Love and Curse

Deserves this arbitrary 10 rating score simply for the author's courage to confront the horrors and trauma of her youth. It certainly helps that mangaka Fumi Fumiko very deftly materialises her sexual trauma, alienation, self-loathing and misanthropy into a story that is not just honest and real, but also compelling to read. The depths in which we are lured into the protagonist's inner darkness is harrowing and gripping. I felt like I was looking deep into the kind of hatred the human condition is able to produce. The stylistic choice to have the art style replicate the 'self-consciousness' of the protagonist is visually stunning andnarratively intelligent. The manga utilises soft strokes and a hazy-impressionist style to replicate the innocence and ignorance of the protagonist as a child who barely has the awareness to comprehend the world around her, and slowly hardening the line strokes and deepening the blacks in the illustrations as the protagonist grows older and begins to become more aware of not just the twisted nature of her circumstance, but also the material world around her. If there was anything I could critique about the work, it would be that the final act felt like it needed more time for readers to really understand the depth of what the protagonist is going through. The story at the end moved a little too fast, with story beats (mercifully) moving competently enough for readers to comprehend what was happening, but too quickly to fathom just how bad of a situation the protagonist had put herself and the people she cared about in. I definitely recommend this work for anybody who has a keen interest in psychological works that deal with trauma and mental health. Particularly for readers who appreciate the works of Inio Asano and Shuzo Oshimi (whom the mangaka actually consulted when she worked on the manga). A word of warning though, the subject matter may be hard for some to stomach.