Shounen Shoujo

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I read this a few months ago, looking for a more dark or graphic manga to read. The story is very original, and the manga did a great job at exploring themes like the value of a human life, when is it okay to kill someone, etc. I also feel like the manga does a good job at portraying the main character’s apathy and his twisted view of originality, and how he views people who he thinks aren’t unique. The mangaka also does a good job at drawing the gorey scenes and the illness and nightmares the main character has that can only be compared ... to a drug trip. I recommend giving this one a read

Spoilers below.

The premise was very unique; a disease in which you can't see individuality. A boy who is thought to be the only person in the world with this disease rejoices, as he finally gets the chance to be seen as special- until another girl shows up with the same disease. And so the boy decides the most reasonable thing to do is not console her, but to kill her off before she dies of said disease. The bloodbath commences. I really enjoyed this manga, it provides surprisingly great commentary on what it means to be an individual; that you should embrace your characteristics regardless ... if you share them with other people.

tl;dr: A very unique manga centered around a boy obsessed with having individuality.

From the duo that brought you Medaka Box comes yet another very unique work. This one is centered around individuality and the lack thereof. As such, one of the core aspects of this manga is that it does not have proper nouns. The hero is simple referred to as ‘boy’ and the heroine is simple referred to as ‘girl’. Though there is a bit of a twist as you would expect with NISIOISIN in that the boy is written as 症年 instead of 少年 and the girl is written as 症女 instead of ... 少女, in both cases replacing the 少 which means small, with 症 which means illness.

The plot involves the boy having a disease that involves him being unable to see the individuality in others and that will also result in him dying when he reaches the age of twelve. Rather than lament over his fate he’s actually super happy because being a tragic child dying of a mysterious new disease gives him a tremendous amount of individuality. And if he’s the first to die from the disease he would leave his mark on history as the disease would be named after him. However, his hopes are shattered when a girl turns out to have the disease, and she’s older than him and thus scheduled to die before him. Thus, to ensure that he obtains true individuality, he decided he’s going to kill the girl before the disease gets to her.

With that said, while him killing her is a core part of the plot from the beginning to end, it focuses much more on the character of the boy and the girl and their backgrounds. There’s a relationship arc between the two that makes little sense, but it actually resonates more emotionally due to how little sense it makes. There’s also a character arc in the boy centered around his views on individuality, and with that as its core the manga overall explores individuality quite a bit. Everyone wants to be special but what does that really mean? What does it mean to be unique in a world where everyone is trying to be unique? And who decides any of that? This manga gets pretty heavy handed about it, but ultimately it does convey what I felt was a pretty clear message about how pursuing individuality as a goal in and of itself is foolhardy. And though it does largely does seem to focus on the negatives, it does shine a light on the positives as well though within a pretty narrow context.

Overall, I found it really interesting and though it’s definitely a very strangely told story that jumps around a lot, due to how short and fast paced it is, I felt that worked well. I was also satisfied with the ending for the most part, though with one major exception. In the epilogue it shows and explains things it’s unable to beforehand. Certain parts I think definitely made the ending much more satisfying. But there were also certain parts that I feel were wholly unnecessary and overexplained things that there was no reason to explain at all, with the end result being taking things that were mysterious and cool and just making them kind of stupid and full of inconsistencies.

The art is interesting in that what it’s able to show is ultimately incredibly narrow as it’s from the perspective of the boy who can’t see the individuality in anyone or anything other than the girl, and thus the reader isn’t shown any as well. It’s ultimately just a gimmick but I thought it contributed pretty well to the themes and atmosphere the story was going for. There are also some bizarre dream sequences that have pretty cool art and some cool panels that involve crazy violence or crazy nonsense such as vomiting cloth and buttons. Still, character designs and how well they come across are a key element to me when it comes to how much I like art and this manga simply isn’t able to do much in terms of that at all so I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the art in this manga.