I'd like to take the time to point out that Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan is first and foremost, a manga adaptation of the Korean novel: "Our Happy Time" by Gong Ji-young. Considering the fact that the manga's so short and I actually have read the source material from end to end, I'll just want to make a few things clear:
- I'll be referring to Yuu and Juri as Yunsu and Yujeong respectively, as those are their names in the source material.
- I'll be referring to "Watashitachi no Shiawase na Jikan" as "the manga" for simplicity's sake.
- In reference to the book, I'll be referring to it as either "the source material" or "Our Happy Time."
- Given the fact that the manga's so short, this is less of a review of the manga and more of a review of the source material since I didn't want this review to be so short and worthless.
Got all that? Good. Let's get into it.
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Our Happy Time is a Korean romance novel written by bestselling author, Gong Ji-young that chronicles the story of a suicidal former teen pop star named Yujeong and her interactions with a Death Row inmate named Yunsu. After her third suicide attempt, she decides to skip going to rehab once more so that she can go visit Death Row inmates with her Aunt Monica. Through these meetings, Yujeong and Yunsu meet and they start learning more about one another as time goes on. The novel makes it incredibly clear that Yujeong and Yunsu are polar opposites both in birth and in upbringing. Of course, this isn't to say that they don't share any common ground because they actually do.
Despite the fact that Yujeong has lived an incredibly privileged life, it's quite evident that she is NOT the picture of what a well-adjusted person looks like. In between her terrible relationship with her mother (who openly displays animosity toward her daughter), a series of unfortunate events that befell her when she was younger, followed by the subsequent isolation she felt in her teen years, it's no surprise to see why Yujeong tried committing suicide multiple times in her life. This isn't to say that Yujeong is a one-note character and her strife is all that defines her because that couldn't be further from the truth because she's invariably human in her portrayal. Anyone who's dealt with or is still dealing with depression will find Yujeong to be nothing short of an empathetic character.
Yunsu on the other hand enters the picture as an unrepentant and hostile Death Row inmate: someone whom most of us would say deserves to die if we were to meet this man in person. Every chapter in the novel is preceded by a "Blue Note" which documents Yunsu's life story. We see the very circumstances that shaped him into the person we see him as now. Unlike Yujeong, Yunsu lived a life of abject poverty and has known nothing but strife throughout his childhood. In between living with abusive parents, dealing with bullies at the orphanage, being homeless for various stretches of time, among other things, Yunsu's childhood innocence was wiped away and replaced with the demeanour of a hardened criminal for as long as he could remember. At first, Yunsu doesn't seem like someone we can relate to but again, that couldn't be further from the truth. Yunsu speaks out to those of us who've ever been afraid to open up to others because we don't want to make ourselves vulnerable, those of us who've ever longed for a second chance that we know we'll never get, those of us who genuinely feel remorse over the actions of our past and wish to be forgiven, among other such things.
Yunsu and Yujeong's relationship is that which defies superficial contrasts in upbringing. Brought together by Aunt Monica and drawn to one another by their mutual loneliness, they find a comforting message in each other's company: "you are not alone." This is Our Happy Time's greatest strength: the romance between Yunsu and Yujeong is incredibly well-developed and just feels so genuine. What's more is that you know that the days that Yunsu and Yujeong have together are limited, so it just keeps your eyes glued to the page and also makes you anxious to even turn the next page because you know not what development would come next.
In addition to that, Our Happy Time reminds us all that those of us who've committed countless atrocities in the past are still capable of redeeming themselves. Make no mistake: Yunsu's past actions are condemned to hell and back in this novel, but Gong Ji-young does not go out of her way to portray Yunsu as a monster. Despite the fact that Yunsu has committed many crimes in his lifetime and might not even deserve forgiveness from those who he's wronged, he is still invariably a human and deserves our sympathy at the very least. I feel like where Elfen Lied failed with its attempts at showing whether or not someone is truly capable of atoning for the sins of their past, Our Happy Time succeeded. Yunsu is everything that Lucy should've been but wasn't.
For all these reasons and more, Gong Ji-young's Our Happy Time is certainly a novel that I heartily recommend reading. Now, there exist two adaptations of it to my knowledge: a live-action film adaptation produced in 2006 and a manga adaptation made in 2008. I'd talk about the film adaptation but this is a site dedicated to anime and manga, so I'll skip that and talk about the manga. What do I think about it? Well... it was the thing that got me to pick up a copy of the source material off Amazon for $10 so it has that going for it. But as someone who craves depth and detail alongside his romances, the manga doesn't exactly do it for me.
When I read the manga, I instantly became attached to Yujeong and Yunsu but I actually ended up completing the entire manga within the span of 45 minutes. When I finished the final chapter, I was actually on the bus on my way to English and it was just so... shall we say, dissatisfying? When I picked up the actual novel to see what I missed out on, it turns out that I missed out on a LOT of stuff like the specifics of Yunsu's terrible past among other things. Everything that the manga was missing out on, the novel had. I know that conventional literature and manga are two totally different mediums but there was a LOT of stuff present in the novel that could've easily translated over to a monga context without any problems whatsoever. It just baffles me as to how the manga was even penned like this. If it were a one-shot, I could forgive that but this was actually serialised over the course of several months. Why couldn't we get more? Ultimately, that's a question that'll probably never be answered but it still irks me.
It also doesn't help that the manga's artwork is just so... bleh. In some of the manga's most iconic scenes (i.e. when Yujeong is playing the piano for Yunsu before the inevitable happens, that panel where they're holding hands whilst Yunsu is chained up), it looks good but it never goes into great territory and there are some parts of the manga that just look really badly drawn (cough cough the image that MAL uses for this manga's database page cough cough). I mean, it's fine for what it does but you probably won't see me using images from the manga as a Facebook cover any time soon.
This isn't to say that the manga isn't worth reading, because I still say it is. For what it's worth, it focuses on Yunsu and Yujeong in the present so that their relationship could develop a lot quicker. For what it's worth, the manga also stays 100% spot-on with Yunsu and Yujeong's characterisations, so the relationship between the two still felt sincere as fuck. I just wanted to see it play out a little longer, but I guess we can't get what we want all the time. Anyway, that's all for now. Feedback's welcome and all that, so I'm out. Peace :)
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I finished this review at 3am when I first wrote it, and I finished my revisions an hour later. Writing reviews is so tedious sometimes. Also, I still think Lilium fits the tone of the story quite well. G'night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWW8DMpfI9U
