still wondering.

Manga/Anime/Webtoons/Etc. _just my random thoughts and things_ Spread Positivity ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

[moenl1ght]

Salty Studio’s Jinkook

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“Why... does life have to be so hard?” 

“When I was in high school, I thought getting into college was the hardest thing. Once I was in college, it was even harder to keep up with with the smart kids in college, but I somehow graduated with a decent GPA. Now finding a job is even harder then getting a good GPA.” 

“I’m already worn out. I can’t keep this up.” 

Jinkook is one of the characters in Salty Studio by Omyo that I really like. He was a character that had an appearance of a foreigner which led him to experience scenarios of racism, prejudices, and all kinds of struggles as he’s living his life in the setting of Korea. 

I’m sure in society right now there are many people that are struggling to get employed like Jinkook, though in his case, he found it even harder just because of the way he looks (he took so many job interviews that I can’t even think of the number at the top of my head). People expect him to be something that they think he is, when in truth he really isn’t what they think he is. I feel like preconceiving someone before you truly get to know them is such a powerful thought process that us humans have. 

The quotes above are directly from Jinkook’s mouth from the webtoon as he was crying after experiencing a terrible job opportunity encounter and it really does apply to a lot of people in reality. As a high school student right now, I personally do have to agree that getting into college seems very hard and scary to me, but I also do know that there are going to be even more rough hills that I would eventually have to cross over even after that. Being exhausted like Jinkook seems such a close possibility even to a person like me. 

“But by the time his nose turned red, he said, ’I still want a job,’ and smiled.” 

Then again, this is what life is for us human beings. Jinkook is so human a human can ever be. He knows that time passes and that tomorrow will come, so he brings himself up (which is why I like his character so much^^). Even though he failed at getting a job many many times, it’s not like he changed his goal or anything, he’s still going at it because it’s what he truly wants to achieve. Optimism really is a great mechanism in life, though, like he did, it’s also fine to cry when you really need to cry as well. 

[moenl1ght]

Swimming Flowers

In the manga, The Bad Candy You Give Me by Kaiko Fuyumushi 

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“In this stinking town, life is born. Then comes death, and so we shrivel away.” 

This manga was a very simple, interesting read. It’s just a series of one-shots and this particular story is about a girl named Shoko (the girl with long hair above). She’s from the city and moved over to the countryside where the ocean and sea life are flourishing. She’s very botanical (loves the life in flowers) as her mother owns a hothouse and hates (like really hates) anything related to the sea, especially the dead stuff. It becomes a conflict to her as she finds it hard to get along with her classmates because they are all into sea food. In fact, she finds it hard to get along with and favor the whole town in general. 

Referring to the picture above, her friend, Hotaru is offering some of that dried squid (the good stuff, you know?^^) and as you can see from Shoko’s face expression, she’s loathing it like she’s never loathed before. In secret, of course she throws it in the trashcan later, even though it was a gift. Throughout the manga, her gaze towards flowers are always prominent and I’m sure the author was trying to emphasize the dynamic between the dead and the living. 

“By the way, Shoko, did you eat the salted squid I gave you?” 

“...I did...I did...I did not...” 

“Why not?” 

“I don’t want to eat dead and shriveled things.”  The next day, Shoko admits the truth to Hotaru, the truth that she was trying so hard to hide and it left her feeling even worse about this whole town. She’s even more grossed out by the sea creatures because of the smell, how people are able to consume it like it’s nothing, and just how everything about the town is so “revolting.” She looks over at the heads of the roses that her mother were snipping off of the bushes. 

Yes, she consumes the flowers. The day after, she took the heads of the roses and put them into her lunchbox, took them out in class, and then ate them for herself during lunchtime. Throughout the day, she’s kind of in a daze (tired from all this feeling of disgust), and at the end of the day, it is shown that she is spitting them right back out. Head by head. Petal by petal. (I guess it wasn’t that yummy) 

“Shoko...you know...those things you spit out...are dead and shriveled up, too.” 

Hotaru reminds Shoko of that fact and she breaks. Like she literally loses it and runs away, so alarmed from the truth. Then she finds herself in a squid drying area, on the floor, so, so hungry (because there’s no way flowers can quench hunger). It turns out to be Hotaru’s residence, and her grandma offers squid to her once again. Hotaru (I don’t know, somehow teleported) came and fed it to her. Shoko admits that “it’s good” all the while crying. Hotaru responds with, ”It’s because we live here.” 

I think this story really interprets the theme of how the truth is so very painful. And we have to live with it. We can’t run away from it when it’s literally everywhere. Like death. It comes to everyone and everything.  

[moenl1ght]

Salty Studio by Omyo

A Korean Webtoon made by 오묘 (저도 한국 사람!)

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This author is one of my favorites because she’s able to make series that clearly portray life. Yes, life. Nobody really likes themes of life because living actually really sucks (it’s sad, but that’s the truth), also, it seems as though seeing reviews online about this webtoon, a lot of people didn’t seem to really enjoy this series because of that fact. Omyo definitely was able to capture the dark, depressing parts of life (so, I can see why). But, you know living doesn’t suck that much. Omyo was also able to portray the sparkly pleasures, happiness, and fun aspects of life. That’s what I personally loved and took the most out of this series.

The characters of this series didn’t fail me as well. I loved all of them (in the picture above). We have the bright Sonagi, the girl with orange-red hair and Togeun, the guy with black hair who are the main leads. 

Togeun is just a person that wants to pursue art, so he opened up a studio called “Sweet Studio.” I’m no expert, but I do know that art might be a shaky occupation and it is represented in the webtoon when he’s basically struggling, then gets help from Sonagi. Their relationship really starts from there and I find it very interesting as to how they interact. Though, throughout the series, it gets revealed that their whole encounter actually started way back when they were high school students and us readers get to feel more of their strong bond after their small little story. 

Other than those dainty scenes, we also go down episodes of relatable ideas in life like unemployment, growing up, pursuing what you want to do in life, how things might not go the way you want it to, unrequited love, moving on, and etc. In a way, the author is able to provide possible solutions for these conflicts that we might have in life. But for those ideas, people may dislike this particular series, but I feel like sometimes we just need to admit this broad topic of life. We are living right now and it’s not like we can run away from that. Even though all of these characters personally experienced these hard times, they still laughed and ate chicken in the end. 

That’s just what life is. 

Togeun’s art journey did not actually work out after all. He was going to have to move out of his little studio and back to his original home. It’s a big downer when things like this happen, but he wasn’t extremely sad about it. He just decided to help Sonagi with her own art that she does and was satisfied enough with that. His “Sweet Studio” really was a place with different events, trials, and people even all the way to the end. Togeun himself was able to reflect on that.  

“Why did you change the name of the studio?” 

“I wanted it to be sweet but it wasn’t always that way. Some smiles were sweet, but there were also salty tears, hot angers, and bitter despairs. Still, I liked it....It wasn’t sweet, but it was fine. It was enjoyable enough.” 

This ultimately all led to “Salty Studio.” With his reasoning, I feel like the development that was accumulated over the series (characters, setting, and story) and the way the author revealed the significance of the title of this webtoon in the end really tied up the whole thing together.  

[moenl1ght]

Robico’s My Little Monster

Hi guys, welcome to my first post^^ 

I literally just found out about how great the purpose of tumblr is just yesterday and decided to start a blog of my own. It’s purely for fun and just a way to express my ideas, so if you guys have any opinions you want to share as well, then go ahead! 

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Anyways, going straight into it, My Little Monster is probably a series that you, many, or maybe even all people that like anime or manga know. I’d say it’s mainly popular because of the character above (Yoshida Haru). Even I like it because such a character like him is in this kind of series. But that aside, for other reasons as well, I think this is one of the best shoujo series out there. Probably the top number one for me. 

Nowadays, I realized just how hard it is to come across another simple story like this. A story where there are a whole ton of characters, but it isn’t confusing, instead, you get to witness what each of them are personally experiencing and possibly sympathize with them as well. Obviously all of the characters in the series is probably very unrealistic, but in a way, it is also realistic, I just believe that the author emphasized their qualities and personalities to make the actual story more interesting. I think it was praiseworthy that Robico was able to pull off making each character extremely unique, and distinct from one another, so much so that I even know each and everyone of their names (I’m kind of bad at remembering names of many characters from other series). There wasn’t one character that I disliked in this series, even though they might’ve come across annoying from time to time, I truly liked them all in the end. 

The character’s relationships with one another are, what I believe something that can actually happen in real life, although it might not be as exciting as what we have seen through them (then again, their situations are definitely exaggerated, but we don’t complain do we? ^-^). 

I think the broad idea of each relationship like the confusion in their hearts, unrequited love, friendship that we all truly want, and even going over family relationships was very meaningful in this story. I like how there were many things going on, but it wasn’t too overwhelming, it went just right with the flow of the story. 

The whole point of this post isn’t to review the series or anything (or maybe I unintentionally just did), but the main idea I wanted to get across was to just show appreciation for this particular series. I’m sure this series already gets plenty of appreciation and it might even be somewhat overrated, but I think people are only revolving around Haru’s character and his good looks (which I totally understand), but thinking about the whole story and the other characters that contribute, My Little Monster is truly one of the best shoujo series out there. 

It makes me sad that these series are kind of hard to come across nowadays because of the many harems, isekais, and just that cliche love story (only about the main leads) that are coming out frequently now, but I guess that’s what makes this particular series unique. I could probably go over each of the character’s and their relationships with one another, but will probably have to save that for another time :D