Downfall is a one shot manga created by Inio Asanio. A few of Asanio's works have been translated into English through license under Viz Media. He is known for creating manga that is real on true emotion and modern age imagery. Some of his most famous works include Solanin, Goodnight Punpun, Dead Dead Demon's Dededede Destruction, and Girl on the Shore. The awards he's received are due to him being the voice for the youth in Japan's modern day society.
A struggling manga artist goes through a downward spiral as he loses his faith in his work. A long the way he tries to take all the people around down with him. None has ever been so hopeless.
Inio Asanio is the kind of creator who doesn't lay everything out on the table for his readers to see. You get sucked into the story through character inner demons then your trapped in the seat preparing to start a long dark ride. I wouldn't call downfall a super depressing story. Reviewers online beg to differ but maybe I'm not easy to make sad…. I don't know what unnerved other people that read this manga. What interested me about Downfall was how the character was going to recover or was he going to destroy himself in his downward descent. This isn't a story that is suppose to make you feel joyful because some parts of life have nothing that is cheerful. Those times in our lives are represented by this manga. I also felt that the characters that were interacted with stand for the different mood swings of the main character. As I read, most events in the story made me feel nothing, which is a scary thing in itself. My heart become hollow like the manga creator I was witnessing slide along in life away from all meaning. Certain portions from Downfall could be triggering to some however, that's not a bad quality. Manga is suppose to invoke emotion good or bad. Downfall shows that Inio Asanio is a master at his craft as a storyteller.
Downfall's art falls in line towards Inio Asanio's other works. If you look back on his older series(What a Wonderful World), you can see where he made major improvements in his art style. Downfall was one of the results of years of nips and tucks here and there. His art gives off a sense dipped in realism similar to his plots. Some of the scenery looks literally like he took pieces of newspaper and pasted them in the panels on the page. Character models don't follow any ordinary design, nor are all the characters drawn using the same structures. I've always felt that some of Asanio's character drawings look very silly while others look more like what a normal manga character would look like. Goodnight PunPun had some of the weirdest character drawings I have ever seen in a manga. On the other hand, Dead Demon has the best scenic panels that any manga on the shelves today has to offer.
Downfall is such an emotional filled body of work that reading it's pages will mean something different to everyone. I'm a big boy who can handle the message that "the world can be a messed place" constantly presented in Asanio's works. If you were a fan of his other release then Downfall will be a joy to have in your collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment