So, I had already read the manga a couple times in unofficial translations by this point, so this isn't exactly my first read. I've had plenty of time to process my feelings towards this story, and there was really an extraordinary amount to process.
The first thing most people I know who have either seen the anime or read the manga say is it's very depressing. I'll be honest, just looking at the basic plot makes it seem like a horrifically sad and hopeless tale. Yet, I never was hit by any pity for these two girls in this hopeless situation. If anything, I envied them.
They were born into a dying and nearly dead world, in a collapsed society built in the ruins of an older collapsed society. They seem to have been separately taken in by an older man after something conceivably happened to their separate sets of parents. That was the only family/parental figure they can remember. They lose him at a very young age and are forced into the world to fend for themselves.
They are almost entirely ignorant of humanity, history, morality, and basically anything that we humans take for granted from our social constructs. So, they experience the remnants of this long dead world from an entirely fresh perspective, and it's so well executed to make it breathtaking. I was in constant awe of how effortlessly thought provoking it was. Heavy concepts were given fresh perspective from the eyes of these two unbiased observers. War, death, life, the afterlife, art, music, literature, and that's only the first ones to come to mind.
They have one simple purpose, and that's to find their way to the highest level of the multilayered ruins, hoping there's something up there. Yet, the journey comes to mean more to them than the destination. All the experiences they share together on their trek make their lives worthwhile, as unfair as their lives seem. Despite having only each other for almost the entirety of the story, they always had each other. Both of them had one ever faithful and unshakable companion to help them navigate through life.
I guess that's why I'm envious of them. The simplicity of their existence, coupled with having a person they loved deeply to get through it with, sounds nice. I suppose that's odd to say about two young girls forced to scrounge for every bit of food and water they can find, but the author herself mentioned feeling envious of them in the afterword. I guess I'm not alone, and that's one of the feelings these manga volumes gave me. I felt that as long as this story existed, and there was an author out there who could invoke these kinds of emotions in me, I'd never be alone.
There are so many powerfully emotional scenes that it's hard to even begin going into the finer details of the plot, so I'm not going to do that. I just want to say that I'm not sure if a work of fiction has ever moved me like this. Even the artwork, which I don't have much of an eye for, constantly made me want to sit and appreciate it. Every time I read this, I'm filled with a sense that everything will be okay, in the end, and that life, for all its hardships, is very much worth living.
