solanin

human beings were made to love. but in the world we have built for ourselves we can take a man and bind his wrists tightly together. suffocate his passion, burn through his idealism, blow out every candle worth wishing on.

unlike your average coming-of-age manga, solanin explores the harshness of reality in a way so bare, so cold it leaves you sorely empty. first there is meiko and takeda's near-palpable love. their endless, boundless hope: promise you'll stay with me forever. takeda's declaration. i will never become an adult satisfied with tepid happiness. isn't it so funny, so ironic, that he kept this promise till he had to die for it?

unsurprisingly, takeda's dream of making it big never gets realised. but when the torch passes itself on to meiko even the audience is fooled for a moment, wool pulling over their eyes. fiction always has a happy ending: maybe that's why i expected meiko to be the one to make takeda's dream come true. i should've known--in the real world, human beings are not granted the same kindness, the same generosity, that the dream-world has to offer. solanin is technically fiction, but it could not be further from a mere 'story'.

to this day, many remain divided regarding the epilogue. meiko, now in her 30s, married to a man the readers have never met, announcing "i'm pregnant" and "i love you" with a faraway look in her eyes. growing up, solanin seems to scream, is a process of learning how to deny your instinct to love, again and again. growing up is learning you will never be able to live with yourself, either way. numbing yourself, to learning, letting yourself float in stasis when it becomes too much to bear.