The Winter 2021 Manga Guide

Ciguatera

What's It About? 

Yusuke Ogino is an average looking, bullied, 17 year old. His modest dream is to get a motorcycle license and get closer to the beautiful Yumi. But to his surprise, Yumi has approached him! This…might be a trap!? And a psychopathological stalker menaces their pursuit of happiness…

Ciguatera is drawn and scripted by Minoru Furuya and Kodansha has released its first volume both physically and digitally for $24.99 and $14.95 respectively

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Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

High school sucks. It's a tenet we're all familiar with, and the core tone of innumerable 'realistic' high-school coming-of-age stories like Ciguatera. The question, therefore, lies in what a given story does to set itself apart, and if its particular hooks make it specifically interesting to read. Ciguatera has the basics: A wimpy everyboy at the bottom of the social food chain currently inching his way towards one big dream of escape. The main issue that follows then is how the manga chooses to follow on that setup – or doesn't. Ogino might be one of the lowest-initiative sadboys I've seen in this particular subgenre, which is especially bizarre given that the genesis for his journey is his forthright decision to get a job and take classes working towards his dream of motorcycle riding. Thing is, that's all established background noise as we watch Ogino on the actual track of the plot, wherein things mostly just happen to him with little input or agency on his part.

That's a problem, since the whole point of coming-of-age stories like Ciguatera is watching the relatable main characters learn to pick themselves up and stand strongly in a way that rights the wayward sinking ship that is their life. But by the end of this frustratingly-sized installment (a 400-page 'Volume One'), the majority of the major changes in Ogino's life have been the result of odd occurrences that just sort of befall him. He gets sexually harassed by a schoolmate who threatens to reveal his motorcycle dreams to his bully, but then she just kind of disappears from the story after that. Multiple chapters are expended on Ogino debating whether to take the chance on calling the phone number of the girl of his dreams, but he ultimately gives up and her friend just kinda smashes them together in the end. Even that bully problem wraps up for a time on account of pure, aside happenstance. It makes Ogino come off less as a wistful reflection of past high school could-have-beens, and more like a low-effort escape fantasy for kids still suffering at that age.

Despite Ogino's somewhat irritating occasional over-enthused efforts at self-sabotage, Ciguatera isn't really devoid of entertainment value. Minoru Furuya's art strikes an amusing balance between cinematic paneling for characters designed on the more 'realistic' end, but cutting to some outrageously exaggerated reaction faces at opportune times. And the plot does manage a few successful twists of both the humorous and dramatic variety. Even Nagumo eventually displays enough characteristics to her that I can almost believe she sees something charming in an existential drifter like Ogino. I don't know that it's enough to carry all the odd dead-end plot-points (Ogino even seems to have mostly forgotten about that whole motorcycle thing halfway through), but it at least stops the story from becoming annoying. Ciguatera is mostly just shrug-worthy, where it was clearly shooting for something more profound.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

There may be many kinds of high school-set stories, but there are a few classics that everyone always seems to come back to. Ciguatera is of the “downtrodden kid is bullied and tries to escape” variety, and my recommendation for those who want to read that kind of series is to pick up A Silent Voice instead. Not that the two series are hugely comparable, but at least the latter has a couple of likeable characters and a real sense that the protagonist wants to change. Ciguatera lacks that, and I'm much more inclined to fault it on the character front than the changing one because I do know how hard it can be to dig yourself out from under the detritus of being the bully's punching bag.

Ogi, the main character, is more interested in eventually escaping in a physical way – he's determined to get his motorcycle license and is saving up to buy a bike so that he can get the hell out of Dodge. Even though he's taking lessons and working to be able to afford his dream machine, the whole thing has much more of a sense of fantasy than anything else, mostly because it's also his treasured secret, the one thing he has that no one can touch. Or so he thinks – it turns out that the girl generally regarded as worst girl in school (which she probably isn't; it's just a convenient way for other kids to devalue her) is also going for her license, and at the same school he is. Sakazuki is the last person Ogi wants to find out his secret because the girl's got all the subtlety and restraint of a foghorn. But she's also probably got a thing for Ogi if only because he's different from the men she regularly sleeps with for money – he's something innocent to her. Since Ogi's crushing on a girl in his bike class, though, Sakazuki's attentions are even more unwelcome.

I think Ciguatera is trying to make the point that everyone's got their own cross to bear or weight to carry. That people act out in terrible ways when they're trying to just survive and that the world at large doesn't care that much what kids do to other kids in school. That does come across to a degree, but the cruelty still feels exaggerated to the point where it almost stops having an impact, and everyone is so miserable and trying so hard to make everyone else miserable that empathy starts to be in short supply. Add in art that's unattractive at best and deliberately unappealing in a way that seems like it's meant to be funny at worst and this is emphatically one of the least enjoyable books I've read in a long while.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

If there was one word I would use to describe this manga, it would be “uncomfortable”. This is not a happy-go-lucky wish-fulfillment type of slice-of-life series. Character designs are more anatomically correct and varied. Facial features have a lot of extra lines in them to really emphasize aspects like crooked teeth and sunken-in bone structures. Even when a character has a cartoonishly over-the-top reaction, it falls more into that uncanny valley territory that makes me wince more than it makes me want to laugh. I know it doesn't sound like I'm not selling the series very well but to be honest, it was these elements that drew me in more! Considering that the story accompanying these visual attributes felt a lot slower and cynical than what I think a lot of other manga fans are used to, I could feel the disturbing hooks slowly sinking into me.

Our main character does not start off from a good place and tries desperately to hold onto whatever stray happiness the universe decides to throw his way. He seems to constantly operate in fear and I don't blame him, considering the fact that most of the characters around him only seem out for themselves. He has a bully that acts like he wants to kill him without a second thought. He has a best friend who constantly looks like he's on the cusp of bringing a gun to school. Even when he finds romance in his life with a character who seems genuinely innocent in all of this, I feel like I can't trust the author to not just defile everything on the page. It's like watching some kind of horrible slugfest where things are bloody and bruised and uncomfortable but I can't find myself looking away because I want to see how it ends. I really can't describe it any other way and I hope that amidst this dirty mess, you can see the appeal that I'm trying to communicate here.