Kin no Hitsuji
The Golden Sheep

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This is going to be my 1st review, but I feel obliged to do so, as this manga has torn me apart this much (one of the only ones to bring a tear to my eye).

From an outsider's point of view, this is a classic romance/friendship manga. The drawings, magnificent and rather cheerful in appearance, could not have made us doubt for a second that the author would talk about so many serious subjects in just 16 chapters.

But despite the fact that the story talks about all these subjects, the author's intended message was this: Renewal, but above all forgiveness and rebirth. Every character ... has suffered the consequences of his or her actions, even if it was through the actions of others. All the characters were relatively well-developed and complex, despite the series' length.

Let me conclude by saying that I highly recommend this series, which will take you through every possible emotion. Don't get hung up on preconceptions or the drawings, and throw yourself into this story, which I'm sure will leave a lasting impression on you =D

Coming of age, and the friends we lost along the way.

The manga is one of those slightly hidden ones. You search up a genre, and you scroll through the completed section, without any rhyme or reason. But there it was, an art style I recognized. The author of “Kamisama ga Uso wo Tsuku.”, a manga that's a bit of a phenomenon due to its twisted nature, which you truly don't expect from a manga like it. Intrigued, I checked out the short manga I could find of his, and right from the get-go, we meet a character attempting suicide.

You basically lock into the story ... the instant the themes are apparent, before moving back towards what happened to lead this character down that path. We meet all the main characters. Teenagers, looking for something they had before; a friendship they lost once a character moved away from the town. It's one of those stories that makes you look back at the older times, and wonder if it was worth it to leave, or a tragedy in on itself.

Is it worth it to salvage that which was lost? Or is it better to move on, and understand that people do change, for better or worse?

Definitely an enjoyable read, specially our main character, and the titular one who tried to commit suicide at the beginning. Both have this beautiful chemistry, while they look for meaning in their actions. A small-town story, turns into a little city adventure that slowly evolves these characters.

Those two aren't just the shining light. It's a group of four friends, but the other two, I don't like so much, which links to the biggest problem from the story. In no world, should these characters be okay with the heroic friend, turned bully, sexual assaulter. There's a scene, more or less in the middle of the manga, where he tries to rape the fourth member of the group, and after being rejected, they later reunite with the whole band, and have a group hug. All is forgiven, all is gone. What in the actual hell was the writer thinking? I get they're teenagers, but you NEVER forgive sexual assault.

That plot-point soured most of what happened next, since the story turns into redemption for the four characters, when two of them didn't do anything bad, and the other tried to rape the fourth one. All is good? No, everything is gone. The ending makes no sense with that in mind, and the group should've turned against him. But well, that's it.

The manga ends on a happy note. Everybody changed, even the rapist bully who did it out of jealousy towards people's objectives in life. No, thank you. If you can forget that happened and enjoy the rest of the manga, go for it. I just couldn't.

6.7/10 due to the other character's greatness. They were amazingly written, but that plot-point did ruin most of the ending for me.

Warning: I do mention the s!xual assault and the bullying/Harassment portrayed in the story, please read knowing this and that.
Note: I am not trying to dog on the manga, this is just something that WILL frustrate people and they deserve a warning.

Art: The art style of Ozaki Koari is amazing, the colour pages are perfection and the warmth practically radiates off of the page dragging you into the cozy feeling she tries to build with her work.
The anatomy is generally well done, I've yet to see a wonky eye or misshapen hand.
Her style is very Anohana/Your name but distinctly set in the 2010's which ... does set her apart when reading some of the newest stuff from around the time the English translation dropped.

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Story/Characters: I didn't see much issue with the first few chapters of 'Golden Sheep' - the story had Ozaki's weird obsession with having young boys obsess over boobs and a lot of the story was pretty solid in terms of set up and execution. We get introduced to our 'Main four' of Tsugu, Sora, Yuushin and forgettable charact- I mean Asaki. The group are pretty divided into bullies vs bullied within the first few chapters and very quickly establishes a status quo that the story should follow - before smacking that out of the park and hitting someones car.

Tsugu is literally the best character in this manga; she's complex with motivations and emotions that resonate with a lot of young adults and teens that really make you want to see her happy, a genuinely fun character to watch in every panel and is all around an actual good representation of a "bubbly" teenager without diving into stereotypes too much. I have absolutely no complaints about her, she;'s perfect and I only really have a complain with how she feels less like a character by the end of the story and more like a filler love interest for Sora.

Sora is overall just really boring, he fits that self-insert quota for young Japanese men and the story definitely forfeits some autonomy for Tsugu to further Sora's character. I think out of all the characters his character arc is the best of them all, going from a boy who struggled to even say a word about being bullied to bravely standing up for his friend against someone who'd tormented him for years. Which speaking of -

Yuushin is the biggest piece of scum on this side of the manga world - he's got trauma, that's for sure, but his actions far out way the defence. He actively torments Sora for failing to notice a cry for help and he does so by literally feeding him to the wolves at every opportunity he gets for around a few years. He actively uses the dog that they all found as kids to lure Sora out and literally says "jump off this bridge and die and I won't beat up your dog". He's generally a pretty big douche to even the character's he's "nice" too and the worst crime of all, because he literally commits a crime, is the fact he sexually assaults Asaki. You heard me, he assaults her - while also knowing that she loves him. It's gross, it's disgusting and I genuinely want to actually throw up every single time I think of that.
My biggest gripe with all of these actions though is the fact that Ozaki glosses over it all, she has this boy literally SA a girl and then pretends like he's some wayward soul just doing a small oopsie and not a depraved psycho that committed a literal crime. He gets no slap on the wrist, no consequences to his actions and when Asaki see's him again, AFTER BEING SA'ed BY HIM, she doesn't react with disgust, or fear or even anger. It's like it never happened.

Asaki is alright, I genuinely only really began rooting for her because of the SA situation but she's also not that great. She actively excludes Tsugu because she 'gets pally' with Yuushin which is just? Huh??? And what sucks for her is she doesn't get much time to actually develop - she's barely a member of the main cast and honestly feels like an added extra to the group rather than a character that is important to these """friend""""

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Overall: I think this is a problematic manga - it glosses over some really heinous actions and Ozaki has a weird obsession with randomly putting weird sexual actions/intents on teenagers and it's just a bit weird? I think if you can enjoy this good for you, but truly it does nothing to actually deepen it's narrative and all of the plot is surface level at best.