Happiness

Story doesn't really go anywhere and the character pale in comparison to Shuzo's other works. Replace the psychological drama and horror of his previous and future works with uncomfortable body horror and you already know the extent of what Happiness has to offer. It's really unfortunate cuz some of the art is a real treat. I love how the vampires of this world see the night sky as if it were a Van Gogh. It's their home and thus they find beauty and comfort in it, so it works in tandem with the story as well as looks good. The problem here for me, wasthe characters. They're all so one note and none are given any back story or real attention except for the main antagonist and at the point where his origins are shown, which is done in a very well illustrated sequence of paintings, you have already seen him do some really fucked up shit. Because of this his back story honestly serves no purpose. You already hate the dude its not gonna make you hate him more to see him do more fucked up shit to characters you've never even seen before. I feel like there was a lot of wasted potential here and if more time was put into character development rather than torture porn, I think this could have been something great. Ultimately it stumbles in almost every way and is a slog to get through. I kept pushing through hoping at the end of the grotesque violence there would be some deep, captivating moment but it never came.

If nothing else, this manga was extremely sensible. Usually, when ending a manga, you will think "Yeah, that's a good stopping point", "What the fuck? Where's the rest of it?", or "Yeah you should've ended this 50 chapters ago". This one was an "Oh, okay" ending. Everything in the manga was extremely clear, every action every character took made perfect sense within the context of the motifs of the manga, the small romance subplot made sense, the budding friendship made sense, the motivation of the guru made sense, and the conclusion of the arc with Nora made perfect sense. This series is incredibly well thoughtout and well planned in terms of the characters. You might then wonder why I rated this a 4. The reason is simply that there is NOTHING good about this series beyond what I listed above. In the first few chapters, the series is actually very fun to read and the characters are really compelling and you can really get immersed into the thoughts and feelings of our main characters. Their dynamics are fun, and their relationships are enjoyable. You can kind of tell when things are about to go south from the atomsphere. The artstyle tells you this is not going to be a happy story. When things start to go south, everything is compelling, but then there is this blurry part in the middle, where while every action in the story makes sense, the events themselves don't feel congruent to the beginning. Then, there's essentially a cut and we read almost an entirely different story which is totally irrelevant to the original story besides the fact that these characters know each other. Happiness is like reading two really good stories forcibly glued together, except when you get to the second good story, it feels like a slap in the face because you were hoping to actually finish the first one. So everything after that point feels like another slap in the face, because even though all of the character arcs are resolved in a way that makes sense, their resolution almost feels disconnected from the first story. This book is honestly leagues better than most other manga I've read in terms of story, plot, characters, and introspection. However, in terms of manga ABOUT story, plot, characters, and introspection, it's just abysmal. It's just a ginormous disappointment when you compare it to greats like Koe no Katachi, Distant Sky, The Horizon, etc.

I found the initial premise for Happiness intriguing. It starts out exploring how the humans-turned-vampires cope with their new lives. How they handle this new state (e.g., the thirst for blood), how it affects their relationships with others, and the struggle they face to remain "normal." I was pleasantly surprised to find an absence of overt revenge or power fantasy elements. While this type of story isn't anything novel, I liked the dark, gritty take on the underground lives of vampires. Approximately halfway through the story takes a turn for the worse. It starts to branch out into different arcs, some of which take the storyin what I thought were very ill-thought-out directions. The first half has what I consider to be a much better composition (i.e., it was put together better; more compelling and coherent) than the latter, which was haphazard and shallow. Even ignoring the questionable direction, I don't think there was enough time, given the length of the series, to develop these new arcs adequately. While I genuinely enjoyed the beginning of this story, it had almost completely lost me by the end. The main cast is interesting, and I liked the different ways in which they are initially developed and brought together. As mentioned by the mangaka (in his note at the end of volume 10), he tried to explore the psychology of multiple characters (while maintaining character quality) as opposed to focusing on just one. In this respect, I think he was mostly successful, and I generally enjoyed the different character narratives and perspectives. One area of weakness in Happiness which really detracted from my enjoyment was the failure to development some of the more significant supporting characters. The only one who really gets proper attention is Nao. Saku appears at multiple points over the course of the story, including some important events. He has significant impact on the outcome of some characters' lives, but he doesn't even get a short backstory (or anything else really). I think Nora was the biggest failure. She is the catalyst for Makoto's vampiric transformation, a guide for his new state of existence, and his love interest. Despite this, her backstory is introduced shockingly late in the story, her motivations are barely explained, and no romantic development is allocated to her relationship with Makoto. I really like the art and think the quality is objectively good. Things like the way the mangaka drew the sky and other perceptive differences for the vampires added an interesting character to the visuals. This is the one element of quality that remains consistent throughout the series.