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after checking out some of fujimoto's one shots & lil back catalogue i figured before i continued to get back to my goal of reading MHA fully, it would be cool to do the same type of back catalogue deep dive with horikoshi. back before i was ever reading manga, horikoshi was the only mangaka i knew just bc i loved the MHA anime so much in like 2019 that i used to follow horikoshi online & shit for awhile there. the world’s a lot different now & ppl seem to shit on him a lot more than necessary these days but either way he’ll ... always have a special spot for me since he was the OG guy i knew since back in those older days when i first got into anime in general. as far as this first one shot its not the best though lol, kinda hard to get through honestly but the backstory had flashes of cool shit. obviously its mainly cool bc it's just the early version of shigaraki, but i mainly liked the v first page before the story started though. at least where i read it, it included this intro spotlight page that had behind the scenes stuff about it being the first time horikoshi was published & how he was gonna have big things coming one day. in the little section that they allowed him to say something in, just seeing his own classic style of self-depricating input & also him celebrating his first publishing is a beautiful thing & crazy how he’s mentioning he’s still gotta finish school & shit at the time & didn’t have time to fully commit yet. just wild to see the true publishing origin of this guy knowing that he would blow up so huge one day, def the most memorable thing for me from this first intro

very short chapter length one shot but it’s cool it exists, & i like the purpose of it. it’s cool that it dropped after goodbye eri which seems to be fujimotos most over analyzed piece due to the unorthodox structure & reality blurring nature of it, & this lil one shot has a great critical depiction of the fan culture that can read into aspects of art too deeply & project their own ideas onto an artists work that may have never been created with the intent to be so deeply combed or even defined at all. overall nothing too crazy but def a cool ... lil statement, especially with the added meaning of where it’s place is within fujimotos work/career at this point

on first read a lot of the first half or so didn't grip me as much as "look back" did, look back is just so immediate with the impact for me, & i know i don’t need to be comparing the two but they are fujimoto's two big newer one shots & i read them together originally as some of my first manga so they do have a kind of importance in my head as a pair as far as my own manga journey goes. but by the end of eri the first time through damn, can't help denying its another amazing work forsure. just ... so strongly everything in its place & so many layers, it rly does feel like the story could've ended so many times lol. i read it digitally for my first time which was actually sick for this bc i wasn’t checking the remaining page count as i went along so there was many points that i believed could’ve been the end & it would’ve been valid. it just keeps going though & with each new addition & each new layer, by the time you get to the final page its like wow that was so cool how so much was added to this by the end & how strongly it all comes together. i don’t feel the twists or additions were unnecessary or “trying too hard” to do twists just to have a twist, i feel like they all flowed naturally & all built onto the story in a cool way. these 2 newer bigger fujimoto one shots are def a high af level of creating, on second read though i will say its def confirmed that for some reason there’s some final feeling missing from goodbye eri for me to fully give it a 10. i read it & think damn yea this is p much a seamless manga to me as far as structure goes, more expertly crafted & creatively laid out than look back i’d say, there's design choices i can definitely appreciate as special in a good way such as the whole thing being framed like a landscape video recording in the paneling, & of course the layers are def rly great to unfold, but there's just that last golden spark of loving the characters or loving the impact of the story or loving the aesthetics or something like that that i’m kinda missing. idk whatever that last lil magic is in the art that allows you to connect deeper with it or love it as full as possible, i don't feel as much in goodbye eri as i do with look back, which i’ve come to find out is a more rare opinion when ppl talk about the two i guess. & at this point after rereading it, i'm currently now a good amount of volumes deep into chainsaw man & def have confirmed that fujimoto has even more characters that i love that feel fully alive & grab me so strongly, but guess this story here doesn't have the same full effect for me. but it's rly good & i would understand how so many people could love it even way more than me! i’d say it's a rly amazing lil manga that i like at a very respectable high level, but just without that last little magic spark that would allow me say that i love it 100%. either way this & look back both are amazing ass recommendations to give to someone who hasn't read manga before old i'd say, rly short & rly good books, v happy i got to have these to help kick off my manga journey

read & reread this awhile later & it's even more clear the second time going through being able to go back & follow closely at every part, that damn this shit is def so good! gave me a bit of that amazing "whisper of the heart" feeling first time reading it with the idea of working hard to be an artist & stuff, i know this one isn't talked about as much as goodbye eri & that’s fine it’s understandable why a lot of ppl would be excited about that one, it's def more "explosive" lol, but damn i’ll always have a soft spot for ... these things that explore what it means to be an artist. easily my fav fujimoto thing so far, from the content of the first couple pages you can instantly tell this shit is special. & the art is great! in this it's the first time that i can truly fully appreciate the specific difference in fujimotos art style & the way he draws his characters. it's prob bc i love the story so much & its done so well here, but also bc it's relatively v new so obviously his drawing abilities would naturally be more refined by this point. but strangely, refined doesn't quite feel like the correct word bc even though it is accurate & the best art i've seen from him so far, his artistic appeal to me & to many people i'd imagine is that specific type of rawness he uses. i still haven't read chainsaw man at this point but am excited to finally see how this style translates in that story bc the characters are drawn realistically but in a raw & sharp & scratchy way, & i do love when he uses sketchy lines & heavy scribbled shading to create an all around look & environment in his drawings. stylistically when things need to feel a certain way (in this case when the story is darkest or most intense), he can choose to turn up dramatically the scribbly, sketchy, design of the panels & it rly helps to create a strong feeling. aside from that though there is a lot of full page & wordless drawings in here that are beautiful, & the core drawings of fujino at her desk that are the centerpiece of the manga are so well done & i love every one that i see in here. those drawings above all rly hone in the most on that feeling of working hard, unglamorously, to be an artist. the writing is smart & funny, story is dramatic & eventful, but also intimate in quieter moments, & the directions it goes were not predictable for me, every panel feels in its place & moves the story along in a natural well paced way. i love the flawed characters & i appreciate that all the moments that are supposed to hit, hit they way they should, without being distracted by unnecessary edginess that i feel bogged down some of his older short stories. i love the struggle of wanting to be a good artist but also wrestling with turning your back on it, or not enjoying the process a lot of time, or finding spontaneous artistic inspiration in life when it happens to land in your face & you feel like you need to make art in that specific moment. in the end, i think this book is sad forsure, the connections between the two main characters is rly wholesome, tragic, & beautiful. but aside from that i think a lot of the book is also motivating & inspirational. even if it's not in the classic shonen "i'm gonna be the greatest in the world" type of way, but like i mentioned earlier, more in the whisper of the heart type of way. the inspirations that focus on this smaller scale "i'm gonna try to be just a better version of myself" or "i'm gonna realistically work as hard as i can to become better at my craft", i love that feeling so much in stories, it's one of my favorite feelings mainly stemming from of course being an artist myself, & i love when it's portrayed in the unglamourous, realistic, & difficult way, showing that it's amazing to make art, but also showing the real world side of making art which is mostly in those quiet, frustrating, long intimate work hours put in, & that this book displays soo well!

the second volume of the stories i didn't like as much forsure, mermaid rhapsody was not that great for me & was kinda goofy, woke up as a girl was weak with kinda awkward, shitty messaging, & sisters i can appreciate a little more after going back & reading it again after loving look back, but anything that’s good in it is done insanely better in look back & any nice moment in it is ruined by it just being unnecessarily weird af the whole time lmao. natuya though was prob the best crafted story out of all of the stories in both volumes though, ... i feel it just has the most defined, distinguishable character & the most solid situations & developments, there were def sick ass panels in there that were the most big feeling moments out of everything i read in the 2 volumes. even if natuya's dialogue could get a bit cringe & edgy lol, i still def liked the cool presentation of the story & i think its a solid story all around, & that last page was beautiful forsure! def showed some artistic glimmers of what i could imagine future bigger fujimoto works could have at it’s advantage. the second volume wasn’t as overall hitting besides the one story for me but as a background to fujimoto it def gave me a bit of a look into understanding him before moving onto his bigger & better works, & this series made me understand more in general the concept of a one shot or an anthology!

as for as my current thoughts on fujimoto i’m still unsure, & i’m saying this now after having also read look back & goodbye eri at this point, which i loved, coming back to complete this review/re-read knowing there's for sure amazing works of art i rly fw that fujimoto can create, but at the same time for me there’s also something strangely unlikeable about him in a vague way lol, idk if it’s just something in the edginess that makes it feel forced or if the tarantino type comparisons i've seen gave me this cringe perceived idea about the aura surrounding him, but i can def love edgy stuff & tarantino movies though so who knows haha. guess cant fall into the trap of puttin something on an artist just bc a bunch a goof balls ride their D. maybe i just need a break from him rn honestly, as of now i do think he has amazing moments & he's obviously very talented & has a rly unique style of writing & drawing, but i’m not a full out all around fujimoto stan yet. of course obviously my main opinion will be a lot more solid & realistic when i finally read chainsaw man though!

before this i read a lil american comics & before that years ago i had skimmed a bit of the MHA manga after watching the show, when i decided to rly commit to reading manga recently i started by reading a couple my hero volumes from the top since it was easy, but after that this is the first manga i ever started & completed. i chose it bc i wanted to check out chainsaw man & realized it would be cool if i checked out tatsuki fujimotos lil back catalogue, i realized the importance of wanting to understand a specific artist's style & purpose, ... i would do it in any other artform so why wouldn’t i do it for manga yknow? & from the top i do rly appreciate this cool format of artist origin one shot collections, or at least how these specific stories were readily presented, i guess it would just be like an anthology right? but yea at least for beginners of reading a big name artist it’s def a nice convenient way to get a real sample platter to get to know a mangaka by having them so easily accessible & in order from the beginning, & yea this first volume decent, it's cool i mean there were some cool kind of sharply cutting writing in the stories & i like the sharp style of violence he uses also, how its portrayed almost instant & nonchalantly at times but at the same time so extremely violent lol. the chicken story prob my most memorable, i kept thinking about it randomly after reading this volume, on second read i can confirm that i do like that story even if the art is kinda ass a lot of times in it lol. but i mean he was a kid making it so it's not a big deal. love is blind was rly funny, on second read it's rly confirming that the main character reminds me of iida from MHA with the funny seriousness. but i like that one too it's a feel good funny one. other than that shikaku had a couple cool drawings, but it felt kinda basic & sasaki stopped a bullet was my least fav, it's not that terrible or anything, it's just messy i feel & the message just doesn't quite come through that well by the end.

it's a weird position reading these bc its simultaneously my first experience with one shots/short stories, which i’m loving, prob just the satisfaction of being able to finish something right away creates an environment of no pressure & a guranteed relief, either a relief of closure/completion, or a relief of simply being able to move on to the next story, but i’m trying to balance that with also seeing fujimoto for the first time & i’m trying to seperate the two, but hopefully if i end up liking chainsaw man or anything by him in general, this will all feel cool that i was able to read this