Deep Love: Pao no Monogatari

First, I'm warning you that this review may contain spoilers. Don't say I haven't told you. If I were to describe this manga in a single word, than that would be SAD. It is the saddest manga I have ever read, yet and the same time, it is also the most touching and the most heart-warming. I'm not a person who cries very easily, but this manga brought tears to my eyes more than once. It is labeled as a Tragedy and I truly agree with it. Being the tragic tale of a puppy, named Pao, of course it would tell the hardships that Paohas to face, but they don't seem forced, like there is too much tragedy in it. Instead, they seem very real, being things that can also happen in real life and they make you sympathize with him, as well as the other characters that deserve sympathy. The story starts with 2 sisters finding a female dog that has a 'cut neck'. They bring it to a vet and then they take it home, promising to look for until the end. After less than a year, the dog gives birth to 3 puppies, the youngest one being Pao. Unfortunately, the family suddenly goes bankrupt and they have to leave, unable to look for the dogs anymore. They are therefore abandoned, and this is where the tragic story starts. Not long after that, Pao has to separate form his siblings. He then starts wondering the city, hoping to find some happiness. He encounters hardships as well and sadness in his journey, bu he manages to also find happiness and small bits of hope. He doesn't always find a large bowl of food, instead he finds a family and kind people who care for him. Unfortunately, this small bits of hope don't last long. Sooner than he expected, he is faced with more pain and sadness, encountering the cruel reality. Yes, that's how it is. Life isn't always sweet, sometimes it's bitter, and poor Pao has to learn that the hard way. Some people are kind, while others are bad people that would hurt you even if you haven't done anything wrong, just to make money, or sometimes out of revenge, or out of pure cruelty. Pao has to survive, but survival isn't always easy. In a world were money makes the law, if you don't have money or, in Pao's case, if you don't have a wealthy owner, life is hard. Not only for you, but also for your master, and the lack of money can make even the kindest ones become cruel. The characters of this manga are simply great. They portrait both the good people as well as the bad ones from society. Many if the good ones die, but they died bringing a little light of happiness to Pao, like Pao did to them. They die, but they die with thoughts of happiness in their minds. Their heart is filled with the happiness of being able to bring happiness to others, and that's what makes them happy in the last moments of their lives. Pao, the main character, is a puppy who tries to survive in this harsh world. He wants nothing more than a family and someone who would love him, yet he faces pain and has to suffer because of the human's cruelty. He wants to find love, and instead he finds sorrow. He meets with his lost brother and sister and sees them die, even if they did nothing wrong. He meets with his former masters, but they lose all hope in life and commit suicide. But after all the suffering he was faced with, Pao still manages to trust humans. He learned to distinguish them by their eyes and he finds in his heart to bring them happiness, to reward then for the hope they have given him. The other characters are there to bring the little hope and happiness Pao was faced with. They give him new hope, and they teach him that all humans are bad, and that he shouldn't lose his hope. The bad and cruel people Pao was faced with taught him the harshness of this life, the cruelty of humans and the power of money. But they made Pao strong, and without knowing or wanting it, they made him able to survive. The art, like the characters, was great. It shows very well the feelings the characters have. Since Pao distinguishes a human by their eyes, the art also focuses on them, making them expressive and reflecting their personality and their emotions. In the end, this manga is a real and touching story about life. It shows it's cruelty, it's harshness, it's corruption. Life isn't perfect, and only the strong ones survive. Humans can be very cruel, and in their way, it doesn't matter if they hurt humans or animals. It also tells us that animals, like us, humans, have a heart, and they can feel joy or sadness just like we do. This manga is a story that collect the tragic stories of both humans and animals. It's a heart-warming tale where tragedies and sufferings are put together. It's a tragedy that brings tears to the eyes and sympathy to the heart.

Pao no Monogatari is quite a monumental second installment of the Deep Love manga series. There was a time when I despised Ayu no Monogatari (the first installment) for trying far too hard to make a tragedy out of everything, where everything that can possibly go wrong, will undoubtedly go wrong under Yoshi's (the author's) direction. There was a time when I thought that Yoshi's characters finally had their fair share of blood, tears, and sexually transmitted diseases, and that the later manga of the series would spearhead a heartwarming and hopeful tale of healing and reconciliation. Pao no Monogatari surprised in many ways: itmade me actually appreciate Ayu no Monogatari to some extent, and it set concrete expectations for Yoshi's writing prowess and the future direction of the Deep Love series. Let's address my first point. Ayu no Monogatari maintained an excellent weight of mood through its character design and detail. The main character of the manga, Ayu, always had this uncomfortably sad, empty feeling to her character, and even as the plot events progressed in an unabashedly harsh way, it felt powerful, and it hurt. It hurt seeing how the characters suffered, and it hurt knowing Ayu's unfortunate, nigh defeatist outlook on life. All this could not have been possible without the evocative detail in the character expression, and in particular, how Ayu is drawn. You'd know if you've seen it. Now can you guess how Pao no Monogatari made me realize this unique strength of Ayu no Monogatari? I'll save the suspense and niceties: it's by being a completely, utterly inane and worthless shell of what Ayu no Monogatari was. The art that happened to be the saving grace for Ayu no Monogatari's otherwise suffocating narrative was completely trashed in Pao no Monogatari. Ayu now looks like a generic blond shoujo heroine who could be easily placed in a silly romantic comedy without any design changes. In fact, all the characters have different designs from the original, and the designs have mostly deteriorated in quality and severely undermined the visual weight of the work. But surely I can't complain about the merits of a work solely through its less-than-par visuals, can I? What about the story? Pao no Monogatari is split into two volumes: the first volume details Pao's life as he grows up with his family and endures through pains and trials, and the second volume is a retelling of the events of Ayu no Monogatari through Pao's perspective. Now keep in mind, Pao is a dog. With a dog as the narrator and 'voice' of the story, it's a challenge for the mangaka to properly use expression and realistically limited comprehension to craft set pieces. After all, a dog neither knows the human language nor can fully understand the dynamics of human interaction and society. But a dog's perspective can be portrayed well! Unfortunately, Yoshi opts for the laziest possible approach in having the dog characters literally talk to one another, think in Japanese, and experience the exact same intellectual capabilities and social dynamics as a human being. In simpler terms, Pao and the other dogs are quite literally portrayed as humans, expressing deeply profound philosophical statements as "Why were these dogs born if they're just going to die?" and showing beyond-impressive emotional insight. This horribly cheesy way of giving the audience emotional cues is an insult to everyone's intelligence, and immersion-breaking too, as Deep Love is meant to be a dead-serious and sentimental realistic fiction. Of course, the above is mere nitpicking compared to the central issue with Deep Love storytelling: how the tragedies are utterly forced, unnatural, and nauseously repetitive. Without calling out what happens specifically, it's quite commonplace within every single Pao chapter to have some character commit suicide from grief, die from the cruelty of those around them, have their entire family killed, or be physically and emotionally mutilated by…something. Every. Single. Chapter. There are only angels and demons in this cast, and Yoshi takes the cynical expression 'no good deed goes unpunished' to an entirely new level: anything positive that happens is bound to turn into something grossly depressing. How dare anyone help our embattled protagonists of a Yoshi story? And since the first half of Pao no Monogatari is about dogs, you get a very healthy dose of puppy-kicking cranked up to max level. Puppy kicking! Can it get any more cliché? Maybe it's Pao's fault for being a living magnet to the dirty soles of despicable humans. I won't even go into detail how the second half of the story deviates horribly from the original story and thematically undermines everything Ayu no Monogatari was trying to achieve, because it's pointless to gripe about such light offenses given what I've already said about Pao no Monogatari. As a heads up, Host (the third installment) and Reina no Unmei (the fourth installment) return to Ayu no Monogatari's more competent art style, but they do not fix most of the storytelling issues I mentioned above because, well, the entire Deep Love series is endowed by Yoshi's brilliant prose and construction. Restraint and subtlety are two qualities of storytelling that tend to be botched by many anime. For most of those works, however, they don't need to be strictly subtle because of their stories' nature. For example, generally speaking, shounens are primarily concerned with showcasing their badass protagonists. That's okay. But for a work that tries to tackle heavy subject matter like morality, prostitution, and coming-of-age, the average standard is no longer okay. Nothing, NOTHING I've ever experienced has simultaneously lacked and needed these two qualities as much as the Deep Love series. To handle such mature subject matter with such juvenile writing is both insulting and utterly shameless. For one of the most appalling works I've ever read, I present my first hate review.

This is the 2nd installation in the Deep Love Series, first being AYU NO MONOGATARI. This story follows the dog she encounters POA. It is both heart-wrenching and heart-warming, as it shows that even though life IS hard and its RIDICULOUSLY depressing,(explain this later), we should take solace in any small happiness we can garner through it. We follow Poa from conception to well.. death, his tale in life is one of hardship, survival and ultimately to the will to never loose hope in people. Now my main gripe about this RIDICULOUSLY DEPRESSING tale, is that EITHER Poa has NO LUCK or is an EXTREME CURSE dog(he must commited from terrible in his past life), from conception he started experiencing the harship of life, bless/cursed with petiteness, he had little to no defense against any physically abuse, and my GOD he was abused. This pup was MIND SCREWED, PHYSICAL SCREWED and even SPIRITUALLY SCREWED, If I'm honest if I was handed his cards, I would have probably throw in the hand and left the table. STORY This is an extremely morbid tale AT FIRST GLANCE, but when read with a air of impassiveness, you'll see that most of the events which takes place seems too forced e.g His owners conveniently commits mass suicide just as things to be seems to be looking up for the CURSE pup another there was a NEEDLESS wanton of violence committed against Poa and his siblings and every one of Poa owners met an untimely and DEPRESSING demise (please tell me I'm not the only who notice that crap). Secondly majority of the 2nd volume of Poa is basically Ayu no Monogatari story, only told from Poa point of view, which didn't bother me too much as I LOVED that manga (I still CRIED at Ayu death scene in this too) ART The art style is clear, neat and precise. Panel are very easy to distinguish and interpret easily, in fact so good that I was personally able to finished this entire manga in 1/2hr (on a 2mbps internet connection). There alot of attention to characters eyes, since these are mainly how Poa differentitate between a friend or foe. CHARACTER I am somehow unable to relate to Poa, for obvious us reasons. NOT BECAUSE HE A DOG, but simply had the cosmos the choose to embed me such terrible luck, I would have probably died in my crib of suffocation since the mobile (thing which hangs over the crib and spins round) would more than likely have disrevelled itself and find a way to become lodge in the back of my throat, whilst by mum was probably occupied elsewhere and my dad watch some sport channel with the volume loud. OVERALL This manga get a 7 in all catergories, it was good, but completely unrealistic in some aspect, I was still depress and in deep thoughts upon completion (this review is the proof). KUDOS POA for out-living all your owners, hoping you enjoying doggy heaven.