Hi,
Thanks to my friend especially
@box2024 @Xain @Cross-21- @Dirigibull @Absent666 @diphuc1 and etc. for recommending the
Boy's Abyss or
Shounen no Abyss manga.
https://mangadex.org/title/5439fe65-5b3a-420e-9ef4-27c9bcc49c5a/shounen-no-abyss
Actually, I read it years ago when only 2 chapters available before forgetting it. When I picked it up again, I realized I had read it before but never imagined it would reach 183 chapters! LOL
This is also a challenging manga that requires slow reading because every characters' dialogue including the NPC's or the eyes and lips of each characters are crucial !!! If a translation seems incorrect, I had to find the original Japanese version to translate it personally as just a mistranslation could lead to a complete misunderstanding of the story.
In terms of the plot, storytelling techniques and drawings, I’d personally give it a 9 out of 10 and if the ending hadn't felt rushed, it could have easily been a 9.5.
Thanks again for recommending this manga. For those who haven't read it yet,
I suggest taking your time with it and do it all in one go because if you lose track of the details such as the conversation of the NPC, it’s easy to get the wrong idea.
IMHO, The true heroine is
Ms. Shino'Oka because she knows the whole story and pushed Akira to become a writer and leave the immoral town as soon as possible even though she couldn't go with him and ultimately helps
Reiji,
Chako, and
Gen escape the Abyss.
Ms. Shino'Oka and Chako may be the representative characters of the Ryo Minenami sensei in Boy's Abyss.
*** Since I’ve already spent days reading the Boy's Abyss and felt impressed, please allow me to drop some spoilers in my point of view, just in case anyone else is reading it and left wondering about certain things. LOL
In the end, though it's rush, the story has resolved every plot thread except for where Yuri sensei disappeared to.
The heart of the story is about an "immoral town" defined by a toxic environment where the only solutions are to leave or die. The fact was reflected by the behavior of various characters including the NPCs such as cigarettes are sold to children without a second thought,
Reiji’s boss advised him to get out of town after he was bullied at work, friends visited
Reiji only to have something to talk about at school, teacher did nothing when
Akira's bullied but said it'd stop on its own, etc.
Also, another core is the town's "
Lover's Abyss Legend" mentioned in a novel that,
in Edo era, a beautiful girl and a man were deeply in love but couldn't get married or leave this immoral town so they did
double suicide by jumping into a river in a stormy night.
Then the FMC and MC in a famous novel did the same thing in modern days.
The point is, the famous novel was not a fiction but a true story of the author and his lover. In reality in the story, it did not end with double suicide but the separation because the author leave his lover to face the tragedy and leave the immoral town alone. The right solution is to force his lover to run away from this town since the initial bad thing happened but it's understandable because the author was just 14 at that time. (His lover was sold to a Yakuza to settle a family debt by being his exclusive prostitute since she's not 14 and she's also been brainwashed by successive generations of ancestors not to leave the town but instead to have a child and live until death. Though they're in deep love and both couldn't move on, the author gave her up to a young gangster leader who promised to protect her instead. That man defied a rival gang and killed the Yakuza creditor by drugging him with a sleeping pill before burning him alive thereby freeing her from the contract. In return, she became the gangster's girlfriend, but he eventually spiraled into madness and tried to drag her into a double suicide. That's why the author intervened, resulting in the young man's solitary death. But instead of being with her, the author tried to double suicide his sicked mother but failed and then left town secretly. He made it all become his novel 9 years later and became famous till now.)
So, this manga is a story of 2 non-fiction novels of Akira (Mr. Esemori) : the famous novel "Sping's Coffin" which is his past in this immoral town about 30 years ago and the unfinished novel (in a thumb drive Chako kept) "Boy's Abyss" which is the present about Reiji.
The Spring's Coffin included everything between Akira and Yuko. An evidence is when
Reiji asked
Ms. Shino'Oka if the story features a café scene and she confirmed that it does. That scene depicts the time when
Yuko was Uryu's girlfriend during high school where
Akira's writing his novel and encountered her again. This café was important because it leads to the moment the goldfish was given to
Akira just before the double suicide in the story's conclusion.
It's likely that instead of Yuko in the novel committing double suicide with Uryu, Akira changed it to commit suicide with him instead because he didn't want Yuko to be a murderer. In reality, after Akira could just hold his hand to Yuko and Uryu said to let her go (to die with him) then Akira offered himself to die with them. Yuko then decided she wanted to be with Akira and she elbowed Uryu to break free, leaving him to drown alone, climbing out of the river. Akira couldn't accept Yuko's decision to betray Uryu without any regret (she smiled that she could be with Akira instead) because Uryu had done so much to her even kill the Yakusa to free her from debt prostitution. It shew Akira that Yuko began manipulating people into killing others on her behalf and Uryu was her first victim. Yuko's fallen into the abyss till she's metal illness because she clung to the teachings of her ancestors not to leave this town and must have a child so she just wanted Akira to be with her no matter what happened to her in this town, so the only solution at that time is to force her to leave the town together but he didn't do it and just realized it by Reiji's words in chapter 109 when it's too late.
From the first encounter after 30 years, Akira assumed Yuko no longer loves him anymore but the author has her confess her love to him in
chapter 179 through a skillfully crafted narrative.
Yuko remarked that this was Akira's third time returning to the town which took him by surprise because the first time he returned 2 years ago, she didn't meet him, so she should say this is the second time instead of the third time. Yuko then explained that she had been married for a long time but remained childless. At age 29, she had cared for a dying young patient who resembled
Akira claiming to be a distant relative and learned that
Akira had become a writer already. One day, the patient's condition deteriorated sharply and he expressed a wish to kiss someone before he died.
She kissed him and told him "I love you". Later, during a break, she changed her mind and had sex with him and giving birth to
Reiji. This led her to create an illusion that
Akira had returned to the city to have a child with her so she named the boy with the name they thought when they agreed to marry. (She told
Yuri sensei that
Reiji's father was
Akira because she made herself believe that to cope with the loss of him.)
Then Yuko asked Akira he was disguised to be the dying young patient or not? (Impossible)
His answer was revealed in
chapter 183 when
Yuko wakes up to find
Akira dead, then she recalled his final word "Yes (I was that patient)" and laughed happily before being interrupted by
Reiji.
Yuko’s question serves as a confession to Akira that she has loved him all along to the point of creating a delusion to convince herself that he had returned to have a child with her, just as they had promised in childhood.
Every characters reap the consequences of their own actions (karma) but the author is not cruel to the characters, in the end,
Akira cleared up the misunderstanding that
Yuko had fallen out of love with him just a moment before he died and
he reciprocated with a lie to allow her to continue finding happiness in that delusion.
So sad but it's a happy ending for Yuko and Akira because in chapter 182, during the spiritual conversation between Yuko and Akira who appeared as children (this is not a flashback, as the scar on the right side of Yuko's face matches her present-day appearance, indicating their spirits are communicating in the present), Akira insists Yuko to read the story to the end, promising to wait for her in the afterlife.
Because the ending of the "
Spring's Coffin"
reveals his steadfast love for her through their double suicide, uniting their souls just as she had envisioned when they're kids and promised to marry.
So, reading the novel till the end will serve as a love confession from Akira to Yuko as well.
The final chapter 183, not only reveals the characters' fates following the 3 year time skip but also delivers sharp storytelling through its artwork specifically in
the scene where Chako picked up Gen from the juvenile rehabilitation and detention center.
Chako asked Gen if it wouldn't be better for Reiji to come pick him up but she's glancing away while speaking. When he replied that he didn't want to see Reiji, Chako waved to a man in a truck who resembled Reiji but with his eyes were hidden. He waved back before driving the truck out of the parking lot, with Gen’s gaze following the truck.
It demonstrates how all three of them become matured despite having resisted growing up prior to the time skip. Choka and Reiji refrained from forcing a reunion of the three close friends, and although Gen recognized the person in the truck was Reiji, he chose to remain silent.
In conclusion,
Reiji and Nagi work with
Ms. Shino'Oka on
the mountain far from the immoral town. Chako and Gen lives in
Tokyo (away from the immoral town).
Chako kept
the unfinish novel "Boy's Abyss" from
Akira with a desire to complete it in the future.
Yuko has been
arrested for being the mastermind.
Gen's father has become
bedridden.
Injured Mao disappeared the same way as
Nagi disappeared before (police had no clue) together with
Yuri sensei (she might kill and bury him already just as she had planned with Reiji but she did it alone sacrificing herself to set him free). The reader simply doesn't know where Yuri sensei is.
9/10 for me but recommend to read it on a long holiday so you'll not forget to coherent story.
Best regards,
