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Well, I guess the first thing I that's worth talking about is Punpun himself. Gotta be honest, I found him rather frustrating for a good chunk of the narrative from high school onwards. His self-absorbed defeatist worldview made him get in his own way of finding happiness and fulfillment. It becomes especially apparent when things actually started going well for him. He had a good thing going with Sachi who, while far from being a perfect person, was actively trying to help him grow and presented him with a golden opportunity in the form of the manga collab. But he threw it away all because he was more comfortable wallowing in his misery. And he becomes outright loathsome when he meets Aiko again, projecting his idealized image of her from when he was a kid onto her, when she's clearly trying to grow and change. The codependent relationship they form brings out the worst in both of them and I found it heartbreaking that, after it ended in the most tragic way possible, Punpun was able to return to what would have otherwise been a happy, fulfilling life for most people. It may be a hollowed out shell of one due to the weight of everything Punpun has on his conscience, but it's more than he frankly deserves and and more than Aiko ever got or will ever get. He's in a hell of his own making, but one that looks like a blessing on the surface.

That's not to say I didn't sympathize with him. Every single adult in his life failed him when he was a kid. His parents' marriage was a mess, with his father being negligent and his mother being flat out abusive. His uncle Yuichi tried his best, but was dealing with too many of his own personal demons to meaningfully function as a mentor to the boy. And, of course, there was his rape at the hands of Midori. It all contributed to traumatizing him, warping his worldview and preventing him from becoming a well-adjusted person. That being said, all of that sympathy flew out the window in the final third of the story when he started taking out his pent up rage on others. Aiko's mother was a disgusting excuse for a person, but he only killed her as an outlet for all of that anger that had been building up. He only used protecting Aiko as a pretext and he was lying to himself when he said otherwise. The scenes where he assaults the guy outside the convenience store and beats Aiko are proof of that, with the latter being the moment where he stopped being a pitiable, overgrown emo kid and became truly detestable. Trauma can serve as an explanation for a person becoming an abuser, but it should never, ever be seen as an excuse.

It's a haunting cautionary tale about how refusing to take charge of your life and an inability to move on can royally fuck a person over, and it resonated strongly with me since I've honestly been in similar negative feedback loops of defeatism and self-loathing. While I don't think I would have become as messed up as Punpun, things also would have only gotten worse for me if I continued actively rejecting the help and advice of others and refused to take steps to make my life better. In an era where so many people, especially young men, are gravitating towards self-destructive worldviews like the "blackpill" and broader incel ideology, it's a story that still holds a lot of weight and social relevance too.

idk maybe he should have just started listening to J. Cole

Hey, I thought I should let you know that I finally got around to finishing Punpun. Tried reading it 10 years ago but wasn't in the right headspace for it but I gave it another go and I adored it. Soul-crushingly bleak though.

Hey, thanks so much! I'm so sorry for not replying to your last message, life's been busy and I haven't been spending as much time on MAL lately.

Thanks !!

aww great collection's man .

Happy birthday!

ill follow that order then
ill keep you updated, too. i have a few short things im reading thru first but i like everything you said and have been interested for a few years now so no time like the present

i bought one, was given one as a gift, and randomly stumbled on the third. im not crazy i promise

Oh no problem dude! Take care of yourself.

.. just want to say your set is appreciated.. i get happy every time i see your yotsuba 🤣 bye bye have a nice day. ✨🐸✨

i've not seen drive my car yet though i have a few friends who are really into it. i'll take this as another endorsement lol

i use necessary liberally for art ig, mainly because i find so much of it necessary. or, rather, the opportunity for a viewer/reader/listener to respond with their own subjectivity is the necessary part. and i think it gives a lot of room for that

i've not read any dostoevsky, though ive been meaning to. would brothers karamazov be your rec for a first dive? i like the way you described their work

that is poetic. i love catcher in the rye, haven't revisited in perhaps a decade though. weirdly i own three copies of the book lol

the traits correlated to forming beliefs shouldnt necessarily be surprising. conspiracist ideation/narcissism/schizotypal for conspiracy related things, for example. conscientiousness for religious. but finding what correlates to changing belief is more difficult ig. it is interesting that the traits involved in forming differ from those involved in changing beliefs. i'm doing research on accurate pattern formation to see if there can be a connection drawn between how we develop cohesive mental models and our willingness/ability to shift views. but it's obviously difficult to really research lol.

i have heard of tao of pooh, haven't read it though. i take this as a rec, so ill try it soon!
hmm i really enjoy short story collections the most maybe.

krzhizhanovsky's autobiography of a corpse is a fav. one story involves a play on capturing your love in your eyes, quite literally. just a lot of playful(ly morbid) shorts, but with beautiful prose i think

yoon ha lee's conservation of shadows rules, too. i appreciate how every story is structured. youre presented the thesis upfront and walked through the formation like a mathematical proof. i really neat

for full narratives, im a huge fan of john darnielle's work with the mountain goats and his novels are no different. wolf in white van is perhaps my fav book, but this changes often. it just feels so necessary, and it borrows his blue collar/high concept fusion that i adore. universal harvester is also great

wbu?

i'm definitely trying to get into a program to train as a therapist yeah, is the goal to get a phd in psychology and research/practice. long road ahead, though. my research is more focused on cognitive processes around belief, how it is formed and how it can be changed (what traits and states lead to this, what sort of variables contribute, etc). rly fun stuff

leaps of faith are important i think. definitely listen to kierkegaard.
not to sound the taoist, but i think living in the moment is really the best thing, being aware of being aware. beng surrounded my nature and animals helps with that.
fav narrative or philosophical works? (not that they are exclusive to each other, just clarifying the broadness of the q lol)

psych rules. also doing research on the psych of belief. really fun stuff i think
going back into studying is exciting! happy to hear.
i got really into philosophy, helped me a lot with finding myself/calmness. not sure if its a prescriptive, but i really think it helped me

great, actually. back in uni for clinical psych and overall pretty comfortable

wbuuu