Sep 8, 2021
Utsuutsu Hideo Nikki or Depression Diary was released in France a few years after Disappearance Diary. I takes a different form than its prequel since it is now a private diary where he recounts almosts every day of his life from July 7, 2004 to February 16, 2005. 6 years sober after a stay a rehab clinic and attending meetings at the Alcoholic Anonymous, he struggled to try and become a proper member of society once again but his life is anything but exciting. Poor and jobless, he manages by selling fanzines and drawings to various expositions but barely has any motivation an can only
...
bring himself to draw a mere 2 hours a day.
Hideo Azuma himself starts this manga by stating that this manga doesn't have any twists or turns and probably isn't worth reading: it couldn't be any more true. Every day related in this book seems to be exactly the same, inane and devoid of purpose, describing what kind of food he ate, how he read such and such book and what he watched on TV, over and over and until the very end of it.
Depression Diary is an inconceivable chore to read and could easily rank amongst the worst experiences I've had with a manga. It does have a saving grace in the fact that it doesn't only have flat pictures of himself but almost every page has one of his famous lolita he's known for depicted on it. They're mostly some of his creations with different costumes but it does also have characters from the manga and anime he would've read that day (A few I could name are Cardcaptor Sakura, Touhou, Chobits, Marco, Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, Binchou-tan, Nausicaa, Teke Teke My Heart, Sailor Moon, Chihiro, Sakura no Uta and Lucky Star). It doesn't ultimately makes it an enjoyable read but being a fan of his style, I like seeing it being applied to all of them.
There really isn't anything more to get about the industry or about Hideo Azuma's state of mind with this book , I can get why it was made but I still find it strange why this particular manga was chosen to be translated instead of the one relating his stay at the hospital or one of his shorter gag manga in order to get an idea of his work or a contrast with how he ended up to be.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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