Manga Reviews (2010-2019): The Golden Sheep vol. 1 by Ozaki Kaori (a Neo-Tokyo 2099 Manga Review)

Ozaki Kaori’s “The Golden Sheep” is a solid first volume that will bring out multiple emotions from a reader, may it be happy, sad or even anger. Recommended.

MANGA TITLE: The Golden Sheep vol. 1

STORY AND ART BY: Ozaki Kaori

FIRST PUBLISHED IN JAPAN: Kodansha

PUBLISHED IN USA BY: Vertical Comics

RATED: 14+

Available on September 17, 2019

Winter of junior year. Not quite able to become adults, we couldn’t stay as we were as children, either. Our tale explores a group of teenagers and their impatience and rebirth.

“They say if you write down your wish, bury it under Sheep Tower and then dig it up after 7 years and 7 months, your wish will come true…”

Tsugu Miikura, a high schooler who loves to play guitar, due to family circumstances, moved away from the rural town where she had spent her childhood. After several years, she’s back in her old hometown. She reunites with her childhood friends—Sora, Yuushin, and Asari—the friends she’d buried a time capsule with back in elementary school. Tsugu is overjoyed to be with her friends once more, but the bonds that she thought would never change have in fact started to grow major cracks…

From Ozaki Kaori, creator of “the gods lie.” comes the manga series “The Golden Sheep”.

The story begins with a young man trying to kill himself by lighting charcoal in a closed car. A girl comes and smashes her guitar into the window, as you see tears streaming down her face.

The series revolves around Tsugu, a guitarist who along with her mother and sisters are moving back home to the mountainous region.

For Tsugu, she looks forward to seeing her good friends Yuushin, Asari and Sora which she hasn’t seen since she was younger.

And as we see the friends reunite once again and Tsugu feeling so happy that she’s back, what she doesn’t know is how much things have changed.

Because right after she met her friends, we see Yuushin’s friends severely bullying Sora and pushing his head on the water.

We then learn that Asari has a big crush on Yuushin and she’s jealous of Tsugu moving back.

But we see how life is for Sora, not wanting to go to school because he doesn’t want to be beaten up and bullied. He ends up not going to class and Tsugu worried about him, goes to take his homework to him, and is joined by Asari and Yuushin. And as the two watch television and talk about digging up a time capsule they had created, Asari is upset that Tsugu did not remember what she put in there, and she storms off.

This leaves Yuushin and Sora together and when Sora’s grandmother brings food and Yuushin calls it gross, Sora gets upset but is punched in the face by Yuushin, who tells him to “just die”.

Because of Asari’s jealousy, she then starts bullying Tsugu at school (with Tsugu not knowing it’s Asari).

Needless to say, when Yuushin takes Sora’s dog and Sora goes to get it back, he is once again bullied and beaten, but this time Tsugu catches him in the act. When Tsugu goes to rescue Sora’s dog, Yuushin’s bully friends encourage him to throw a rock towards Tsugu, but she cries and runs off.

Which leads us to the first opening chapter of Sora wanting to kill himself and Tsugu rescuing him.

With all that is happening in town, what will happen between Tsugu and Sora?

I have to admit that “The Golden Sheep” was hard for me to read.

While I did enjoy the manga series, for anyone who has been bullied, “The Golden Sheep” is a manga series that no doubt, can open up old wounds because its depiction of bullying is well-done.

So, well done that those who have been bullied will no doubt react.

I read Sora’s experience and I quit reading the manga and waited two days to finish it because it hurt for me to see Sora, good kid, being bullied and being told to die.

In Japan, there is a problem with people attempting and committing suicide and for many people, it’s due to the bullying and harassment endured. May it be at home, school or at the workplace, it’s mind-numbing for me to read the Japanese news of people who took their lives because they know no other way out of their darkness.

Reading “The Golden Sheep”, you have Tsugu who loves rock music, moving back home to reunite with her good friends, but not knowing how much has changed since she left.

Since she left, these characters have faced some hardship but bullying is one of the main things focused throughout the first volume that I found it painful.

But as I read the remaining chapters and completed the first volume, I realized how the context of the story has changed, as it goes to people who were bullied, but becomes an adventure and where there adventure will take these individuals, no one knows. So, it left me wanting to read more because I gotten into the manga and I am enjoying it.

The first volume is no doubt introductory, introducing the main characters and showing the challenges that certain people have faced and I’m sure we’ll learn more about these characters in vol. 2 and while I’m not sure if this series will feature any hope, I’m just hoping it’s not all full of darkness and despair.

Overall, Ozaki Kaori’s “The Golden Sheep” is a solid first volume that will bring out multiple emotions from a reader, may it be happy, sad or even anger.

Recommended.

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