On Tsubaki-chou Lonely Planet
Generally, romance is not the genre for me. I know within pages how everything will turn out and it ruins it for me. It feels like a less-smart and self-aware screwball comedy playing before my eyes.
To compare, however, with Slow Motion, the art is less detailed and has more ethereal backdrops.
On Slow Motion wo Mou Ichido
This is the manga from the image included above. I enjoyed the art style. There are detailed back drops, and sweetly drawn characters. The trivial plot is silly but I suppose something I can distantly relate to: an outcast being awkward and dissociated because of his interest in old media.
On Romance
(Oh and I read some yaoi too and it's... interesting and not my first deep dive into the genre. However, some mangas involved blatant rape, like Tatsuyuki Oyamoto the 4th. Interesting to say the least.)
All of this romance talk made me think about another manga I really love and read while it slowly was translated back around 2010; Oyasumi Punpun. And then I asked myself if it were considered romance? The story is driven by Punpun’s motivations of desire for Aiko throughout his young teenage life. He is depressed, unsatisfied, and insecure with his life and relationships, but the way Asano renders the story is incredibly realistic and believable. It depicts a coming-of-age story where the more mundane and sad aspects of human emotions are not forgotten. The main love interest, Aiko, commits suicide in the end because of the weight of life. Oyasumi Punpun is a slice of life/coming-of-age manga that only utilized its more romantic themes to speak to a greater concept about existentialism and mundanity.
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