Urasekai Picnic - Vol. 4 Ch. 19 - Time, Space and a Middle-aged Man VI

[intsai]

Has the translation caught up to the raws yet, or is it still behind? Looking at the release pace I'm assuming it's a monthly release.

The manga does some things better than the novels, like the speech bubbles changing color and the paneling changing but with good ambient music on the background the novels are really good at conveying the sense of dread as well, especially some of the later arcs. I hope the anime adaptation will do the series justice.

 

[vp787]

@intsai the raws are somewhere around volume 2 chapter 1 I think

 

[gamma2015]

damn, i think she went crazy for a bit and burned her parents

 

[Madcat6204]

And here we see Sorawo's backstory, and boy is it fucked up.

It seems pretty clear to me that she planned to burn down everything, taking her father and grandparents along with her, but they never came home so she didn't.

What bothers me the most is how little she thinks of it. How much has her perspective on the world been twisted by that life that she thinks that sort of childhood is "normal?" Girl is well overdue for some serious therapy.

 

[NekoSOul]

wow this is crazy as hell but i can't stop reading.

something's gonna be wrong with me after this

 

[Anomander]

A perfectly normal childhood. Yes, perfectly normal, no big deal...

 

[BlackFrost]

well.... that was a ride. Didn't expect that kind of back story from Sorawo. Kinda messed up how she thought that was normal but considering her childhood, she probably does. Assuming that maybe she seen the cult does some illegal activities and thought that it was normal occurrence since the cult seems to appear when she was young. That made it more sad. Toriko's back story well that explain how her first instinct is to grab a gun.

 

[Lhmac]

It's kind of sad that as much as Sorawo likes Toriko, they never shared anything personal like that about themselves with each other.

 

[Hawkfield240]

Once you enter the Zone, there's no going back, whenever you go the Zone follows you.....

 

[twinklecake]

Man, infohazards skeeve me the fuck out.

@Hawkfield240 GET OUT OF HERE STALKER

 

[nyaasar]

PROTECC KOZAKURA AT ALL COST!

 

[VanJosh]

I see, I thought she was just your typical introvert. Instead, she's a deeply traumatized introvert on the family level. No wonder she isn't that as knowledgeable as that loli. Too bad that the loli is a huge coward, with her knowledge she could discover more things about that broken world.

 

[nathanderweise]

I've read the LNs so I knew Sorawo's backstory going into this, but man, that image of her sitting in seiza next to a gas can with a blank expression on her face is rougher than what I imagined it looked like when I originally read it.

 

[himi-cat]

Yeah, so this is why I thought so many of the comments on earlier chapters about how selfish Sorawo is were just weird (including from people who'd apparently read the LN) - she's deeply fucked up, and the way she presents to the world is a kind of mish-mash of masking her fucked-upedness, emotional numbness as a result of the trauma, and coping mechanisms for getting through the trauma. The thing that stands out most to /me/ is how well she's coping, and how she's still able to maintain at least the basics of a normal life (including getting back on track enough to get into university). The kind of trauma she went through doesn't make any of that easy, and it takes a whole lot of strength (as well as a decent chunk of luck, both in the outside world and in things like your natural response patterns) to get out of it and be able to live anything approaching a normal life.

Also, and this is a spoiler for anyone who hasn't read the 4th volume of the LN

Spoiler

the Red Person that she dreamed about was actually an entity from the otherside, or from the interstitial spaces in between, like the time and space man or the three nosy women (probably - it's not clear how things on the otherside relate to ideas from the surface world, it's also possible the Red Person in the otherside is a result of Sorawo's memories being mined for scary idea, though it's also not clear if that's a meaningful distinction to make). So she's not only had a deeply traumatic life, it's entirely possible that she's had some kind of connection to the fucked-upedness of the otherside for a lot longer than anyone thinks (including her).

 

[alanmfruiz]

I too lost my mom, which the resulted in my immediate family joining a cult whom I didn't want to join, leading me to being alone, broke, and hungry. Taking out a school loan to attend school.

You know, the typical life of a graduated high school student.

 

[teenagegay]

ah yes relatable backstory of my family joining a cult

 

[The5thSeraph]

Lots of cult stories in Japan. I guess because Buddhism and Shinto are so open to invasion from external ideas, while the religions that infect the west are notoriously hostile towards external ideas. People here don't other with "cults" so much as they just get adopted by one or another of the abrahamic religions, which is functionally the same.

And I guess the Other Side found her before she found it. Perhaps that is a prerequisite. Perhaps the "cult" were all worshiping Other Side entities all along, and died for it.


Or possibly there never was an Other Side at all, but this is all just insanity. An "all just a dream hallucination" plot. =p
Seems unlikely though. Sorawo is far too well-adjusted for that, probably. Or maybe that is just how she perceives herself?

 

[MoodyUsername]

Damn that is a fucked up backstory. "No big deal" my ass.

 

[WatermelonPlease]

woah a mention of canada!