he still has his own flaws and problems. One of the major ones is the fact that he always tries to help the youth by making them feel loved and accepted, but while that works on some people, some of the stories prove that this way of approaching the youth weren't always the right ways. This can also create a dependence on him in the children and high expectations for what they wish Mizutani could do for them, but although it can be good for some time, the fact that they get really attached to him also means that he can also hurt them the strongest when he doesn't have the right answers or when he can't be present to help and guide them, ending up doing more harm than good, as seen in plenty of the stories that are told. Because of this, he is also filled with regret and grief which is reflected very nicely both in the manga, but also in some of the notes that he leaves at the end of most of the chapters, his deep love, appreciation and desire to help the troubled youth causing him the biggest pleasure, hapiness and satisfaction, but also the biggest grief, sadness, doubt and regret which he carries both in the manga as a character and in his own, real life, this being proof of his character and resilience and of the fact that he won't try to stop helping others even if it weights his soul down. While he may come off as preachy in some of the stories, it is more in relation to the youth that he tries to help, not towards the audience, he simply telling the stories the way they happened (more or less, due to the importance of confidenciality), not trying to tell the reader that they also have to become like him or have to understand or accept what happens in the manga.
When it comes to the other characters, they all come and go with each passing story, most of them having conclusions, although there are also the youths that Mizutani tried to help but hadn't managed that, not knowing what fate awaited them. Every troubled youth and most of the supporting cast that are connected with them are presented and characterized realistically, with both flaws and qualities, as much as it can be shown and know to Mizutani himself, since not every yakuza member or friend can be seen so easy as both a good and bad person, some of them ending up cartoonishly evil, albeit for a good reason. The characters are easily understood due to the way they are presented, and while they may have questionable personality and behavior that can be hard to accept sometimes, you still get a full picture of their social and personal life, their goals (or lack thereof) and of the ways they try to cope and adapt to the harsh realities that they live in, in just a few chapters without being rushed, forced or inconsistent with their behaviors.

Conclusion
While there is plenty of value to be found in the objective good parts of the manga, I think you can appreciate this manga way more for the emotions that are presented, the life lessons that you can get from them and even from having a person like Mizutani as a role model, as a person someone can aspire to be, since it is obvious how everything about Mizutani and this manga comes from his soul, from his desire to be a positive role model and to help the less fortunate people from the outskirts of society, proving that you don't have to be rich to help someone or to be in the field of social work to be able to make a positive impact on someone, but instead you have to be empathic, understanding and accepting, a human in touch with his feelings and other people's feelings in order to help someone. I don't think there is anything more beautiful and worthy of respect in a story than pushing such messages as the ones present here (this being the reason why this is one of my favorite manga), especially since the anime sphere is filled with escapist, feel-good stories in the past decade (which have their own place in here, but not when this is literally everything that appears every year with very small exceptions), instead of realistic, motivational , inspirational and self-reflective stories that support facing yourself in order to become a better person that can understand the people around.

A story that could be reality of some of you or just a dark fantasy for the others however the kind of abusing, harassment and violence existe I our societies regardless the manga a fantasy work but based on some true stories as the author said , if you about to read this don't consider it as an entertaining thing you should be aware that some experiences here are rough to handle and if you going throughout any sort of stuff should ask for help , asking for help is a step for solution is called courage because it require strength it's not weakness, ... you are not week , there is a quote I like. " talking about problems gonna make much easier to fix " and that's what this masterpiece trying to tell you

I really liked the manga because it took a different path of other works on the market it shows that manga not just some type on entertainment it can be even an educating or cultural thing .

the att style here was super realistic some of friends that suggests em they said it's scary I can get that because reality can be scary of some of us but it's doesn't mean it's bad because it can be beautiful too .


I highly recommend this to everyone to every human being it worth your time and it will improve your vision to everything around you .

DISCLAIMER: this review was written before I learned that this is a collection of true stories which largely changes how one interprets the story ofc so a large majority of this review isn't really applicable anymore but I spent enough time writing it that I don't want to just erase it from existence

I really do wish I could say that I enjoyed Yomawari Sensei more than I did but throughout a good chunk of my reading experience and time reflecting on it after I've finished it, just feels like a work with so much genuine heart that just couldn't live up to it's potential.

The ... main cause of that sense of missed potential largely comes from it's nature as a collection of short vignettes. That's not an issue in and of itself; plenty of great stories have been told in that format but when this manga tells it's stories, which contain many sensitive and nuanced topics the short-form comes back to bite it because it robs a lot of these stories of satisfying conclusions. Compounding on this is the issues with the main character Osamu Mizutani. For the most part Mizutani is a good character, his personality is well characterised, his motivations are clear and his drive is admittedly actually pretty inspiring especially when it's juxtaposed with the times we see him fail or doubt himself. That being said unfortunately he often comes across as quite one-note most of the time like he was written to just be the fix-all for whatever kid is going through hardships this time there really isn't anything you can nail down about who Mizutani is besides his relentless pursuit of cleaning up the streets and helping all the children he can, you really don't get to learn anything about who he is outside of that. There are a couple of chapters where there's a little ending portion showing you his childhood and even a full chapter dedicated to him during an earlier period in his teaching but it never really amounts to anywhere near enough to get a clear picture of who Mizutani is. Ending out the bad is just a little minor personal complaint about how the series handles it's more sensitive topics in specific cases, the manga often presents the same simple solutions to really complex issues the characters are going through, it can feel a bit mishandled at times.

Onto the good though, when the manga does afford itself some time to stick with one story instead of immediately jumping to the next you end up with some of stuff that's stuck with me more than anything else I've read recently. The simultaneously best and most disappointing part about that is, that these stories are all so well written and so emotionally powerful they really don't need much time to be so incredible especially in comparison to other manga which would usually take way more time and focus to deliver the same impact. Yomawari Sensei really only needs 3 chapters at most to give you story with significant emotion and lessons to consider. The art and atmosphere of the manga is also worth mentioning, the characters facial expressions are rendered with so much care and nuance, helping make them feel as real as possible which really aids the manga during it's many emotional highs. The environments of the night school and all the locals within Yokohama are drawn in such a way that they really stick in your mind and feel significant with all the stark black everywhere given that the manga takes place mostly during the night time.

Overall, Yomawari Sensei is still a story I would recommend to more people than not; only because the incredible high points of emotion and lessons about how precious life is and how it's important to persevere through struggles are worth sitting through the all the stories that unfortunately miss their mark and fail to deliver in that same way.