Goodnight Punpun, one of the greatest yet hardest things I’ve ever read.
There are some small spoilers up ahead.
Over the weekend I read the manga “Oyasumi Punpun” also known as “Goodnight Punpun.” I couldn’t have chosen a worse weekend to read it. Halloween is also the birthday of my deceased friend, Jessica. Usually I can at least distract myself on Halloween since there’s so much fun to be had in it, but when you’re stuck in a dorm, all you can do is mourn.
Punpun is about the life of a young man. It starts when he is roughly 10 and ends when he is 21. The series delves into themes of depression, nihilism, suicide, hopelessness, day to day life, romance, sex, etc. We see him grow up, we see him deal with relationships. We see him experience loss. We see him contemplate both his own existence and suicide.
What’s interesting however, is that Punpun is not drawn as a human. He is instead drawn as a small, almost too simple, bird. Because of this, Punpun usually is expressionless. Hell, he doesn’t even say anything throughout the entire manga... At least not conventionally. Punpun talks through his own panels. These panels are pure black with white text. They’re usually his inner thoughts, almost as a narration. Whenever he speaks, it will be in quotations within these black panels. It gives the feeling of his inner thoughts. It’s interesting seeing Punpun grow, as well. Because Punpun’s design is so simple and somewhat abstract, artist Inio Asano was able to warp Punpun however he saw fit (to great effect). The more simple a character design is, the easier it is to warp it, and the easier it is to emphathize with it, so it was almost perfect to not make Punpun look like everyone else in the manga.
The artwork for Goodnight Punpun is phenomenal. Despite Punpun and his family’s simple designs, the rest of the characters and world are so detailed. The panels are laid out expertly, and there are plenty of double-paged spreads that look actively incredible. Inio Asano is a master mangaka, and it’s incredible seeing how densely layered and detailed his artwork is.
A large portion of Goodnight Punpun is focused on a girl named Aiko. Aiko is a girl who is almost just as broken as Punpun, but Punpun falls in love with her very early on in the manga. A large portion of his high school and adult years are of him searching for her. There’s even a point where Punpun says he would kill himself if he did not find her within those two years. The question would be though, after not talking to this girl in almost 5 years, what would happen to Punpun when he actually meets up with her again? Would she be the same or completely different? Punpun could possibly be chasing after someone who forgot about him. It’s sad, as everyone has that story of “the one that got away.” Everyone has that story of that person they want to chase after.
Punpun is both one of the most relatable protagonists, yet he’s not necessarily a good person. He’s selfish, he’s self destructive, he’s horribly depressed, but it feels natural to see how he turned out like this. It’s hard to admit that you relate to someone like Punpun. You meet him as an early child, and see how he can turn into someone so... Not evil, but definitely not someone you should relate to.
There are other characters that are just as broken as Punpun, however. There’s the already mentioned Aiko, Punpun’s verbally abusive and miserable mother, his depressed and self destructive uncle, his friend and on and off lover Sachi, etc. Each of these characters feel like real people. They all have their own motivations, flaws, insecurities, and have to deal with them in their own way. The cast of Goodnight Punpun is so diverse, that there WILL be at least one character you relate to way too much.
There are some scenes in this manga that broke me. I almost never cry, not because I think there’s anything wrong with it, I just can’t really physically do it anymore (even at times when I want to). However, there are multiple moments in Goodnight Punpun where I genuinely teared up. There are too many moments to account for, and I’m trying to be light on spoilers. So many things happened in this manga, despite only being 147 chapters (with 15-20 pages per chapter). There were times where I hated Punpun as a character, but also hated the world around him for treating him this way. Despite Punpun potentially being a bad person, you really relate to his mistakes and hope he turns out okay in the end. However, there were times where I genuinely thought the manga would end with Punpun killing himself. Does he kill himself? Read the manga and find out for yourself.
The ending left me feeling empty, but I think that was the point. Despite the fact that I finished reading it roughly 4 hours ago, I still can’t help but feel empty. Like I said, I really should not have read this on a weekend where I was grieving the loss of my best friend. Despite it being 7 years ago now, her death is always going to stick with me, whether I want it to or not. There are times where I would try to think she may have not even existed, and gathered evidence for it. I recently came to the conclusion that it didn’t matter whether or not my friend existed. I had my own memories, and I can believe what I wish as long as I don’t hurt anyone. Interestingly enough, Punpun goes through some similar things.
I can’t stress this enough, you should not read Goodnight Punpun if you still have thoughts of suicide. You need to be at least somewhat stable to read this manga. You also NEED to at least be 18. I usually think age ratings are dumb, since they usually aren’t realistic (people experience things like porn, rated R movies, rated M games, drugs, etc. before the age of 17-18, so it their ratings are somewhat meaningless). However, Punpun is something you should never even think about reading when you’re an adolescent or ESPECIALLY a kid. I really do not want to know what would happen to me if I was younger, read this, and took the wrong lessons from it.
That being said, if you are 18+ and mostly mentally stable, you need to read Goodnight Punpun. It’s something everyone should read at least once. It’s a story that could very well change your perspective on life. Keep in mind though, this is not something easy to read. This manga will test you, but the result is now one of my favorite pieces of media, ever.
