A Girl by the Sea by Asano Inio

The early chapters had more humor but it was somewhat black humor, at least by his standards at the time. That is a discussion for another thread though.

---------- Post added at 01:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:46 PM ----------

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Josef K.

I have never seen someone have such a take on childhood, it is dark and gloomy but somewhat realistic. It probably is due to the parents of these children. Maybe he it stressing out that no attention to kids leads them to this? They did show the girls parents I believe? I say this because in general such things do not happen among children that often, this has to be an exception with some reasons and to make the story more deeper and dramatic.

I think I started Oyasumi Punpun once, it had comedy as well, unless I am mistaking? :?bunny

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At least in Japan (and the States) teen sex before dating and outside of a relationship is not an uncommon thing. It pretty much always goes the same as portrayed here: inability to express real emotions, sex as a barrier to communication, and emotional dishonesty gradually build when there is no real foundation for the relationship. Someone always likes the other more than they want to admit, someone always seems to like the other less than they say. And there is rarely a strong foundation for the relationship, neither love nor friendship.

Truth be told! Indeed that balance in real life is present as well, it makes the one look desperate in this case it is the boy? Hm, not sure but the girl is allowing him a lot, which means she is equally desperate. Haven't these kids heard of Platonic love? Oh who am I kidding, they are too young to understand it, of course even among adults Platonic love is impossible. In these modern times where sexual freedom has been mounting since the second half of the 20th century I guess it does seem normal.

I may be going off the bat here, but society in portrayed via school, their parents and friends does not help much? I mean they are under constant pressure in this manga, the girl's parents seemed liked that to me. Just shows what a totally free child can do. Seems somewhat natural though, as a consequence of being free.

Yeah totally expected this kind of thing from this manga. I did not expect the boy to be such a lust monster? But I think his issue is more psychological than anything, I mean he seems to be in a stage where he is not sure of his sexuality, interesting development on his part, yeah it had to have been graphic to show off his lust I suppose, but it is more confusion than lust in my opinion.

On the other hand the manga also got another plot element with the ending of the volume, so it is expected this to turn into something darker now. Aside from that I do enjoy how the mangaka seems to have his own art style and paneling to get the atmosphere of the story, nice job, still and iffy manga for me. D:

Look at this in retrospect it really can come back to bite as a work when faced with a real life situation like so. Scary. :O Like all great works this suddenly stopped? Not really fair though, just when I started to like it a bit.

It's still ongoing. Volume 2 has not yet been published and Kotonoha do not use magazine raws. Manga Erotics is a bi-monthly magazine, making serialization slow.

Oh so we caught up with the regular releases then right?

I find something interesting about this manga about the ironic way that the story is mature/adult/18+ ect, both story and art though, and how the essence of the story is basically about teenage love. Though that love is not idealized, nor is it done in a comical fashion, realism is realism, somewhat of a "dirty realism", but still more psychological.

Volume 1 has been scanslated, later chapters that have yet to be collected in a volume, haven't been, no raws either, basically what Kaiten said, so yeah, we're lagging behind the magazine releases.

---------- Post added September 09, 2012 at 11:45 AM ---------- Previous post was August 27, 2012 at 03:50 PM ----------

Sorry for the double post, Manga-News announced that (I think the source is the latest Manga Erotics F mag) it's ending in 79th issue of the magazine next January. Hopefully that means they'll get around to announcing the 2nd volume sooner or later.

Yeah Inio has many projects, and he is working on them at the same time. If this ends quickly it would not be a surprise a short story feel to this is quite nice for me. :nod

A panel from the latest chapter:

http://t.imgbox.com/acdq9kIO.jpg

So this is from the second volume? Damn, the first one ended in such a cliffhanger though. D:

Yeah, well, the chapter that will be in the 2nd volume, friend of mine got the latest Manga Erotics F issue and sent me this, unfortunately he does not have the previous issues. :(

Gonna start reading tomorrow, looking forward to it.

---------- Post added November 18, 2012 at 05:24 PM ---------- Previous post was November 17, 2012 at 01:47 AM ----------

Good manga, any idea of the date of newer chapter releases?

Probably some time next year, the final chapter will be released in the next issue of Manga Erotics F, then we'll get the date for the 2nd volume.

Thanks for the info, loving Asano Inio's work so far. Just finished the first volume of oyasumi Punpun, it's so different to A girl by the sea. I love how he's trying a little bit of everything. ^^

Different subject matter, yet we can see the disturbing surrealism in on and the very RAW realism in the other. It's mostly psychological, this manga is psychological even though it may appear real, it is a different kind of psychological realism to me. Punpun is surreal and more artsy, this is more forward in your face but more relatable.