Buenas noches, Punpun, vol. 5

おやすみプンプン [Oyasumi Punpun] #5

by Inio Asano, Marc Bernabé (translator)

La adolescencia de Punpun es de lo más complicada: su madre se desentiende, su tío está en el punto más bajo de su depresión y él sigue enamorado en silencio de Aiko, a la que traicionó cuando eran niños.

Genres: Manga, Comics, Seinen, Fiction, Graphic Novels, Drama, 漫画

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2009

About the author

Inio Asano (浅野いにお, Asano Inio) is a Japanese cartoonist. He is known for his character-driven stories and his detailed art-style, making him one of the most influential manga author of his generation.
Asano was born in 1980 and produced his first amateur comics as a teenager. His professional debut happened in 2000 in the pages of the magazine Big Comic Spirits. Since then, he has collaborated with most of the major Japanese magazines of seinen manga (comics for a mature audience). Among Asano's internationally acclaimed works are: the psychological horror Nijigahara Holograph (2003-2005); the drama Solanin (2005-2006); the existentialistic slice-of-life Goodnight Punpun (2007-2013); the erotic A Girl on the Shore (2009-2013); the sci-fi Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction (2014-2022).

Reviews

[Anja Karenjina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Definitivno najlošiji deo, sve je započeto, ništa dovršeno, a teme su na nivou osnovne škole dok pritom prikazuje erotske scene. Volela bih da se Asano odluči šta hoće i kome piše.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este tomo me ha gustado demasiado, aquí se nota ya lo deprimente que se torna todo y eso fue lo que en principio me prometieron. Las cosas solo se tornaran más y más tenebrosas para los personajes. Me ha gustado lo bien llevado que está la soledad, el paso de los años, la pérdida de la amistad, la miseria humana, el fanatismo, los dilemas existenciales,la llegada de la adultez... hasta el abuso sexual.

Aunque tengo un gran pero con esta última y me ha parecido súper forzada, no fuera de lugar porque tiene un sentido; pero lo siento, el personaje abusador no tiene trasfondo alguno. Solo ha pasado porque sí y ya, solo porque tenía una  inestabilidad emocional y se aprovechó del más tonto. No sé, me parece chueco. Aunque admito que es subjetivo y puede pasar, pero con la personalidad de Midori no pega. Y eso le resta puntos lamentablemente.

[Shi2chi · Rating 5 out of 5]

First let me give a warning that there is going to be a middle aged woman forcing herself to an underraged boy so if you have a condition that might get triggered by this you should probably skip chapter 50

I don't want to repeat myself and after each volume compliment the art style , the humour, the dark themes, and the character developement. Oops I just did (picture me in your head as one of those insincere side characters drawn in the mixture of expressionist/cartoonish style like how Inio Asano draws some of the teachers or lawyers)

Before I finish let me just take a shot at some people and annoy them to the best of my abilities:
The encounter between Shimizu and the prophet alone was more funnier than the entierty of shakespeare's "love's labours lost"

[Myra✧₊⁺ · Rating 2 out of 5]

samo ću reći da mi je bilo jako neprijatno i da sam u stanju apsolutnog zbunitisa😂

[Aitor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al ser un tomo de preparación para los siguientes, el bajón desde el cuarto volumen me ha parecido bastante notable. Sigue siendo Asano, eso es innegable, y aprueba igualmente con nota, pero no puedo dejar de sentir que el formato serializado lo ha constreñido en algunas decisiones narrativas. Me explico: la inserción de Seki y Shimizu como trama paralela a la vida de Punpun me parece una idea muy acertada y, además, plantea a un personaje tan distinto al protagonista como es Seki. Aunque su ideología tenga un punto de madurez del que carece el pollo deforme, sus actos se mueven por impulsos casi infantiles y está claro que su problema es la falta de sentido a su vida. El fallo, por tanto, no es tanto el personaje como la forma en que se plantea su historia, y es que creo que Asano se ha visto obligado a meter tanto a Seki como a Shimizu en varias situaciones complicadas tan solo para hacer avanzar sus distintos arcos. Conceptualmente, todo funciona correctamente, ya que Seki se acerca en cierto modo a una esperanza de vivir productivamente y Shimizu reafirma su fe en un Dios que lo empuja hacia delante. El choque entre sus dos ideologías encuentra su correlato en la última escena, donde ambos parecen haber aprendido sus lecciones. Sin embargo, considero que hacer todo esto en un solo día queda forzado para permitir que las acciones sean paralelas. Además, hay que ver qué gente más extraña se encuentran estos dos en tan poco tiempo.

Por lo demás, creo que aquí lo realmente destacable es la trama del propio Punpun. Yûichi tiene un cierre interesante que, una vez más, refuerza esa idea que subyace a todo el tomo: pese a todo, siempre quedará la esperanza; mientras que Punpun las pasa putísimas. Toda la situación con Midori es realmente cruda y muy efectiva en su ejecución. A través del dibujo y varias viñetas muy bien colocadas (ese Punpun llorando durante el acto es un ejemplo perfecto), se refuerza la sordidez del asunto. Adoro en especial esas sombras que comienzan a cubrirlo a partir de esa escena y cómo continúan dibujando formas oscuras en su cuerpo durante varios capítulos. Puntos extra para la conversación final con Midori, por supuesto. Es cierto que las acciones de la chica son moralmente condenables, algo que he visto muy criticado, pero me parece que Asano logra llevarla orgánicamente hasta ese extremo. Me habría gustado mucho más desarrollo para comprender mejor sus acciones, eso sí. Con lo que muestran los capítulos, se me hace un poco demasiado.

La psique de Punpun, mientras tanto, sigue decayendo a pasos agigantados sin resultar forzado en ningún momento. Cuando se trata de ese personaje, Asano pone toda la carne en el asador; al fin y al cabo, conducirlo desde la inocencia del primer tomo hasta las acciones de los últimos debe resultar creíble para que su final no resulte arbitrario. Las risas van menguando con cada nuevo capítulo y, la verdad, me parece el movimiento más adecuado ahora que hemos entrado en el reino de lo psicológicamente devastador. La relación con su madre también tiene cierta importancia en el tomo para demostrar que es hasta normal que el niño haya salido de esa manera con semejantes tratos. Por supuesto, hablamos de Asano: no dudo de que dará un trasfondo o algún tipo de redención a la madre (sí, memoria de pez, gente). En sus obras, no existen los blancos o negros; tan solo escalas de grises que tienden a oscurecerse con el paso de los capítulos.

[Alex Pler · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Las personas somos libres. Aunque uno no puede volar por sí solo, cualquier cosa que se te ocurra es básicamente posible. Cuando tienes sueño puedes dormir. En la vida eres libre de empezar lo que sea y también de dejarlo. Solo que el sentido común, las normas, el ritmo de vida o la mentalidad, entre otras cosas, nos estorban y nos impiden hacerlo."

[Radwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

All the adults are horrible. the mother, the uncle, the uncle's girlfriend. Their dismisal and abuse is really hard to read. It's so sad watching the gradual darkening of punpun's thoughts.

TW: Rape.

[yengyeng · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the doctor "tells it like it is" phil of manga. you get the truth that you do not want to but need to hear.

[Jon Ureña · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series is called "Goodnight Punpun" in English. I'm reviewing just this volume. Four and a half stars.

We left the protagonist's uncle as he had fled his family home after fucking up somehow. His sweet, caring girlfriend is worrying next to the protagonist and his mother. Turns out the uncle fucked up in the most predictable way, by fucking someone else; quite appropriate for someone who's easily manipulated by his instincts. His girlfriend knows, because he had gone as far as telling her, but afterwards he couldn't stomach hanging around, so he had fled like the coward he is and adopted the homeless life.

The most painful part about the sequence of events is that the now 27 year old woman is genuinely kind and caring, and although I always expect terrible things to happen in the kind of fiction I'm attracted to, she just didn't deserve it. During the time the uncle was stumbling around in the streets disheveled and despairing, his girlfriend was taking care of the protagonist and his mother, playing videogames with him, etc., while pretending it didn't hurt that much. She started using the protagonist as a sort of comfort blanket by lying with him on the couch and crying quietly; the protagonist is probably the most appropriate non-directly-connected-to-you person to do that with, given that he barely talks and his usual reaction involves just staying around like an idiot. He really is an useless protagonist for the most part.

In any case, the uncle doesn't seem to be coming back, so the protagonist's mother decides it's time to move out and break apart their little fake family. She'll live with the protagonist, and the uncle's girlfriend will move back with her parents. The protagonist thinks he'll never see again that woman he had grown fond of, although given that he's mopey all the time it's hard to tell if it bothers him particularly. His uncle's girlfriend and the protagonist end up in the closed coffee shop she runs. While the protagonist is standing around, the woman opens up about the hurt, how stupid she had been for trusting that the uncle would change (and yes, women are always stupid when they expect others to change to the person they want them to be. Human beings don't work like that). She casts an annoyed glance at the protagonist because he doesn't seem to know how to react. Her usual composure breaks, and she tells him that he's terrible at reading the mood and comforting people, so he shouldn't try; just smile. She probably resents him for being related to her boyfriend to begin with. The protagonist goes as far as forcing a smile, but he looks stupid. The woman feels bad for her outburst, and while sobbing she begs the protagonist to lie with her on the couch. They embrace for a bit, and she, a 27 years old woman, ends up sliding her hand down the protagonist's pants to caress his 16 year old dick. He's shocked and cowers against the opposite end of the couch, but she insists and he ultimately accepts this particularly caring woman's advances. She proceeds to mount him and pleasure herself while crying. Pretty hot overall. After they finish, he just wants to leave. She's sad and a bit worried, and tells him to come see her some other day.

The protagonist feels like he has leveled up and now knows the secrets of the universe. Once he gets home he rolls around while shouting in a mix of desperation and joy, and ends up in bed masturbating furiously.

While the uncle's girlfriend was screwing a minor, the uncle was tempting a former friend of his to kill him, because he doesn't have the guts to kill himself. His former friend loses the little remaining respect he had for him. The uncle takes a taxi at night towards the sea, but his driver turns out to be one of those impossibly cool minor characters that sometimes appear in these stories. He's a former Yakuza goon who had a lot to repent for, and it was a woman who made him settle down. His wife had died just the month before. He spends hours with the uncle listening to his pathetic tale. It's not only that he hurt again a person who cared for him and truly didn't deserve it, but he himself, being as shitty as he is, doesn't deserve being cared for. The taxi driver tells him that he only has one regret, that he didn't manage to thank his wife before she passed. "You shouldn't care that you don't deserve the love you get, you should just worry about repaying it before it's too late." The uncle is inspired and you can tell he'll come back some day, unless he manages to fuck that up as well.

However, by the end of this volume we meet the uncle's girlfriend, whose name is Midori by the way; turns out that the very next day she had sad-fucked the protagonist, the uncle had come back and proposed marriage. They started living together in his father's home. When the protagonist learns about it, he feels betrayed and jealous; he doesn't understand how an adult could have made him feel that way only to act afterwards like nothing ever happened.

The rest of this volume involved a couple of the protagonist's childhood friends, who have been detached from the protagonist for a few years now. One of them is a street-smart kid with a broken family; he won't go to high school, and he's trying to earn money whichever way necessary. His friend is a weird kid who's probably schizophrenic to some extent, and who hangs around with the first kid because he admires him. The street-smart kid advertises himself as a "do whatever" guy, and his first order comes from a depressed woman who wants to pay him to kill her former boyfriend, who seemingly cheated on her. The kid says, sure, I don't care about people and I need money. However, at the last second he can't force himself to push the guy in front of a train. The kid follows him around until he meets his very pregnant girlfriend, and the kid can see that they are decent people who wouldn't have deserved what was coming for them. The kid is saddened and terrified by how easily he had come to the decision to kill some random person.

Although the subplots involving these childhood friends of the protagonist tend to be interesting, it's as if the author reminds us of them just because he started out having them around. They are beyond disconnected from the protagonist and his troubles at this point. I wonder if everybody will get together in the future for some common thread (like in Naoki Urasawa's fantastic "20th Century Boys"), or if we are going for a "we met all these characters long ago; let's see what kind of adults they become".

This is a great series.

[Aimé · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ya se está poniendo fuerte la cosa eh.





Ay...

[Debora Santo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I dalje zanimljiv, i dalje drži pažnju. U ovom delu priče ima dosta više zanimljivih monologa u odnosu na ranije.

[Himanshu Karmacharya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, the author decides to prove us wrong. It appears as if the manga is an abyss of despair and human flaws.

[Ami 乁⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠o⁠ ⁠˘⁠ ⁠ㄏ (written by Jane Austen) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The volumes keep getting heavier as we go...Also this one in particular should come with a trigger warning for rape.

[Mon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mi favorito hasta el momento.

[Nikola · Rating 4 out of 5]

"La sociedad no es más que la materialización de la esencia del ser humano despojada de todo adorno, ¿o no?"

[Gustavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Estoy disfrutando mucho de la forma de narrar de Asano, creo que ese estilo fragmentado evoca a como funciona nuestra memoria, de alguna forma. Algunos eventos que recordamos son importantes y significativos, y otros solo son trascendentes por que recordamos como nos sentimos en ese momento.

En lo particular, me encantó la historia de Seki y Shimizu, me hizo pensar en las situaciones extrañas en las que uno se mete cuando es adolescente y tiene demasiado tiempo al vicio, o está intentando encontrar un trabajo en el que quieran a un adolescente sin experiencia.

[Yuki Ura · Rating 5 out of 5]

The achievement that drew the dark side of "Midori-san", which was introduced as an opportunistic character that moves the story at first, is great. I was not expecting this. It is a work that never ends a good person as a good person, and constantly seeks out human weakness and sin

[Juan Carlos malik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuamos con oyasumi. Y en este tomo vemos otra transformación y la otra etapa de la vida de punpun. Donde nos muestra el tema de la primera vez y nos cuestiona acerca de cómo seremos como adultos.

[Kiyoyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aun trato de procesar todo, buenas noches

[Dazaiesque · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm tired of the violence in this manga :'(

[Aida · Rating 5 out of 5]

End. 1401/4/25
اگه وانمود کردن به دونستن یعنی بچه بودن،
و وانمود کردن به نمیدونستن یعنی بالغ بودن،
پس پون‌پون به این نتجیه رسید، که اون هنوز بچه‌ست.

[Andrés felipe · Rating 5 out of 5]

La madre de pun pun es una mierda

[Baz · Rating 5 out of 5]

ya entiendo porqué decidió salir con ese man 🤩

[Dragana]

Nije mi se dopalo.
Nabacano
Konfuzno.
Poneka erotska scena
Ne znam.
Bezveze deo.

[Evoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might have been my favourite volume yet, even if the content itself was the hardest to bear.

The art and symbolism continue to astound me, and I love the way it gives us an insight into Punpun's psyche and trauma.

**Warning: slight spoilers ahead**

The panel revealing his human body for the first time filled me with dread, knowing what was most likely going to happen.

On a brighter note, the friendship between the two boys, Seki and Shimizu, provides a welcome reprieve amidst the darkness, though it also fills me with anxiety, since I don't want anything to happen to them or their bond.

The next volume's "about the characters" describes Midori as "a golden scalycap mushroom." The first thing I found after looking the mushroom up was that while the mushroom may captivate with its aesthetics, it is important to recognize its toxic nature.
That's how I feel about most characters and their actions in this series. It also fits incredibly well as a descriptor for Midori, who was one of my favourite characters until this volume.

As one of the characters finally begins therapy, I'm hopeful for overall growth and change, though it seems like wishful thinking considering the depth of issues plaguing the entire cast.

Can we please get all of them to go to therapy? And the kids into a stable and loving environment, thank you.

But ultimately, I can't see this series losing its tragic and unsettling nature.


TW // rape of a minor

[Federico Elías · Rating 5 out of 5]

Se genera más y más tensión en la vida de los personajes. Poco a poco PunPun deja de ser el centro del drama y pasa a ser uno de los tantos. Es difícil entender este manga sin entender cómo es la sociedad japonesa, qué cosas valoran, qué prioridades tienen, lo solos que están. PunPun es ahora un adolescente y eso tiene implicaciones, comienza a pensar de otra manera y actuar en consecuencia, me trae recuerdos de cosas que he hecho a su edad y que ahora me parecen impensables, cosas que suelo olvidar.
Da la sensación de que nunca se deja de madurar, porque siempre estamos equivocandonos y aprendiendo a vivir con eso, y para algunos no hay mayor castigo a nuestras malas acciones que ser perdonados.
"La fé debe ser una forma de vivir, no el fin"
"No tiene un significado ni una razón especial, son cosas que fluyen y pasan porque tienen que pasar"

[Leila ✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arranqué este volumen pensando “nooo, pobre Midori, tuvo una infancia re de mierda y ahora le pasa esto”… y después hizo lo que hizo. Me pareció terrible de leer. No se bien si eso cuenta como una violación o no (porque no muestran los diálogos de Punpun), pero la mina tiene como 25 y Punpun 15/16, por lo cual en definitiva la mina abuso de un menor de edad. Fue una escena completamente fuerte y nefasta, porque si bien por ahí Punpun “quería” tener sexo con Midori, la forma en que sucedió y el hecho de que sea la mujer de su tío es una situación bastante traumática.

Punpun te mereces el mundo y ojalá que en el siguiente tomo te enamores de la nueva mina que apareció y te dejen al menos un solo volumen en paz 🕯

3 de 5 estrellas.

[Eduardo Remolins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un tomo muy completo y lleno de cambios. Nos muestra un punto de inflexión en la vida de muchos personajes y algunos de estos acaban con heridas bastante profundas que dejarán claras cicatrices.

Solo eché en falta más paneles perfectos, de esos que parecen hechos para enmarcar. Pero en este punto de la historia veo difícil hacer escenas bonitas.

[indigo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Que triste todo cada vez se pone más horrible

[olga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sve me više nervira ovaj pisac