Arakawa Under the Bridge My Dress-Up Darling

surreal

Having an oddly dreamlike quality

That's what Arakawa Under the Bridge is cited as in Wikipedia, though technically it is a surreal comedy.

I marathoned the last twenty-five chapters last night, and I feel wistful. But I am ahead of myself.

Arakawa Under the Bridge brings back memories of a bygone past. The first time I heard of this was near the end of my PhD-turned-Masters programme out in UIUC. I was hanging out with Alisa and loliponi, and she invited me to watch this anime with them. I liked the premise---it had that kind of whimsical quality that I enjoyed. We didn't manage to finish the season (or did we?), but I knew that whatever it was, it was not the end of the story, and I just had to know how it turned out, what with all the world-building.

Fast forward about a decade and change later, and here I am, finally reading the manga that inspired it all.

I like Arakawa Under the Bridge. It has that balance between slice-of-life (love it!), surrealism (confused but normalised in my head), with eventual resolutions that make one question whether the surrealism was only because I had chosen to view the manga for the most part from the lens of a normal person. The resolution of all the major events and plot points was satisfactory given the ludicrity of the initial premise, and it does serve as a warm and fuzzy ending that made me yearn for someone like a Nino in my life, as opposed to the flawed real people where one can never tell when they will take the love and trust you eventually feel comfortable enough to yield and throw it back in your face like some cosmic joke, making you question whether you can trust anyone that deeply ever again.

Totally not projecting. Absolutely not. No way. Nuh-uh.

Arakawa Under the Bridge---it's been out long enough. Here's the loveliest coloured 2-page spread that I absolutely love:

If you have no idea who everyone is, don't fret: go read it here.

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Another manga series that I had finished reading recently (for a very loose definition of ``recently'') is My Dress-Up Darling. I love love love Marin Kitagawa's smile---just look at the cover in the manga's Wikipedia page. And just in case you think this is only possible for a drawn character, think again:

That's the singer of the anime theme cosplaying as Marin. And she has the same damn smile too!

And no, I didn't follow the anime, nor do I have any intention to. These days, I find that the manga of an anime series tends to be a much better read/expenditure of my time.

I bring up My Dress-Up Darling here because of its apparently abrupt conclusion, where there seem to be new story arcs that are being set up that can easily bring on more adventures for Marin and Wakana. Real world issues on the mangaka's health/schedule aside, I think that for slice-of-life type stories, there's hardly ever a good place to stop, for the simple reason that life simply doesn't just stop there once an arc is over. It just keeps on going, with new arcs slipstreaming in even as other story arcs are resolved.

At some point, the creator of the slice-of-life needs to decide when they are done with the stories they want to tell. And in this case, moving on from the confession in the penultimate chapter into a time-skip where Marin and Wakana are married, with a hint of how their lives are successful and still wonderful together feels like the right kind of end for a slice-of-life.

Yes, there are new big story arcs that never got ``resolved'' (did they ever find out that it was Marin who was Haniel?), side characters whose stories seemed to have gone nowhere (but they are side characters?), and it did feel rushed. But I think it is important to trust in the creative process---not everything must follow a standardised template. The templates are just guides---once one has mastered the lessons on what the guides are trying to teach, it is time to ditch them and find one's own creative voice.

I know I hardly ever talk about manga and what-not, or even review books that I read in general, but I suppose some of these things have created enough of a disturbance/resonance that I feel like saying something about it.

Till the next update then.