Goodnight Punpun Volume 1

Product Information

This book was... not what I was expecting. I've heard so so many good things about this series, but I was pretty disappointed. I will keep reading it to see if it gets better, but so far I'm not a huge fan. Aiko Tanaka transfers into Punpun Punyama's elementary school class and they come to like each other. At home, Punpun walks into what looks like the aftermath of his father abusing his mother. While she stays in the hospital and his father separately, her brother Yuichi Onodera comes to live with Punpun. Punpun also learns that Aiko's mother sells miracle water and he makes a promise with Aiko to take her away to her uncle in Kagoshima. Punpun and his friends watch a porn cassette and stumble upon a taped-over confession from a man who has murdered his family, requesting that they locate the bodies and an award. Punpun and his friends, along with Aiko, visit the abandoned miso factory mentioned in the video.

Without a doubt, this is one of the most enthralling manga series I’ve read. I’ve seen stories that attempt to capture the hardships and struggles of life, but Asano goes far beyond that in Goodnight Punpun. It’s not a story that’ll appeal to everyone, the idea of it is abstract and peculiar to some people, but I know others, including myself, were absolutely astonished by this manga. It is impactful, heartbreaking, beautiful, and it will shape you as a person, as it did with me. If I'm going to read and enjoy a contemporary it usually has to be something more heavy that really makes me feel some things, Asano accomplished that. A coming-of-age drama story, it follows the life of a child named Onodera Punpun, from his elementary school years to his early 20s, as he copes with his dysfunctional family, love life, friends, life goals and hyperactive mind, while occasionally focusing on the lives and struggles of his schoolmates and family. Punpun and the members of his family are normal humans, but are depicted to the reader in the form of crudely drawn birds. The manga explores themes such as depression, love, social isolation, sex, death, and family. In I. Asano's Japan, a land of two-story houses, blindingly white skies crisscrossed by cables and wires, quiet sunny streets and Brutalist-looking industrial plants, there's something lurking inside every building; some latent form of insanity is seething beneath the skin of all the adults Punpun and his friends happen to come across. It's a weird place between David Lynch and Haruki Murakami, where nothing's what it seems and horrible things are always about to happen, too trivial to be noticed, too sad not to leave their mark on the protagonist. Negative thoughts aside, I thought the story was beautifully executed. the thing with manga is that a lot of authors like to take events to the extreme and they give you a lot exaggerated emotions and actions in an instant which I don't particularly dislike but it does give off a more unrealistic setting. this author slowly incorporated events and situations that slowly but effectively sets the mood and setting. the events that took place in the book could be described as random yet completely possible, events happened that you would not expect to happen but can completely happen in the real world. crazy and random, but everything is still tied to the focus of the book.

The Initial Impression

Budući da nisam stručnjak što se književnosti tiče, kad o knjigama pišem uglavnom izlivam osećanja i razmišljanja koja su probudile u meni na ovom uslovno rečeno "elektronskom papiru". Drugačije ne želim. Čitanje ljubomorno čuvam samo za hobi i uživanje. Iz tih razloga čitam sve što mi se učini zanimljivim bez bojazni da će me razočarati. Ali stripovi nikad nisu bili nešto što me je privlačilo. Neću sad reći da se to promenilo jer nije. Ali da ću u budućnosti dati šansu još ponekom stripu sigurno hoću jer sad ih već posmatram drugačije. Punpun struggles with a lot of isolation and alienation throughout the books– its depressing to follow his journey go from an innocent and happy youth, to such a disturbed and sad shell of himself. Ahora, por primera vez, me enfrento a su serie más larga (12 tomos) por lo que el miedo a la decepción está ahí, agazapado junto con las ganas de que esto salga bien. Y lo cierto es que no puedo estar más contento con este primer número de Buenas noches, Punpun. El planteamiento visual y narrativo es maravilloso. Las cotas de dureza y surrealismo humorístico se dan paso constantemente, y como lector uno nunca sabe qué pensar, qué sentimiento es el correcto ante cada escena. Punpun is real, but he's simply not there, not like the others are. He feels, thinks, lives on a different plane of existence and perception. His interactions are apparently normal: he has schoolmates, a family, a sweetheart, his own unlikely image of God appearing time and again in moments of distress. Except that the reader never sees him talking to anybody, except through indirect speech. There's a distance between Punpun and the others that words cannot seem to cross without losing the property of sound that makes them real. He does communicate, but it's a kind of communication whose form is as incongruous as his physical presence.

Punpun is just a little kid who has been dealt a crappy hand in life. His parents are fighting, badly. His mom gets hurt, his dad has to go to jail, his uncle (who isn't much better) moves in to help raise Punpun. Punpun has the weight of the world on his shoulders and he doesn't know how to handle it, what 5th grader would? So Punpun is this ghost looking creature. His whole family actually looks like these things. However, everyone in the world is normal looking humans. It's not said if everyone else sees Punpun and his family different but I doubt it since they all act normal around them. So this is mostly in Punpun's head, and let me tell you...This is not a kids story despite 90% of it being about kids. Kids go through some crazy shit. After the first chapter ends with someone ending up in the hospital we get to see Punpun's life change by meeting a girl, exploring sex stuff with his buddies, and learning about life problems getting older.An incongruity that extends to his family, all of whose members share Punpun's peculiar non-naturalistic aspect, though each of them possessing a few stylized characteristics. And yet, only the reader can see they belong to a species of its own. This manga has officially ruined and saved my life." is what I told my friend years ago when I finished Goodnight Punpun. I don't think I'll be able to properly convey my feelings for this story in a review today. I can write an entire essay, but it won’t be enough for me to describe how this manga changed the little fourteen year old me, and how close I keep it to my heart even now. Osim odnosa sa porodicom koji je poprilično siv i odlično se uklapa uz crno-bele crteže, ni ostatak sveta sa kojim se Punpun sreće nije ništa šareniji što samo dalje govori o pesimističkim pogledima autora na svet. Bar ja tako doživljavam. Zbog toga ovo nije priča za tinejdžere bez obzira na tematiku jer bih je okarakterisala kao previše mračnom za njih. Recommended to pretty much everybody who's looking for a moving, first-class coming of age story. As long as you don't mind a side of straight-up weird to go along with it.

this the perfect example of adults not thinking about how their actions will affect their kids. i hated punpun's mom. such a selfish human being. things certainly aren't always at it seems with the characters too. This is a manga that made me think, but most importantly, it made the my cold, empty heart feel. Yes, it made me ponder about adolescence, about youth, it made me think about identity and the complexity of people, but it made me feel so intensely for the protagonist and the characters surrounding him. I was frustrated with Punpun. His decisions and choices in life are unethical, and utterly terrible at times, but there were moments I understood these flaws made him so very pitiful, and so very human. A poignant reminder that I, along with everyone else in the world, could be exactly like Punpun at our lowest point in life. Punpun Punyama is a normal elementary school kid. He has a group of friends he hangs out with, has some big dreams, is getting more curious about the world (wants to find some porn as well), and there’s a girl he’s crushing on. This is his weird, surreal, melancholy story… of the time he was in elementary school. The Initial Impression Kraj uopšte i nije ništa drugo do nagoveštaj sledećeg dela i mislim da ćemo tek na kraju dobiti celokupnu sliku onoga što Inio želi da poruči svetu svojom pričom.

Shuriken and Pleats Vol. 1 Review

The absolute best aspect of Goodnight Punpun is its fantastic, rich character work. Inio Asano is a master craftsman when it comes to his characters, making them all feel like living, breathing three-dimensional human beings. Punpun himself is the most developed of everyone in the story so far and is also easily the most memorable. He’s never shown talking — instead, Asano lets odd bits of narration express what he’s thinking or fits of body language (like nodding and shivering). The character feels relatable very early on, with him suffering from fears, worries, and problems a lot of us have had in our past: trouble at home, freaking out about changes with one’s body, experiencing love for the first time, worrying about letting people down, trying to act tough around friends despite internal problems and worries, and wondering what exactly sex is. I find a bunch of these things, personally at least, rather relatable to things from my past or things my friends brought up in grade school. se Punpuna tiče, prvo me je obuzeo čudan i neprijatan osećaj. Uglavnom mi dolaze kad se prvi put sretnem sa nečim. Trebalo mi je vremena da se priviknem. Ali ne puno zapravo jer ni samo čitanje nije dugo trajalo. Odmah potom usledilo je prepoznavanje i osećaj već viđenog. To su oni sićušni delovi svog odrastanja koje sam prepoznala u ovoj priči. Ali svako odrastanje je različito i priča za sebe. Punpun je dečak iz disfunkcionalne porodice koji kod kuće posmatra oca alkoholičara i nasilnika kako nasmrt prebija svoju ženu, Punpunovu majku. Za domaći dobija da napiše šta bi voleo da bude. Ali Punpun to još uvek ne zna, plaši se da prizna sebi ili nije otkrio. Voleo bi da se dopadne simpatiji, ali i drugarima. A te dve stvari u ovom slučaju ne idu zajedno. Tek treba da odluči kome treba da se dopadne i šta želi od života. Zato Punpun sebe vidi kao pticu, isto kao i svoje roditelje i srodnike. Pokušava da otkrije i svoj odnos sa Bogom, koji mi onako nacrtan u najmanju ruku deluje nakaradno. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I snagged an ARC of “Goodnight Punpun”. I mean, the publisher describes him as a kid whose life goals include wining the Nobel Prize, running away in the name of love, and finding porn. I knew it would either be the best thing ever, or the worst. It’s the best thing ever. I find it hard to explain exactly why I loved this so much. Nothing exceptional happens. It is a story about a regular boy, in a regular town, doing regular things. It should be boring, but it’s… magical. Inio Asano has managed to take the ordinary and transform it into one of the most honest and true depictions of adolescence that I have ever seen in a manga. All those awkward moments and learning curves that most shy away from are all there. It feels as if Asano has lain all of our childhood experiences before us. Good, bad, and ugly, everyone has been through a lot of what Punpun has, and that makes him more than just a character. He is personable and real. Punpun doesn’t read like fiction, he reads like a friend you grew up with. You will root for him. You will want this kid to make it. After I've read this book, I couldn't help but search for books that are similar to it, so I read books created by the same author. Book after book (or manga after manga rather) I was faced with nothing but disappointment. Not a single one of those books came close to even half as good as Oyasumi Punpun. En general no me considero un lector de manga. Seguir las millones de series y reediciones que salen cada poco me da cierta pereza. Sin embargo, hay contadas excepciones. Una de ellas es Inio Asano. Con el que ya he tenido más de un encuentro breve satisfactorio.