Status Updates From Good-Bye

Night Falls Again

Lonely awkward man is surrounded by love and lust, and finds himself sexually frustrated. He follows women, wandering around public spaces until one confronts his creepiness and he slinks off. Blames the state of his life on his family and tries to get a job driving trucks, but isn’t hired. He returns to peep shows.

Woman in the Mirror

Student discovers his classmate cross-dressing, assumes it’s because the burden of being the only man in the household is too much.
Tatsumi writes very sentimental and empathetic stories about gender-queer people, even if he doesn’t fully understand the concept. The student’s gender identity isn’t played as a joke, but is taken seriously.

Rash

Retired man completely removes himself from society, cuts ties and lives in the woods, all the while fighting a chronic, full-body rash. He saves a young woman who attempted suicide and lets her stay with him, becoming friends. He is able to rid himself of the rash through willpower, celebrating his newly cured genitalia. The woman finds a mushroom in her bed and is shocked, we can’t see his reaction.

Sky Burial

A college dropout becomes paranoid, seeing vultures following him. He sabotages his life, seemingly preparing for death. When it’s revealed his neighbor has been dead for 3 weeks, all of his neighbors move away and the abandoned building becomes a font of stray nature in the city.

Just a Man
A retired man loses his sense of agency and purpose lashes out; he tries to reclaim youth and virility through debauchery, yet he finds he is impotent in both body and character.

Hell

Interesting to see a story of Hiroshima from this angle, the lingering violence that comes with trauma at this scale.