Otouto no Omokage - Oneshot

[MangaDex]

 

[wandere]

Well...damn. This was sad obviously, but also like...that ending is a bit confusing for me. I guess it's like a Ship of Theseus thing: if you replace a guy's entire body with someone else's, are they really the same person? But what confuses me is if the ending is the protagonist using the brother as a stand-in for Hisao, or if Hisao has become his brother. But maybe that's the point.

 

[ckckckck]

Well...damn. This was sad obviously, but also like...that ending is a bit confusing for me. I guess it's like a Ship of Theseus thing: if you replace a guy's entire body with someone else's, are they really the same person? But what confuses me is if the ending is the protagonist using the brother as a stand-in for Hisao, or if Hisao has become his brother. But maybe that's the point.

You perfectly understood it, the manga is purposely ambiguous regarding who Aki's friend is in the end.

My interpretation is, that it is an amalgam of the two brothers. Why else would the brother be interested in Aki suddenly when before he was very antagonistic.

 

[yoshiii]

This is indeed sci-fi. I still feel such pity for Hisao

 

[DesertStorm]

This is what you call a savior sibling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savior_sibling

A savior baby, savior sibling, or donor baby is a child who is conceived in order to provide a stem cell transplant to a sibling that is affected with a fatal disease, such as cancer or Fanconi anemia, that can best be treated by hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

 

[Regular_user2]

This is a really interesting story and the art is great as well! I'm definitely checking the author's other works. Thanks for sharing it!

 

[Haru777]

Damn. This is a beautiful one shot.

 

[Marq9229]

fugging amazing, this blessed my eyes

 

[halcer]

damn, this was a fantastic read

 

[Mitsen]

Cutting his hair that short is a crime against human decency!

 

[jonnywarlock]

Such a good, haunting story. I like the ambiguity in the end.

 

[onesnail]

Why the fuck did they birth a whole new baby just to use his body parts for his brother?? Why didn’t they just keep the healthy one and let the first die as a baby??? Surely it’s much easier and costs less money and pain?!?? Why did they arbitrarily choose to value the first brother over the second one?!!!! So many things could’ve gone wrong during any of these surgeries and their beloved worm son would’ve died anyways??!! Are they stupid?????

All of this could’ve been prevented if they had just bashed that thing’s head when it was born like in the old days

 

[onesnail]

Well...damn. This was sad obviously, but also like...that ending is a bit confusing for me. I guess it's like a Ship of Theseus thing: if you replace a guy's entire body with someone else's, are they really the same person? But what confuses me is if the ending is the protagonist using the brother as a stand-in for Hisao, or if Hisao has become his brother. But maybe that's the point.

They clearly didn’t replace his brain with Hisao’s

 

[Arob9]

This is a really interesting story and the art is great as well! I'm definitely checking the author's other works. Thanks for sharing it!

Yeah uh, I wouldn't recommend that

 

[Regular_user2]

Yeah uh, I wouldn't recommend that

Too late lol But it was fine. One of them is taboo to the point of controversy, but it didn't look like it was endorsing anything so I have no problems with it. I never read it myself, but I imagine it's similar to reading Lolita. The other just wasn't memorable. I don't regret reading either of them anyway.

 

[Arob9]

Too late lol But it was fine. One of them is taboo to the point of controversy, but it didn't look like it was endorsing anything so I have no problems with it. I never read it myself, but I imagine it's similar to reading Lolita. The other just wasn't memorable. I don't regret reading either of them anyway.

I just found them shocking for the sake of shock tbh, agree that they weren't really memorable outside of that. Maybe there are themes that I'm missing cause I'm dumb buy yeah, definitely nowhere near this one in terms of story quality.

 

[Regular_user2]

I just found them shocking for the sake of shock tbh, agree that they weren't really memorable outside of that. Maybe there are themes that I'm missing cause I'm dumb buy yeah, definitely nowhere near this one in terms of story quality.

The little I remember from the first one seemed just for shock's sake to me too, but I thought the other one was a proper short exploration of the theme. I'd have to reread to compare quality, but at the time I read them, I thought only the first one-shot was lacking.