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| THIS IS A MANGA ONLY DISCUSSION POST. DO NOT DISCUSS ANYTHING BEYOND THIS CHAPTER. ---------------------------------------- Oooh boy. This is a loaded manga. I was surprised to learn that it was Nakamura's first series. As the reviews on the manga page have said, Copernicus' Breath isn't your typical fluffy BL. I have to admit that it was difficult to get myself invested into the story and its characters at first because of my shock at how dark the content was. There was rape, violence, and a plethora of injustices against human beings. Yet despite these aspects, I found this to be beautiful. In the midst of such immorality, I admire the way Nakamura delved into the deepest aspects of human nature in a mere thirteen chapters. By telling the story of "Bird's Nest", or Michel, the author writes of a myriad of themes. As Michel is passed down from the possession of one man to the next, brutality and violence is never absent. And with this cruelty, the motif of "love" is ever-present. But one of the questions Nakamura indirectly raises is: What is love? In Copernicus' Breath, the characters seem to counter the common definition of "love". To the characters, love is heavily laced with violence. To them, love may very well be violence. Yet at the end of it all, to them, their love is what we'd call an infatuation. An obsession with violence, perhaps. While the characters' actions may baffle me, Nakamura doesn't fail to display the means through which humans are constantly driven to this infatuation. Other motifs are also present to accentuate this "love"- such as depression, immorality, and fear. While Michel is (for the most part) endlessly haunted by these motifs as well as his past, the author also speaks of harsher realities in life. Nakamura brilliantly executes the allegory of the circus representing our own hopes or dreams. She tells us that, no matter how breathtakingly beautiful and magical our dreams may be, they may also be our own nightmares. Weighed with such grim and "deep" content, Nakamura's art is what really brings it all to perfection- complementing each and every aspect of the series. But because of how desolate the story was becoming, I was not at all expecting a good ending. Or, is it actually a good ending? Nevertheless, in my opinion, endings are incredibly important. Because it's the last impression the author can leave on the readers and the last message the author can deliver, it should be a well-written message. And Nakamura Asumiko does just this. At the end of Copernicus' Breath, and at the conclusion of Michel's story, the author seamlessly illustrates human pereseverance against such intangible antagonists- leaving me, well, breathless. 10/10 |
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| Wow, that was actually amazing. I didn't expect this type of story from Asumiko. I love the storytelling and flow of the story. I finished it in (almost) one sitting. 8/10 but definitely re-reading in the future. |
| Very good. I just didn't know or expect where it was going. I feel like it was a manga where a lot of things were left unsaid between characters in a way, but that they were fully understood by the reader. Very good and emotionally charged and enjoyable. |
| I really liked the manga as well, I was just slightly disappointed by the ending. Perhaps disappointed is not the right word, I guess I was expecting something closer to a typical BL ending and it ended up being an unexpected (but still realistic) conclusion. At first I was a bit taken aback that the abusive ring master was portrayed as a voice of reason in the last few chapters. I think it's kind of ironic that a character that traumatized the protagonist also helps him free himself of some of his trauma. To be fair almost nothing about this manga is similar to an archetypal BL story, and that kinda made it more enjoyable anyway. Ultimately, it was a great psychological manga with some of the most beautiful panel art I've ever seen. 8/10 |