When I first started the story, I genuinely thought the presentation of the main character accurately represented a young child with his worries and youthful immaturity. But, I simply cannot relate with the vast majority of punpun's thought process after he grows up. Many of his conclusions objectively don't make sense. I do understand that the characters' lives suck, but I have so little sympathy for any of them because they don't pursue self-improvement or change at all. Again, if they really tried to better themselves and lost to the powers that be, it would be a relatable tragedy. But, here we are, following the most bitter and mundane nonevents of the low-functioning mentally ill. I gave the characters 4/10 and not 0/10 because I'm pretty sure the author made them suck on purpose.
A bitter, irrational, depressed main character, punpun, has a bad home-life in his childhood. I don't think that he is a victim of circumstance. He is not continually dealt a bad hand as the story continues. His emotional state just spirals down from then on. This is not a story of overcoming adversity, either. The main character's delusional pessimism regarding himself and the world around him lead him to stagnate and wallow in self-loathing for the whole of the story. Others in the story have more tragic situations, yet punpun just never shapes up. Not that any of them do either, though. Read this if you want to suffer. I don't mean that in a poetic tragedy way, I mean that it's a controlled dumpster fire. I do not see the appeal.
