Yomawari Sensei

Edit

What would you like to edit?

SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links  

True stories never fail to grab my attention, especially in the manga world because there are very few. I started reading Yomawari Sensei not onlt because of this, but also because it was short and had good ratings on MAL. I finished it in about 2 hours and I'd like to share what I thought made Yomawari Sensei a masterpiece. This is my first review so it might be a little bit amateurish.

Story:9
Yomawari Sensei is an episodic manga that follows the life of our main character, Osamu Mizutani, as a teacher who helps troubled youth. Every chapter is quite simple. Mizutani finds a troubled youth, ... Mizutani tries to help, Mizutani fails or succeeds. While it is very simple it's also realistic, as Mizutani fails to help as often as he succeeds. I was always on the edge while reading and sometimes to conclusions of some of the characters devastated me. I really enjoyed the change of pace from other manga, as the situations Mizutani gets in aren't your usual problems. A few examples would be a fellow teacher who can't connect to his students, or drug abuse and addictions, something I rarely see in anime or manga.

Art:8
The art is the weak point of the manga, though it is also really good. The feel and overall art style was fitting for the story and setting and there is some brilliant art hidden in many scenes, but it wasn't anything insanely groundbreaking.

Character:10
A large problem I have with manga is the unrealistic characters. In rom-com or shounen manga it's fine, but when a character oriented manga has tropey, uninteresting characters I lose interest fast. The characters in the manga are flawed, but every one of them feels real, which is to be expected from a manga based on a true story. I can see the characters the mangaka was trying to establish in his former students, and I can relate to their problems in many ways, something manga rarely ever make me do. I do think the mangaka made himself look a little to much like a saint, but in the end it shows his moments of weakness as well.

Enjoyment:10
It was short and sweet, all of the stories brought something new, and the tension built up through out every story always helped the ending become something special to me.

Overall:10
An easy new favorite manga for me, I have never felt a manga that portrayed life in such a unique and realistic way. Highly recommended.

It has been a very long time since a story touched me as profoundly as this one. As an average young adult, I felt like the author was speaking directly to my soul; the principles and virtues put forward are what we should all be striving towards to make this world a better place.

The true story of Osamu Mizutani's life resonates with what makes us human, encourages us to keep the faith and look forward to the bright future. This manga filled me with optimism while also bringing me to tears.

Fight on my brothers and sisters, never give up!

DISCLAIMER: this review was written before I learned that this is a collection of true stories which largely changes how one interprets the story ofc so a large majority of this review isn't really applicable anymore but I spent enough time writing it that I don't want to just erase it from existence

I really do wish I could say that I enjoyed Yomawari Sensei more than I did but throughout a good chunk of my reading experience and time reflecting on it after I've finished it, just feels like a work with so much genuine heart that just couldn't live up to it's potential.

The ... main cause of that sense of missed potential largely comes from it's nature as a collection of short vignettes. That's not an issue in and of itself; plenty of great stories have been told in that format but when this manga tells it's stories, which contain many sensitive and nuanced topics the short-form comes back to bite it because it robs a lot of these stories of satisfying conclusions. Compounding on this is the issues with the main character Osamu Mizutani. For the most part Mizutani is a good character, his personality is well characterised, his motivations are clear and his drive is admittedly actually pretty inspiring especially when it's juxtaposed with the times we see him fail or doubt himself. That being said unfortunately he often comes across as quite one-note most of the time like he was written to just be the fix-all for whatever kid is going through hardships this time there really isn't anything you can nail down about who Mizutani is besides his relentless pursuit of cleaning up the streets and helping all the children he can, you really don't get to learn anything about who he is outside of that. There are a couple of chapters where there's a little ending portion showing you his childhood and even a full chapter dedicated to him during an earlier period in his teaching but it never really amounts to anywhere near enough to get a clear picture of who Mizutani is. Ending out the bad is just a little minor personal complaint about how the series handles it's more sensitive topics in specific cases, the manga often presents the same simple solutions to really complex issues the characters are going through, it can feel a bit mishandled at times.

Onto the good though, when the manga does afford itself some time to stick with one story instead of immediately jumping to the next you end up with some of stuff that's stuck with me more than anything else I've read recently. The simultaneously best and most disappointing part about that is, that these stories are all so well written and so emotionally powerful they really don't need much time to be so incredible especially in comparison to other manga which would usually take way more time and focus to deliver the same impact. Yomawari Sensei really only needs 3 chapters at most to give you story with significant emotion and lessons to consider. The art and atmosphere of the manga is also worth mentioning, the characters facial expressions are rendered with so much care and nuance, helping make them feel as real as possible which really aids the manga during it's many emotional highs. The environments of the night school and all the locals within Yokohama are drawn in such a way that they really stick in your mind and feel significant with all the stark black everywhere given that the manga takes place mostly during the night time.

Overall, Yomawari Sensei is still a story I would recommend to more people than not; only because the incredible high points of emotion and lessons about how precious life is and how it's important to persevere through struggles are worth sitting through the all the stories that unfortunately miss their mark and fail to deliver in that same way.