MANGA REVIEW | "Boy’s Abyss" - Volume One
WARNING: The following manga contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know has suicidal thoughts or feelings, you are not alone, and there is free, 24/7 help. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline offers specific resources and confidential support for those in crisis or emotional distress. You can call 1-800-273-8255 or go to SuicidePreventionLifeline.org at any time for free, 24/7 help when you or anyone you know needs help.
Is it really living if you’re only doing things to appease others? What if you have no control of anything, and are forced into a corner that you can’t get out of? Can there be hope for those stuck in a rut that they didn’t have a choice to be in? Ryo Minemani’s Boy’s Abyss brings to readers a story about being stuck in a place where death may be the only option of escape. The question is, is there more to this narrative than wishful suicide pacts?
The boy in Boy’s Abyss is Reiji, who finds himself taking one too many responsibilities for a guy his age. His mother is run ragged by work, his grandmother has dementia and needs constant assistance, and his good-for-nothing brother stays at home and causes child-like tantrums if he doesn’t get his way. There’s also Reiji’s childhood friend Gen, who treats him more like a lackey and forces him to buy cigarettes and the like. His only place of escape is when he’s listening to his favorite idol group Acrylic, with his favorite member being Nagi Aoe.
Imagine his surprise when he finds Nagi working at his small-town convenience store. After the two share cigarettes, they walk along a bridge where a suicide pact made famous in a book is located. When Nagi suggests doing the pact with Reiji, he’s not entirely sure that she’s serious. That’s when Nagi invites Reiji back to her house for sex, only for an older man claiming to be Nagi’s husband to arrive after their night of passion.
It says a lot when the idol’s appearance in Reiji’s town isn’t the biggest plot twist in Boy’s Abyss. The narrative dunks a lot of bad karma on Reiji, ranging from his constant bullying by Gen to his problems at home. Minemani really wants to emphasize that Reiji’s got a terrible life, with no way to escape without causing some sort of mental pain to his family. When Nagi appears and suggests killing themselves, Reiji finally sees an out to what is essentially a horrible life.
That’s not to say that this manga is trying to push suicide as the end game to the story. It’s clear that Reiji has very few options to get it of this awful living situation of his, and — thus far — severing his life span seems to be the only true way out of it. Yet there’s something in both his and Nagi’s eyes that say that neither are ready to take the deadly plunge. Quite the contrary, it feels more like both are trying to connect the dots to get out of what is a very shitty life.
Right now, the question is how Reiji and Nagi will escape. They will obviously need one another for at least emotional support if they aim to get out of dodge. However, with Nagi’s fame and Reiji’s constant list of burdens, finding a non-suicidal out is easier said than done. Genji will more than likely chase Reiji to the ends of the earth to make him his errand boy, and Nagi’s idol life makes it nigh impossible to have any sort of normalcy.
Perhaps that’s why I look at the first volume of Boy’s Abyss as the prelude to the actual story. It hammers down both Reiji and Nagi’s current situation, to the point where it’s easy to feel bad for them. With that being said, it feels like there’s one key element missing from this first volume: an ounce of hope. As such, Boy’s Abyss starts things off on a very grim and worrying note, albeit one that’s very well-written and drawn beautifully. Thankfully, since this manga’s still on-going as of this review, one can bet that hope is just around the corner for these two, even if it’s temporary.
FINAL GRADE:
Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.
