羣青

GUNJOU

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
3
RELEASE
January 25, 2012
CHAPTERS
36

DESCRIPTION

"I want you to kill him..."

Her husband abuses her on a daily basis. Unable to stand it any longer, she asks her lesbian friend to kill her husband for her. And unable to say no to the woman she loves, the lesbian kills him...

Only 22 years old when the series began, Ching Nakamura offers up a work carved from flesh, blood, and bone.

(Source: Kotonoha)

CAST

Chiyomi Ootaka
Souko Ezaki

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

bortacina
40/100
still my biggest disappointment
I've read this years ago but I'm that petty and there will be some spoilers ahead...

~Plot~

At first glance, the story is so interesting. Soko, who is the main character, has a not so great past, family issues and definitely a terrible husband. She has an abusive husband and at one point she just can't take it anymore and asks for help. And of course she gets help from none other than your local insecure lesbian, Chiyomi. Chiyomi is an old friend of hers and it is very obvious that she was in love with Soko. Knowing this, Soko uses Chiyomi to try to save herself from her miserable life. Like I said, the plot is very interesting and there's nothing I love more than two lovers killing the abusive husband and running off together. However, the story sadly isn't just about this

~Problems~

Everything starts to get worse after Chiyomi kills Soko's husband. There are just so many things wrong with Chiyomi that I geniuenly don't know where to start. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting to see a normal relationship in this manga and I was actually into the toxic relationship they had. But the execution of this was not for me.
- First of all, Chiyomi, a lesbian that had partners before, thinks she lost her virginity when she has sex with a random dude...
What's more, she also thinks she's not enough to give pleasure to Soko because she doesn't have a dick. She says that when they're having sex. People can internalize homophobia and insecurity, I get that but I felt like it was handled so clumsily.
- Then there’s how Chiyomi is portrayed overall: she’s shown as this predator who can’t control herself around Soko, to the point that—if I remember correctly—there was a non-consensual moment between them. It plays into every harmful stereotype: the oversexualized, desperate, obsessive, unstable lesbian... This was the biggest problem for me and made no sense to me. Genuinely felt unncessary. Maybe I’m too sensitive about this stuff, but as someone who wanted to like the twistedness of their relationship, it just felt cheap and I guess out of character?
~Anything good to say?~~

I actually liked the visuals. The art wasn't perfect but it was very unique and pretty, in my opinion.

~Overall~

The plot is very interesting so it's a shame that Nakamura decided to go this way with the story. I wasn't expecting any sort of happy ending to begin with but overall, this just wasn't for me. Mainly because I couldn’t care less about the characters at some point. Their emotions felt hollow and their motivations inconsistent... I really wanted to like this manga but I couldn't. Despite its promising plot, the problems I've discussed ultimately prevented me from fully connecting and engaging with the story.
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MangaIsPolitical
50/100
A heavy roadtrip that lacks in subtlety but still has some character.
STORY: 4

Meet Soko and Chiyomi. The first woman was abused by her husband and the second killed that husband although there is no love to be gained in return. The story revolves around these two female protagonists and their painful relation.
There’s three volumes showing the aftermath of that murder committed in the name of love. The atmosphere is heavy and tragic and tries to provide real-life in-your-face drama. Alas, somehow, dialogues always feel a bit off for a realistic story and prevent the reader to empathize with the characters.

ART: 5

Art is not great compared to the average of the industry and you can find some anatomical mistakes here and there.
However, character drawings immediately set this manga apart because there is no lookism!

Lookism can be seen as a mechanism of social domination where the marker is beauty (instead of race for racism or gender for sexism). Cultural productions like Hollywood movies or manga are full of it: if you were to pick a random person in the street several times you would find a few people that are not ‘attractive’ in the eyes of society.
But, in stories, it’s extremely rare to find a main protagonist that could be perceived as ugly, even for average characters.
On the opposite, characters that are ‘ugly’ are never random but are defined by their appearance, which implies that good-looking people are the norm (while it’s not the case in reality). This is similar to the way women (see the Smurfs) or black people (see the trope of the token black friend in TV) are essentialized in fiction.

Almost every single manga uses good-looking protagonists (especially in the case of women) by default, and not-good-looking protagonists only with a reason. For example, because they are dumb and funny, bad, to show they have suffered, or just because they are.. feminists!

Gunjou does not follow that trap and the same character can be drawn either cute or hideous depending on their emotions like in real life, which does a good job at making the story feel real.
Moreover, those are women that can look unattractive and even their naked bodies are crudely realistic instead of being something erotic to gaze at. Just for this choice of art, Gunjou is remarkable.

POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 5

The interesting content is more about feminism than politics.

FEMINISM: 7

This title completely centers on two women and their complex relationship. They don’t even desire a man. Patriarchy is present and responsible for a great part of the misery occurring. There’s no man to save the day and characters are not sexualized.
That’s already so much for a manga that I guessed that the author is female. Apparently the author is a woman and gay. Let’s hope cis men can also tackle such works someday?

CONCLUSION: 5

A heavy drama that cares about women and has non-conventional art. Despite weak dialogues blocking a full immersion, those three volumes of painful road-trip are worth trying!
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