I Sold My Life for 10,000 Yen per Year.

[Beregorn]

Really enjoyed, but I would like to discuss some of the economical aspect, just for the sake of speculation.
Who is buying lifespan, time and health? What do they gain? The most evident case would be health: you buy from healthy people and sell to sick one, but how does it work when they sell time? They send someone to work for you?
Selling time isn't the exactly same thing as having a job? I mean, the concept of payed job in itself is exactly the idea of selling your time and competences.
When you buy lifespan, the quality is the same of yours, or you get the same quality of life as the one that sold that particular lifespan? Given the fact that you can change the quality of your life, I'd say that the quality of the lifespan you get depend only on you, but that would also mean that lifespan has an intrinsic value unrelated to the donor's life's quality. You may use the quality of life to estimate how much they are willing to pay/you have to offer in order to buy/sell lifespan, but then that sould be based on the past life, given the fact that the client doesn't have any factual knowledge of his future.
If you base the evaluation on possible future, then all of this become a scam in which you convince depressed people that their life is meaningless and then acquire their lifespan for nothing. The last extra chapter seems to hint that this is actually the case...

Spoiler

Miyagi's mother worked for the agency for some years for a lifespan she never get: Miyagi should have inherited a credit, if anything. The whole Miyagi-MC transaction doesn't made any sense: she had 30 year worth of debt, she added 300'000 yen extra that MC throw from a bridge, than MC sell his life for less than that amount and she is left with three years worth of debts? How does it works?
On an a side note, MC should have painted for the remaining thirty days, buy back his lifespan for 30 yen, sell the paint to repay Miyagi's debt in full and then they lived happily ever after. But if he weren't stupid, he wouldn't have sold his life to begin with...

 

[appu1232]

@beregorn these are interesting questions, but the point of the manga isn't to delve into that level of world building.

Spoiler

The point is to focus on our main duo and their growth. The lifespan/time/health selling is simply a plot point being leveraged to tell a deeper story. It doesn't really need that level of explanation/clarification.

FYI, your spoiler tag is broken.

 

[Beregorn]

I know, I know, but I can't stop asking myself. I edited the comment a lot, so you may want to re-read it.
Also, how do you tag someone?

 

[appu1232]

@beregorn just how it looks, type @ followed by the username and it should tag them once you post the comment.

Yea, I re-read it. It would be nice to have some spin-off that focused on the other side of the coin where someone gains these acquired lifespans/time/health.

 

[shinmaster19]

I dont generally comment. But this is too good.

Meaningful and give a lot of perspectives in live. Really suited for a movie instead.

Sadly its too short and you can feel the story is pushing the story development too quickly.

The setting is similar to Seo Kouji - half & half, another author i would recommend

 

[DarcknightX]

This manga is pretty good. The plot/premise is pretty interesting


Although a big issue is the MC as the story progresses becomes this generic smiling doll with no other emotion that just spews exposition. Ends up a pretty one dimensional character considering all the ways an author could approach the topic of aging.

 

[isaacaba]

i sad

 

[Kinji]

One word: Insane

 

[Sashimi]

Pretty nice read.

 

[MriLuvPizza]

I cried while reading this, what a masterpiece!

 

[Hounder]

This definitely much better than I originally anticipated. Solid read, and worth the time.

 

[crynelleciaz]

If you looking for deep psychological with some lovey-dovey content, you must try this one and no regret!

10/10 Masterpiece.
Anime when??

 

[Rongmario]

10/10 recommend to everyone I know. We need a movie adaptation RIGHT NOW

 

[DANDAN_THE_DANDAN]

This manga may have a somewhat of a vague synopsis but its plot is very easy to chew. However, it may be hard to swallow depending on how much of the manga's setting is applicable to your life as well as how much you feel like you relate to the characters.

Any more and I'll spoil the story. 10/10. Someone make a technology that allows me to forget this manga so that I can read it again.


@anonbtw1738 The depression is worth it.


@DarcknightX I think that's your personal opinion because everyone else, including me, seems to be so okay with it so much that you were the first of us to mention that it's even an issue. I don't.

Although a big issue is the MC as the story progresses becomes this generic smiling doll with no other emotion that just spews exposition. Ends up a pretty one dimensional character considering all the ways an author could approach the topic of aging.

Imo it's not generic and that positivity is a feature of a developed AND developing character.

Spoiler

The MCs change from being cold to slowly interacting with one another in an organic pace to which they start becoming happy and satisfied with one another.

This is character development not one-dimensionality.

Exposition is not a bad thing if used correctly and in this case it's been used for narration. That's a writing technique.

And since when is this a coming of age story? It's about

Spoiler

how your past does not determine your future.

@Beregorn Now that you opened the discussion, I'm curious as well so let us speculate, shall we? Keep in mind that this shop premise is just a plot point meant to propel the story forward as @appu1232 stated. This is just for fun.

The worldbuilding establishes that this shop is able to "accurately" predict your future. I say "accurately" with quotations because if it is not reliable, obviously there would be no business since no one would invest in what is essentially an economic Russian roulette.

I suppose that this takes on somewhat of a multiverse theory as well, implied by

Spoiler

Kusunoki's lifespan changing in value from 30 yen a year to about 300k yen a month after meeting Miyagi.

So in terms of lifespan, I imagine their "quality" to be transferred over to the buyer since it would be unfair otherwise. Imagine a homemade cake sold for $5 and a pastry cake for $50. Obviously they're both cakes but the pastry cake has a definitely higher "quality". But this is lifespan and not bakery so the "bought lifespan" intuitively would have to layer upon "original lifespan" wouldn't it?

I imagine three scenarios:
1. The buyer can choose when the "bought lifespan" takes place during their life as well as when "original lifespan". Basically it's like placing your deck of cards in an order you want; you have a newly bought set of twelve cards for along with the old 52.
2. The "bought lifespan" would overwrite "original lifespan". So it,s like putting those twelve new cards on top of twelve of the old 52 pf your choosing.
3. The "bought" and "original" will mix. Now you have a hybrid of old and new 64 cards.

Third option is most interesting for me. And it's also possible to define "quality" as to how the worldbuilding mentioned that it's based on

Spoiler

happiness, contribution, and interaction.

As for time, no, it is not the same as working normally.

Worldbuilding seem to define "selling time" as strictly

Spoiler

"becoming an observer". To become an observer that means your existence disappear and the world continues without you. You will still feel the passage of time pass and grow as normal but your independence is practically stripped away from you until you have "sold all the time you want to sell", seeing how Miyagi's mother died while becoming an observer which means that no one can help you during your job.

I think that "buying time" will just give you more time but with the same quality you posess. Basically you get more bricks to build your house but how well it is built depends entirely on you.

Spoiler

Also, in my interpretation, the duty of an observer is to provide mental support. They don't have the duty to take notes neither the authority to terminate a subject's life as Miyagi lied so they're just there to ease the pain, I guess.

And now health. Yeah, health is obvious. But I wonder, what does "selling your health" define as?

Is it physical health or mental health? Does allergy count as "health"? What about having blurry eyesight? If you have a tumour, does "buying health" practically removes it? If you have schizophrenia, will your mental health immediately return to normal? What about the nocebo effect where one can get sick from simply believing that they are sick from something? Can that be healed? What about missing limbs? Missing from birth, missing from shock, and missing from amputation are three possible variations of that. If it really is just strictly towards bacterial and viral causes, would "buying health" give you a long-term immunity where you won't get sick from the same disease again in the future or just an instantaneous immunity where you can? Would a messed up fetish count as mental health? If somehow a genetically superior man has 30/20 vision, would that mean that everyone with 20/20 vision is considered "sick"? There is also genetic diseases. And if someone was born with six fingers (google it) does that count as an illness? If you want to sell your health, are you able to choose between any of the above in where your health will be decreased at? And can you buy so much health and put it towards, let's say muscles, that you get to a point where you get so buffed beyond what is even considered human anymore? And if we were to live in a world where Hittler won and German is considered "a superior race" by the world, would that mean that not being German makes you "sick"?

As much as this is one of the shop's feature, it barely gets touched in the manga. Heck, I don't think they mentioned it at all!

Welp, that's it from me.

 

[Alexsander36]

So good I skipped work, the younger me would had cried reading this. An undoubtedly beautiful work.

 

[fakk-u]

if you are reading this, read the manga right now

 

[MACZ2021]

Finished this early this morning (it was about 6:20 am) and this was one of the best manga I've read all year. It's a very solid 10/10 and while I'm not a fan of number scores as much as I used to be, it deserves that score regardless.

 

[deedet]

My heart...
It...
Hurt.
A masterpiece, 10/10.

 

[DrWhoCares]

Too real. Too relatable.
+10 to suicide chance.
+10 to unhappiness
+10 to trying to make a better life.

Total worth:
20/10.

 

[Ixtab]

Thanks for this.
Made me a bit optimistic about life. Maybe i'm just like them. Clinging to life expecting that maybe someday, something good will happen. And just for that reason i'll carry on and see this through until the very end.