āĀ Winter of junior year. Not quite able to become adults, we couldnāt stay as we were as children, either. Our tale explores a group of teenagers and their impatience and rebirth. āThey say if you write down your wish, bury it under Sheep Tower and then dig it up after 7 years and 7 months, your wish will come true ā¦ āTsugu Miikura, a high schooler who loves to play guitar, had moved away due to family circumstances from the rural town where she spent her childhood. After several years, sheās back in her old hometown. She reunites with her childhood friendsāSora, Yuushin, and Asariāthe friends sheād buried a time capsule with back in elementary school. Tsugu is overjoyed to be with her friends once more, but the bonds that she thought would never change have in fact started to grow major cracks ā¦Ā āĀ
*Spoilers Beyond This Point*
For review, and links....
Review - 4/5Ā
Content Warning: Discussion of s*cide and similar themes, bullying, absent parents, and animal cruelty/abuse.Ā
If any of those topics are triggering to you, or upsetting, feel free to skip to links
Volume 1 of The Golden Sheep was a single sit read for me! I read the majority of it in the car, and for the most part it was a great first volume! This series is Kaori Ozakiās second manga, preceded byĀ āThe Gods Lieā in 2013.
The manga, itself, deals with heavy themes from the get go. Ā Main character, Tsugu Miikura, and her family struggle with an absent parent. Their father stays in Tokyo as the five girls move back to their old, rural town. Here, she meets up with three of her old friends: Asari, Sora, and Yuushin.
However, the group begins crumbling beneath Tsuguās feet. Asari, jealous by Tsugus connection and relationship with Yuushin (her childhood crush), begins to neglect and ignore her. The group Tsugu used to eat lunch with abandons her, leaving her to eat alone.
Tsugu, awhile after, realizes Yuushin isnāt the sameĀ āgood kidā with good grades he was when she moved. His father was revealed to have slept with a high school girl, and the school quickly turned on him. Saro began to leave Yuushin behind, avoiding interacting and hanging out with him. As a result, Yuushin begins to gain ties with the bad crowd. He begins to bully Saro, beating him and stealing his money.
Tsugu realizes this when sheās on a walk with her sisterās daughter and finds the group standing on the bridge, with Saro about to jump off at Yuushins request when Saro had come to get his dog back from the other. Ā Saro runs off, and Yuushin leaves with his friends.
Following this event, Tsugu attempts to return the dog to Saro after finding that Yuushin is about to allow his friends to stone the animal to death. However, when his grandmother reveals he hadnāt come back, she goes on a search for him. She finds him locked in an abandoned car, in an attempt to pass from the exhaust from an open flame cooking some meat, and breaks him out using her guitar.
They speak for awhile, Saro fills her in on what sheād missed while away in Tokyo. The two decide to run away to Tokyo to live out their respective dreams, Tsugu a guitarist, and Saro as a manga illustrator.Ā
There, they find Tsuguās father after he responds to one of her texts. The manga ends when they arrive to an apartment heād told them to stay at.
I really enjoyed the story! There arenāt too many manga out there that depict those in Saros situation who, instead of getting help, react negatively. As someone whoās struggled how he has, I know the feeling and could really feel myself in him. The four main characters feel real and alive, they donāt just feel like plot devices to either feel sorry for or to hate. Theyāre complex characters motivated by the wrong reasons, or their own problems. The content was raw and unfiltered, providing a warning at the beginning, and it was almost comforting to know that my old struggles, and so manyās current struggles, were real and that it was okay to go through.
I think my only issue was Asari and Tsugu as characters. I felt they were rather plain, but Tsugu got better as the story progressed. I felt myself having to close this manga more often than others that deal with serious topics as well. I felt like I couldnāt bring myself to read it, but couldnāt bring myself to stop either.
Itās probably one of my favorite series of this genre and I can see myself picking up the second volume.
