Dareka ga Kaita Manga - Ch. 5 - Picture Diary
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Thanks for the chapter.
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I guess the implication here's that the two kids were brought somewhere where they were "the happiest with everyone" after their mother's death? Interesting how this one claims to be directly connected to the real world. Makes you wonder if the other four are similarly meant to be "real." And then if that's the case, you have to wonder if they're connected.
All of them but Ch3 (which is exceptional in a lot of other ways, too. No afterword, no monster, no death, &c.) seem to focus on vision and the act of seeing things. Ch1 is a face you're not supposed to see, Ch2 is seeing things where things aren't supposed to be able to be, and Ch4 makes a point of showing the MC looking at the drain multiple times to confirm it's not clogged. Plus lines like "Even though I knew I mustn't look, in this situation, choosing not to look was something I simply couldn't do." And there's a distinction between the scene of him waking up (no water) and the scene of him fish people. (lots of water)
And of course we never see Komori's eyes in his afterwards & forewords. He's never looking at the camera, and is instead looking in almost exactly the opposite direction whenever depicted.
So I'd imagine this chapter is probably meant to be something similar. Especially considering the focus on eyes in the "child's" scribbles. And up until the big-eyes whole page drawing, none of the people depicted have their eyes open. And afterwards, on the page describing the mom's death, the brother's and sister's eyes are wide open, while the mother's eyes are Xs and the father(?)'s eyes are shut.
Crack theory: Maybe we'll get a twist that eyes don't exist in the world in which Komori supposedly found this manga and decided to publish it. (If you look at the pictures of the children on page 15, their eyes are censored. Not unusual for Japanese news, but you know.) Like, people "see" with some other organ or sense or whatever. Maybe the things shown in this manga caused someone to rewrite reality to erase the ability to see so that these things wouldn't happen anymore.
I guess chapter one has Komori's usual drawings include eyes, though. That could just be explained as him copying the "character designs" from the manga he found to better illustrate the stylistic similarities, but that might also be a bit of a reach. Making the facts fit the theory rather than making the theory fit the facts.
There are also a fair few implications that the "monsters" in the manga are actually "living" in that state. With Ch1 depiction of the woman's face being censored, as if seeing it could actually trigger the effect it's claimed to have in the story. And Ch2's image of the face expanding as if being "born." And now here the chapter is the diary. So maybe they were all sealed in the drawings or something? Then maybe Ch3 was, like, an experiment or accident or something. A person getting sealed who was not meant to be, and is now forced to live in Manga Murder Land.
Not sure exactly how that connects to the repeated themes of seeing, though. Maybe the fact that they all rely on directly witnessing them is why sealing them in the manga works? Because then if no one sees the images, the monsters can't do anything. Ch4's doesn't fit that, though, because the seeing isn't what activates the "curse," but is instead something that the curses makes happen.
We'll just have to see what chapter six is. I'm pretty confident in the assertion that "seeing" is going to be a major theme again as long as it's not a continuation of Ch3, but I'm not entirely confident any of my more specific hypotheses are going to get any support.
Anyways, I should probably go to sleep now. It's already after midnight and it feels like I just spent an hour writing this.
All of them but Ch3 (which is exceptional in a lot of other ways, too. No afterword, no monster, no death, &c.) seem to focus on vision and the act of seeing things. Ch1 is a face you're not supposed to see, Ch2 is seeing things where things aren't supposed to be able to be, and Ch4 makes a point of showing the MC looking at the drain multiple times to confirm it's not clogged. Plus lines like "Even though I knew I mustn't look, in this situation, choosing not to look was something I simply couldn't do." And there's a distinction between the scene of him waking up (no water) and the scene of him fish people. (lots of water)
And of course we never see Komori's eyes in his afterwards & forewords. He's never looking at the camera, and is instead looking in almost exactly the opposite direction whenever depicted.
So I'd imagine this chapter is probably meant to be something similar. Especially considering the focus on eyes in the "child's" scribbles. And up until the big-eyes whole page drawing, none of the people depicted have their eyes open. And afterwards, on the page describing the mom's death, the brother's and sister's eyes are wide open, while the mother's eyes are Xs and the father(?)'s eyes are shut.
Crack theory: Maybe we'll get a twist that eyes don't exist in the world in which Komori supposedly found this manga and decided to publish it. (If you look at the pictures of the children on page 15, their eyes are censored. Not unusual for Japanese news, but you know.) Like, people "see" with some other organ or sense or whatever. Maybe the things shown in this manga caused someone to rewrite reality to erase the ability to see so that these things wouldn't happen anymore.
I guess chapter one has Komori's usual drawings include eyes, though. That could just be explained as him copying the "character designs" from the manga he found to better illustrate the stylistic similarities, but that might also be a bit of a reach. Making the facts fit the theory rather than making the theory fit the facts.
There are also a fair few implications that the "monsters" in the manga are actually "living" in that state. With Ch1 depiction of the woman's face being censored, as if seeing it could actually trigger the effect it's claimed to have in the story. And Ch2's image of the face expanding as if being "born." And now here the chapter is the diary. So maybe they were all sealed in the drawings or something? Then maybe Ch3 was, like, an experiment or accident or something. A person getting sealed who was not meant to be, and is now forced to live in Manga Murder Land.
Not sure exactly how that connects to the repeated themes of seeing, though. Maybe the fact that they all rely on directly witnessing them is why sealing them in the manga works? Because then if no one sees the images, the monsters can't do anything. Ch4's doesn't fit that, though, because the seeing isn't what activates the "curse," but is instead something that the curses makes happen.
We'll just have to see what chapter six is. I'm pretty confident in the assertion that "seeing" is going to be a major theme again as long as it's not a continuation of Ch3, but I'm not entirely confident any of my more specific hypotheses are going to get any support.
Anyways, I should probably go to sleep now. It's already after midnight and it feels like I just spent an hour writing this.
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Thanks for the translation.
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I'm in class, no way am I gonna tilt my neck to read this
Although it seems creepy
Although it seems creepy
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lol never had a picture diary but would've been fun. tho the concept of 'summer hw' wasn't a thing here since in america, at least the part of the schools i went to, by the time it was summer , meant that school was out for a year and next time coming back would be a grade up unless small enough town to have the same teacher teach multiple grades
i know it was prolly written that way in the original jp but it would be ideal for the tl to just typeset it in a way meant for english readers lol
horror stuff aside imagine if they aired out dirty laundry like "i saw grandma hit mom (daughter in law)" or "Daddy was in bed with a woman from a bar" or so XD;
i know it was prolly written that way in the original jp but it would be ideal for the tl to just typeset it in a way meant for english readers lol
horror stuff aside imagine if they aired out dirty laundry like "i saw grandma hit mom (daughter in law)" or "Daddy was in bed with a woman from a bar" or so XD;
