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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
sad
fast-paced
Right so. First off thank fuck Shimizu didn't die. Uhm. This was such a fucked series. I think I should have read it when I was more mentally stable
emotional
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Goodnight Punpun was a chronicling of a young man’s descent into evil.
Starting during his childhood, I found the story’s beginning engaging and deeply moving. Punpun’s childhood was dark and lonely, but there was a feeling of loss and disconnect that felt familiar to anyone who had a violent home-life growing up. However, as the story continued, Punpun’s character shifted from a victim of abuse to an abuser himself and as a reader, your view of Punpun changes.
Personally, I don’t need to like or relate to a character to appreciate a story, but I found that the writing itself would be overly sympathetic towards the male abusers depicted and would frame women as deserving of violence at times. The writing would often make blanket philosophical claims, not realizing that the generalizations were rooted more in patriarchy rather than any sort of presumed claims of “human nature.”
Although Goodnight Punpun had phenomenal art, powerful themes, and a delightful balance of absurdity and realism, I could not ignore the blatant misogyny that was apparent throughout the manga. Goodnight Punpun’s overall story read like an incel fantasy. A violent and self obsessed man kills, abuses and sexually assaults various women but is forgiven by the narrative, his peers and society without enacting any real change in his life. Not to mention that all the female characters exist solely to satisfy Punpun’s character arc. All the women fulfilled a role as his mother, abuser, or sexual partner. They all existed to satisfy, abuse, get pregnant and/or die.
As a main character, Punpun sees himself as someone who lacks autonomy. Which is justifiable when he is a child, but when he’s an adult, his complacency in life serves as an excuse for his actions. Punpun is not incapable, but he sees himself as such. Though he fantasizes about murder and rape, Punpun perceives himself as passive to the violence that exists in the world, but in his passivity, he becomes a bystander and a perpetrator to the very violence he detests. Even when he murders and assaults women, rather than seeing himself as a murderer or a rapist, he sees himself as a powerless vehicle that violence is channeled through. Though victims of extreme trauma, abuse, sexual violence, and tragedy may be susceptible to becoming the abusers that abused them, that is not an excuse. Most victims do not become abusers and violence is always a choice.
Overall, I see that Goodnight Punpun was meant to show how generational trauma can impact a person and how villians can be created, but I wasn’t particularly moved by Inio Asano’s ideas and I didn’t agree with his execution of them. Goodnight Punpun wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t great.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Murder
Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Violence
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced