The Cumming-of-age of Onani Master Kurosawa. And I Came Buckets.
September 28th, 2009
Those are True Tears btw.
woah, the resemblance between Kurosawa and Hei didn’t occur to me until I saw this fanart, looks-wise and otherwise.
I’ve been putting off reading Onani Master Kurosawa for the longest time now (as with the rest of my backlogs), and a rather unexpected turn of events finally got me to stop bumming around and actually read it. I’m not done yet (about 10 more chapters to go! hurray slowness!) and won’t get to until after I get back from the camp I’ll be attending for the whole of next week, but right now I can say I AM LOVING IT.
Who would’ve thought that this would turn out to be a coming-of-age story. Or more like, cumming-of-age. Feel free to quote me on that. For a manga whose premise runs around a guy with a fetish for cumming in the girls’ bathroom, I sure didn’t see that coming. Disregarding all the tweets and posts about it of course. I remember when Shinn introduced this way back when, and my impression could be summed up in three letters: W.T.F. with a “wow Japan, you never cease to amaze me with your creativity” snarky side-comment. “Disgusting” was enough for me to describe it. And boy was I so wrong.
There seems to be an unspoken rule when it comes to animes and mangas, that when you see the protagonist deep in his thoughts, with delicious stream-of-consciousness all over the place, expect that something magical is going happen sooner or later. Stream-of-consciousness with potent thoughts, of course, not simply of fappery and whim. It’s like a surefire sign that this character will grow up from being someone trapped in his own world, his own skewed narrow thoughts, to someone who gets to discover the vast world outside the confines of his mind — a Bildungsroman in the making.
Owen mentioned before that “guys reading [Onani Master Kurosawa] > girls reading this simply because girls would never be able to understand what it feels like”, and while I do agree with that to some extent (yes I have never fapped in my life, and will never understand how guys are hardwired with the said ‘function’), I’d say OMK holds within it a power that transcends gender. You think the OMK catharsis can only happen to guys? Think again.
OMK was, for me, an Ode to Introverts, a drug or remedy to those who, at some point, confined themselves to their own introverted shell. People who once regarded themselves as different from anyone else, set apart, either placing themselves on a pedestal so high they end up thinking “Hmph, I don’t need to mingle with you stupid commoners!”, or a burrow so low all they see are shadows of self-pity, “I’m a pathetic weak coward; I can’t mingle with people, I’ll never be good enough” — unable to embrace the simple truth that they’re lonely, that they’re thirsty for the company of people just like any normal person, and that all they need to do is to step out of that dark and dreary burrow also known as the stall in the girls’ bathroom in the semi-deserted 1st building.
Most of these people consider themselves different from all the lowlifes (in a condescending way), when the truth is, they wouldn’t want to be hated by these very people either.
This one scene in chapter 25 resonated with me so much I cried buckets of tears while I was reading it… catharsis through and through. “One little act of kindness could be enough to save a life” — that’s what I saw at work here. Responsibility and redemption are said to be two sides of the same coin, and Kurosawa stands as a testament to that.
I might be spoiling things a little bit too much here, so I’d just say: READ IT. More so if you’re a guy, which can make this both a really painful and even more powerful reading. I’m also pressed for time here since I have to head to the airport in less than an hour (by the time of this writing, which is the 27th of September), so as much as I want to babble about this a bit more, talk about this in an Diary of an Anime/Manga Lived style, I’m afraid I don’t have the time to do so. I’ll make sure to write about this once I come back. If you have suggestions as to how you want me to blog Onani Master Kurosawa, please do so 
Ja mata! Off to discover how much more vast the world is with this week-long Christian youth camp I’m attending, gonna meet people from all over the country and all that jazz. I might not be a Magister just yet, though I want to follow her footsteps (not in the ‘giving someone false hopes and breaking his heart’ sense obviously), change for the better, till my Hontou no Jibun is finally one with my Naritai Jibun. Oh and yes I can see Shugo Chara in Onani Master Kurosawa.
Kurosawa’s pimp, signing off!
Credits to べあん・しどぅ for the Kurosawa fanart
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