Kokoro no Kanashimi

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If I had to convince a jury of stick-in-the-mud college professors that manga could be “literature”, I would hand over this volume of oneshots just to torment them. It's actually fairly high-brow, for whatever that means.

Kokoro no Kanashimi is a stand-out in terms of style, and for that reason it's one that would probably engage an artsier crowd of manga newbies, as it doesn't require any background understanding of manga aesthetics. You won't have to explain to anybody why big sparkly eyes and sweatdrops are standard visual cues for this one. However, for the same reason, it might alienate established manga fans exactly because it ... doesn't adhere at all to expectations. I don't mean this in terms of taste, so much as it just feels like reading a different language. Personally, that's what I found so refreshing about it.

The Nishioka siblings are an avant-garde mangaka team, and their works tend to be surrealistic visually and brooding and existential in terms of subject matter. You can get a great taste of that in the shorts in Kokoro no Kanashimi.

The style is downright psychedelic and beautifully thought-out, everything right down to the paneling choices carrying the weight of meaning. The art and storytelling both have the fluid, vaguely off-kilter feel of dreams, symbolism often standing in the place of an actual setting or plot to evoke an emotion rather than a message, and with just a hint of a sinister after-taste. There's even some dry humor in the presentation, which reminds me a bit of the cheeky opening to Kafka's Metamorphosis. "When Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams, he found himself transformed into a giant cockroach." That matter-of-factness about the bizarre is exactly the tone of this manga.

Each story is based very much in the boring everyday but with certain details decidedly sideways, like a protagonist whose girlfriend inexplicably holds a snake in her mouth throughout their relationship, or a fisherman who just can’t seem to find a place to cast his line one day no matter where he goes. They’re very simple stories that express very complex emotions, and I loved the ache this collection left me with. The general tone is melancholy, but never overbearingly so. There’s a sort of quiet hope and purpose to the melancholy.

My favorite story was the third chapter, called Sadness of the Heart, where a man attempts to leave his sadness with a priest. I’ll give the synopsis here as a taste of how these stories go, but by all means don’t read on if you’d rather go in blind: The protagonist physically pulls his sadness out of his chest and hands it over, and it looks like a lumpy fetus thing. The priest keeps it. Years later, the protagonist has been living without sadness but has learned that the absence of sadness doesn’t necessarily mean the presence of happiness. While ruminating on this, he again visits the priest and asks how his sadness is doing. The priest takes him out to the garden where the little creature is swimming in the koi pond among the fish. “It’s playing?” the protagonist asks. “Yes,” says the priest. They both simply watch it as it swims around. We're left wondering if the protagonist made the right choice.

It’s weird, it sticks in your brain, and I loved every bit of it.

Previously, I had read two other mangas by these authors: Kono Sekai no Owari e no Tabi and Kami no Kodomo; both of which I greatly enjoyed. This one was no exception. This is truly an avant garde manga, it's style of art and storytelling is refreshingly, even shockingly, different from the typical slice of life mangas. That being said, it will not suit everybody's taste, but it's definitely worth checking out.

STORY -- 9/10

The manga consists of short stories, ranging from 8-pages long to 20-something pages, detailing bits and pieces of people's lives. I was impressed by how seemingly mundane situations became surreal and how ... reality seemed more like a dream, with the stories' dialogue. What added to the enjoyment of the stories for me was the focus on the characters' thoughts; there would be just one character narrating the entire story solely from his or her thought processes. It was interesting to be fully immersed in what the character was thinking.

I found it hard to interpret some of the stories. I think everybody's understanding of the stories will be different, based on your own perceptions and experiences. For me, I stopped trying to figure out things like the story's meaning, or its point, after a while and just enjoyed the writing and art. There were some instances though, when I felt like I grasped something important or significant, it gave me something to brood over and contemplate.


ART -- 10/10

I am probably being totally biased when I give this score but I can't help it. I just love the art. Very, very unique, beautifully drawn and most importantly, complements and enhances the story. I won't talk much about it because the art is straightforward, you can go and see it and come to your own conclusions since everybody has different tastes. For me, the art gets a full 10/10.


Overall, if you're looking for a quick read and like strange or abstract stories, or you're just looking for something that's different, you should pick this up.