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<\/p>\nHappiness is a horror manga series by Shuzo Oshimi. It began serialization in the February 2015 issue of Shonen Monthly, Bessatsu Shonen Magazine and presently has nine volumes.<\/p>\n
Famed \u201cJojo\u2019s Bizzare Adventure\u201d creator, Hirohiko Araki stated in his novel \u201cManga in Theory and Practice\u201d that a mangaka really only has the first page to grip the audience. I won\u2019t be so stringent as to explicitly apply that standard in this review series, but I will start even earlier. Much like a house can have \u201ccurb appeal\u201d, I\u2019d posit that manga has \u201cshelf appeal\u201d. In other words, what does the cover\u2019s presentation add to the appeal and the audience\u2019s understanding of the work inside?<\/p>\n
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Shuzo Oshimi, creator of \u201cFlowers of Evil\u201d <\/span>– The only bit of their previous work catalogue I have any familiarity with IS \u201cFlowers of Evil\u201d, so this works out nicely in one sense and not so much in another. To me this telegraphs a \u201creality grounded tale of guilt and shame. Likely a psychological horror affair\u201d<\/p>\n Title and Illustration <\/span>– The cover illustration is a painting of a purple haired girl gazing towards the reader with red smeared around her mouth. Perhaps it\u2019s lipstick, food of some kind or blood. Paired with the title (\u201cHappiness\u201d) and the genre (horror), the latter is likely it. Speaking of the title, \u201cHappiness\u201d is an odd choice. It\u2019s a feeling one doesn\u2019t expect to be prominent in a horror property, so it explicitly being the name of the property does put the focus squarely upon the emotional and psychological being of its characters.<\/p>\n So the cover has us primed for some kind of horror story centering around consumption and emotional anguish. And, HOO BOY, does Happiness deliver.<\/p>\n Happiness follows Okazaki, a first year student at Hokusei High School. High School, being what it is, is a rather lackluster, if not somewhat painful, experience for our protagonist. There are the quiet signs of bullying, the weight of expectation to be like his brother and the ever present nuisance of teenage hormonal lust. The icing on the cake, though is the night he gets attacked and practically mauled by some weird girl in an alley. Of course, this just causes his family to fret over him and it\u2019s more ammunition for his tormentors at school. No matter how much he tries to assure the former that he is indeed fine and gloss over it with the latter, Okazaki is most definitely NOT fine. Light bothers him, he gets bouts of extreme thirst, loses his appetite and develops a sensitivity to blood. So what exactly is happening to poor Okazaki and what will become of his life as he presently knows it?<\/p>\n Okazaki<\/span> – High school freshman. Feeling the teenage blues. Gets attacked in an alley and has felt periodically awful since.<\/p>\n Nunota<\/span> – Okazaki\u2019s friend at the beginning of the story. He was the bullies\u2019 previous target.<\/p>\n Yuuki<\/span> – The ringleader of the bullies. He usually orders Okazaki to buy him and his friends lunch.<\/p>\n Nao<\/span> – Yuuki\u2019s girlfriend and part of the group. Likely never acknowledged Okazaki before. Asks Okazaki for help, though, when Yuuki starts acting weird.<\/p>\n Yukiko<\/span> – Finds Okazaki during one of his dizzy spells in the hallway and tries to help. A humorous misunderstanding takes place that sets the tone for the friendship that grows out of it. The two hang out during lunch.<\/p>\n Although this is a horror manga, I can\u2019t say that I found myself all that scared or unnerved – though there\u2019s more than enough time and narrative space for that to happen later. It\u2019s more of a slow burn, electing to focus on the main characters anguish instead of a tangible monstrosity. The real source of \u201cdrama\u201d here isn\u2019t even the physical changes and ailments he\u2019s undergoing but, rather, what all of this is doing to his demeanor. He laments that \u201cThis isn\u2019t me\u201d a few times in volume 1 and it\u2019s misunderstandings or uncharacteristic behaviour that drives the plot. It\u2019s him punching Yuuki in the face that puts Yuuki in his funk or Yukiko mistaking his desire to turn her into a literal snack for him trying to turn her into a proverbial one that kickstarts their friendship.<\/p>\n It\u2019s inevitable, I suppose, that our protagonists changes do seem like an veiled allegory for puberty. Most drastic physical and psychological changes of this kind in teenagers can codify that way. I don\u2019t know if this is intentional but, furthermore, there are sexual undertones to Okazaki\u2019s changes. It\u2019s not so much \u201cviolence is sexy\u201d like Witchblade, so much as it\u2019s \u201csexuality in it\u2019s primal state is aggressive, if not somewhat predatory\u201d. When he\u2019s being attacked, the girl straddles, then bites and licks Okazaki\u2019s neck. When Okazaki loses it and nearly does the same to Yukiko, she interprets it as a sexual advance. But what really sells it is the fact that now that Okazaki\u2019s olfactory senses are heightened many of the girls\u2019 scents (seemingly from, ahem, below the belt) are quite distracting to him. There\u2019s a strong undercurrent of vampirism at play so make of that what you will, but I\u2019d like to think that it\u2019s just open enough that it may just be pheromones.<\/p>\n But moving on, Okazaki is a curious fella. For a manga titled \u201cHappiness\u201d, he sure seems unfulfilled – and these new changes aren\u2019t helping. Part of this, however, may be because he has a subtle habit of non-confrontation. He, nor Nunota, stand up to Yuuki and tell him no, Yukiko pegs him as wishy washy and a push over and when he is asked by his attacker \u201cDo you want to die like this or do you want to be like me?\u201d he says \u201cI don\u2019t want to die\u201d. Now that last one may sound like nitpicking to you. It isn\u2019t that his response isn\u2019t understandable, but when placed next to the rest of his behaviors it\u2019s easier to see it as the non-committal response it is. This comes back to bite him (no pun intended, I swear) later when Nao asks him to help Yuuki and he answers with essentially \u201cI feel bad; I didn\u2019t mean for any of this to happen: I\u2019m not sure I can\u201d. She takes his implicit refusal and translates it to an explicit answer: \u201cSo you won\u2019t help us\u201d. He relents and does so, but it\u2019s still paradoxically more of the same non-confrontational stuff from before. He may be entering a physical confrontation, but he still doesn\u2019t have the emotional fortitude to just say no.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not necessarily throwing him under the bus (completely). A level of passivity is banged into your skull by that age. You\u2019re conditioned to seek the guidance of authority figures in your life and many problems can seem bigger than you. Safely breaking through that, thus building confidence to take more and more control of your life, is a vital part of growing up. Despite how adverse he may be to the situation as a whole, it\u2019s good that Okazaki now has people in his life that will challenge him in these ways, even if he isn\u2019t ready to do the same to them yet. I really do foresee a situation similar to the Misfile webcomic where Okazaki goes through some character development and, when a chance arises down the line to undo these changes his attack put him through, he has to grapple with the very real prospect that he might lose the good things he\u2019s acquired during the way.<\/p>\n Continue?: The Gist<\/h3>\n
Cast<\/h3>\n
The Rub<\/h3>\n