Hello again! It's June 11th of 2025 as I'm writing this. Summer has been decent for me, yet I'm struggling to pick out what majors I'm interested in and where to go to college. The weather has been nice yet my room still remains a mess. I wanted to discuss a manga I read recently titled, "Gunjou" which began its serialization in 2007 (Wow before I was born.. heheh). Also this "discussion" (i guess it would be called that) will contain spoilers although I believe that experiencing the work in its rawmost form even with spoilers will not spoil the feelings it emits, I do understand that some people like to go into works and media completely blind (myself included :3). Good luck reading the manga if you choose to indulge in it, or if you don't I hope that you enjoy my discussion of it.
Well, to begin this discussion I would like to state that this work is incredibly cathartic and well-crafted in my most honest opinion. I find it so very strange that I enjoyed this work so much considering how low its ratings were across many platforms. After reading the entirety of the series, I do (partially) understand why this series is not greatly received. Despite its own graphic contents, I believe that the sheer messiness itself is what draws people away from enjoying this work. Despite its own messiness, I do still greatly enjoy it for what it is. In fact, the messiness and lack of linearity from this work is what draws me close towards it. The characters are absolute fucking messes that can't display nor control their feelings. Chiyomi, Souko, and the other side characters are all guilty of this struggle. Even at the end of the manga itself, they cannot truly act properly according to their emotions, they simply come to accept them, in their raw, direction-less state. At the end of the work, the two main characters understand that they will never be able to understand one another nor convey how they feel properly and deal with their feelings afterwards. I find it kind of beautiful in a way, that these two people cannot coexist as normal people would due to their own actions and imperfections. Their circumstances are also incredibly interesting, a woman who has been abused her whole life and a lesbian that has been in love with her for over a decade. The woman, Souko Ezaki, asks the lesbian in love with her, Chiyomi Ootaka, to kill her husband. Within the first ten pages of the manga, we are told that Chiyomi has already killed Souko's husband, and they share a phone call about cleaning up the body. There was a line here that Chiyomi said that has really stuck with me, "a smile from you can destroy my whole life." Something about the way this sounds just really messes with my brain. Fictitious depictions of love like this are always just so fascinating. Being able to love someone to the point where you would take away someone else's life is just a very fictitious idea. Like sure, things like that do happen in real life and its very bad that they do. Yet, I still can't take myself away from the gravity of this quote. To be able to not only ruin someone else's life by ending it but also ruining your own life in the process. Its so strange to me that someone would go to such lengths to "save" or even get a simple "smile" from a loved one is absolutely crazy. I find love, in it of itself, to be a very strange concept. However, maybe this depiction is what love is or at least what love can be like for some people. In a way, I think it is. Many people across the globe do vow themselves to another for the rest of their life. While it is generally viewed as a great honor, it could also be somewhat restrictive. Marriage itself could hide affairs or abuse within the very fabric of the relationship. Souko's marriage is ridden with constant abuse. It is very strange that when the manga was written, 2007, gay marriage was not legalized in Japan. Chiyomi and her girlfriend of 10 years, who did love each other to a decent extent, could never marry even if they wished to. Why must gay people not be married when they love each other but straight couples that do not can get married. However, the idea that marriage is inherently bad and harmful is subverted with the relationship of Chiyomi's brother and her sister-in-law. Although their relationship isn't entirely perfect and they do argue and fight, they do love and respect one another. Their relationship does not hold hidden affairs nor does it garner abuse. Instead the imperfection lies in Chiyomi herself. Her mother could not accept that she was a lesbian and Chiyomi had only complicated the lives of everyone in her brother's family. Her own imperfections and the true weight of her actions became a burden for everyone around her, causing issues in her brother's family. In the end, Chiyomi inevitably chooses Souko. Despite everything that has happened and everything that they had been through on their journey, they chose each other. Despite being a lesbian and her long-time crush, they chose to end their story together. Chiyomi harms many people emotionally and physically throughout the manga because of her love and yearning for Souko, a woman that she, even in the end, could never have completely. Perhaps this is what makes Chiyomi so interesting to me. Chiyomi is a character who is so madly in love with Souko yet cannot have her completely in any sense. She simply yearned, yearns, and will continue to yearn for something as simple a smile from her. Although their relationship is very limiting, Chiyomi still loves her completely and infinitely for years. Perhaps this is why she is so messy and irrational. The woman that she loves with the entirety of her heart will never love her and want her as much as Chiyomi does. Souko does end up spending great amounts of time with Chiyomi, yet they feel distant somehow. However, they feel closer than lovers in some moments. Their relationship is, in itself, ridden with clutter. In the end, so is love. Although love is typically displayed as some sort of fairytale dream in most media, Gunjou shows that love is messy and imperfect. It also shows that anyone can love another. Souko may not have loved Chiyomi romantically, but she did love her in some way. Despite hurting each other and having communication issues, the pair does love each other maybe even a bit too much. At the end of everything, they can only accept the messiness of not only their love but of love itself. They cannot do anything but put an end to their story and confess that they killed Souko's husband. They feared going to the cops yet knew that they couldn't escape what they had done. They chose to accept their actions and fate as a pair, showing that love and what comes along with it may be messy. However, all that we can do is accept the clutter of loving another and accept what may unfold in life with the comforting company---of a dear,loved one.
Thank you for listening to me rant about Gunjou and love-based things within it. Also, I don't hate marriage and hope that it didn't come off this way. I just found the different displays of marriage within Gunjou to be fascinating and intriguing in a way. This is kind of unrelated, but I love the title of this for some reason. "Ultramarine" at a glance sounds strange for this manga, but I think it kind of sticks. It's strange in a way that makes it intriguing. The strangeness of it is what makes it interesting to me. I feel like I just ended up ranting about marriage for a very long time.. sorry about that. Overall, this series was a good read and had very nice art as well. I'm very glad that I decided to read this work even if it does have low ratings. In my opinion, I think this work deserves higher ratings, but that's just me. I hope to post again soon maybe with some more creative writing or movie recommendations or something. Also, I apologize for the poor quality of my writing. I'm trying to convince myself that I cannot get better at writing or anything really, then I will never improve. I hope to improve eventually. Bye bye ✿