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Goodnight Punpun
Goodnight Punpun (Japanese: おやすみプンプン, Hepburn: Oyasumi Punpun) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Inio Asano. It was initially serialized in Shogakukan's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Sunday between 2007 and 2008, and was later transferred to Weekly Big Comic Spirits, where it ran from 2008 to 2013. Its chapters were collected in thirteen tankōbon volumes. In North America, it was licensed for English release by Viz Media.
A coming-of-age drama story, it follows the life of a child named Onodera Punpun, from his elementary school years to his early 20s, as he copes with his dysfunctional family, love life, friends, life goals, and hyperactive mind, while occasionally focusing on the lives and struggles of his schoolmates and family. Punpun and the members of his family are normal humans, but are depicted to the reader in the form of crudely drawn birds. The manga explores themes such as depression, love, trauma, social isolation, death, and family.
Goodnight Punpun follows the life experiences of Punpun Onodera, a young boy living in Japan, as well as a few of his friends. The story follows Punpun as he grows up, dividing it into approximately four stages of his life: elementary school, middle school, high school, and his early twenties.
Asano announced the manga a year after finishing Solanin. Encouraged by its success, Asano said he was done with "feel-good stories". Despite initial opposition from his editor and publisher, he went through with the manga. Tokie Komuro, the editor-in-chief of Monthly Sunday Gene-X, who is a supporter of Asano, said that the only reason Asano was able to serialize the manga was due to his good track record and reputation from his earlier works.
I wanted [to] take the readers coming to the book because they thought Punpun was cute, and upset them. (Laugh) I wanted to say to the reader, "Here's a different kind of manga. Look at what kind of depths of reality manga can plumb."
When he initially planned the story, Asano intended to chronicle Punpun's growth over ten years, spanning seven volumes. The first half was designed to be a romance, and the second half, when Punpun and Aiko go on the run, was reminiscent of a road movie. The manga expanded to thirteen volumes because Asano wanted to focus on the art, and many characters developed their own side stories. Asano purposely emphasized elements of the first half, such as its silliness, to increase the shock of the second half. With every dark turn in the manga, sales dropped, which Asano regretted because his readers were being alienated from the story. He also saw his readers as an enemy when he received criticism, which led him to react harshly and cause more backlash. The manga also served as an outlet for Asano's doubts and fears, such as the fear that he might be a victim or perpetrator of murder.
When designing Punpun, Asano sought to strike a balance between making his male protagonist too handsome or too ugly, and decided to let readers imagine his face. Asano originally planned to depict all the characters like Punpun's family, but his editor did not like the idea. Asano utilized photography and computer graphics for the backgrounds of the manga. Outdoor backgrounds were created by taking photographs, converting them to black and white, and printing them so that his assistants could draw outlines and objects on them. Interiors were created in 3D modeling software, which had the benefit of capturing angles impossible with cameras. When asked why he placed so much emphasis on the backgrounds, Asano said that it allows the drawings to have more impact, especially since characters like Punpun are lacking in dynamism. Asano later came to regret digitally processing his images because he felt he was ruining his pen art.
Punpun's depiction as a faceless caricature was meant to help readers identify with Punpun and encourage them to keep reading, both when he was depicted as a bird and in his later forms. Asano also utilized Punpun's simple look for symbolism, such as giving him bull horns to represent Altair, the cowherd star, symbolizing his love triangle as part of the Summer Triangle, with Aiko as Vega and Sachi as Deneb.
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Goodnight Punpun
Goodnight Punpun (Japanese: おやすみプンプン, Hepburn: Oyasumi Punpun) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Inio Asano. It was initially serialized in Shogakukan's seinen manga magazine Weekly Young Sunday between 2007 and 2008, and was later transferred to Weekly Big Comic Spirits, where it ran from 2008 to 2013. Its chapters were collected in thirteen tankōbon volumes. In North America, it was licensed for English release by Viz Media.
A coming-of-age drama story, it follows the life of a child named Onodera Punpun, from his elementary school years to his early 20s, as he copes with his dysfunctional family, love life, friends, life goals, and hyperactive mind, while occasionally focusing on the lives and struggles of his schoolmates and family. Punpun and the members of his family are normal humans, but are depicted to the reader in the form of crudely drawn birds. The manga explores themes such as depression, love, trauma, social isolation, death, and family.
Goodnight Punpun follows the life experiences of Punpun Onodera, a young boy living in Japan, as well as a few of his friends. The story follows Punpun as he grows up, dividing it into approximately four stages of his life: elementary school, middle school, high school, and his early twenties.
Asano announced the manga a year after finishing Solanin. Encouraged by its success, Asano said he was done with "feel-good stories". Despite initial opposition from his editor and publisher, he went through with the manga. Tokie Komuro, the editor-in-chief of Monthly Sunday Gene-X, who is a supporter of Asano, said that the only reason Asano was able to serialize the manga was due to his good track record and reputation from his earlier works.
I wanted [to] take the readers coming to the book because they thought Punpun was cute, and upset them. (Laugh) I wanted to say to the reader, "Here's a different kind of manga. Look at what kind of depths of reality manga can plumb."
When he initially planned the story, Asano intended to chronicle Punpun's growth over ten years, spanning seven volumes. The first half was designed to be a romance, and the second half, when Punpun and Aiko go on the run, was reminiscent of a road movie. The manga expanded to thirteen volumes because Asano wanted to focus on the art, and many characters developed their own side stories. Asano purposely emphasized elements of the first half, such as its silliness, to increase the shock of the second half. With every dark turn in the manga, sales dropped, which Asano regretted because his readers were being alienated from the story. He also saw his readers as an enemy when he received criticism, which led him to react harshly and cause more backlash. The manga also served as an outlet for Asano's doubts and fears, such as the fear that he might be a victim or perpetrator of murder.
When designing Punpun, Asano sought to strike a balance between making his male protagonist too handsome or too ugly, and decided to let readers imagine his face. Asano originally planned to depict all the characters like Punpun's family, but his editor did not like the idea. Asano utilized photography and computer graphics for the backgrounds of the manga. Outdoor backgrounds were created by taking photographs, converting them to black and white, and printing them so that his assistants could draw outlines and objects on them. Interiors were created in 3D modeling software, which had the benefit of capturing angles impossible with cameras. When asked why he placed so much emphasis on the backgrounds, Asano said that it allows the drawings to have more impact, especially since characters like Punpun are lacking in dynamism. Asano later came to regret digitally processing his images because he felt he was ruining his pen art.
Punpun's depiction as a faceless caricature was meant to help readers identify with Punpun and encourage them to keep reading, both when he was depicted as a bird and in his later forms. Asano also utilized Punpun's simple look for symbolism, such as giving him bull horns to represent Altair, the cowherd star, symbolizing his love triangle as part of the Summer Triangle, with Aiko as Vega and Sachi as Deneb.