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Oyasumi Punpun: Toxic love

The relationship between Punpun and Aiko-chan is a key point for the story as a whole.

It’s a toxic love that does not spare either of them, but with particularly devastating effects on Aiko Tanaka. Why? What brings the two protagonists to not be able to experience a “normal” relationship? Is their one an authentic love?

First of all their dynamic moves by an obsession: their love is not beautiful nor pure, but their deeper obsession. Two dark rooms can not create a light of hope, and moreover they have both grown separate from each other and so they do not know anything about their existences. They are simply obsessed with a childish love on which they have poured out all the discomforts of their existence, in two parallel but opposite ways:

- Aiko-chan saw in Punpun the one who would save her, thanks to the very strong promise that Punpun made at the school time;

- Punpun finds in Aiko-chan his original sin that he needs to destroy: he did not take her to Kagoshima that day.

That’s why they ended up idealizing each other. Neither one really cares about the person of the other, not even being able to perceive the partner as figure with feelings and a soul. This seems to be underlined when with Aiko’s death Punpun drags her corpse around talking to her. He doesn’t even care if Aiko is dead or alive, in a total objectification of her body:

By the way Aiko Tanaka embodies the dark side of Punpun’s personality, his repressed wishes and his innocence, but also a way to escape this pain by espiation. He hoped to be killed by Aiko-chan and when he finds an Aiko who can’t do that he ended to become her murderess:

That’s also why he wants to torture his original sin, in the person of Aiko Tanaka. Thanks to hide all these parts of his personality for a long time Punpun starts to destroy himself, ended up to express his emotions in a violent way.

We can maybe also define Aiko-chan as the real antagonist from the beginning: not a “bad” one, but a person with completely opposite interests of the protagonist ones and which hinders his journey. All that Aiko cares about is a normal life, which Punpun still to refuse. What’s more, even as a child Punpun was searching for Aiko’s affection, but what interested to Aiko was an help in a selfish consideration of their relationiship:

So… Aiko-chan represents what Punpun tries to fight in his inner world every day, every time and every hour. The sin that must be eradicated but also sometimes the lessons Punpun learnt during his journey, like to not bè pathetic still whishing for something more:

Killing Aiko-chan will prove to be like the final act to defeat his own inadequacy and then be able to reborn. Aiko is the guilt that does not allow Punpun to improve himself, while Punpun for Aiko is the help that she would have to find in herself.

Another important key concept for their dynamic is Kagoshima, which remains a strong presence throughout the manga and one of the saddest consequences of their failures. Kagoshima is the place of hope and salvation, like a Godot that never comes. Even when they finally arrive to Kagoshima they find the most complete nothingness. This is why if you do not solve your problems you’ll drag them with you wherever you go: