Almost all the stories in the collection by Yoshishiro Tatsumi goes from a progression of bad situations to somehow becoming worse. In the last story, Good-bye the story begins with a Japanese prostitute in the middle of entertaining an American soldier shortly after the war. Immediately, the panels paint the scene of a war-torn country that is only beginning its process of reparations with citizens succumbing to selling their bodies for money. What's more is that the woman is depicted with a resigned look of acceptance towards her prostitution. Next, we find that the woman has a deadbeat father that mostly visits her to ask and steal money from her. The father is also depicted to be pitiful as he is shown to truly care for his daughter and whole-heartedly regrets stealing from her. Then, we find out that the American soldier that the woman was entertaining returns to his home and that he has a wife a kids. This means that an American soldier was celebrating winning the war by committing adultery. Finally, the worst part of all. The woman, in her drunken stupor forces her father to orgasm to make him just another customer, and not her father. If the story was allowed to continue, I bet we would have find that the woman becomes pregnant with her father's child, who will inadvertently murder the father (perhaps in another drunken stupor).
While these stories are remarkably encaptivating because of their strong emotional appeals, after reading a few of them, one can't help but feel depressed about life. To be honest, while reading through these stories, I had to take a break and watch an episode of cartoons just to bring my spirits back up. That's not to say though that I didn't thoroughly enjoy the collection. However, I do wish that some of the stories had a happy ending, if only to further strengthen the effect of the truly depressing stories. After all, reading all these stories together in one seating can desensitize people from the horrid and bleak endings.
I very much felt the same sentiment when I read these stories as did most of our classmates as I learned over the last two class meetings. We made very similar points on our blogs but varied just a bit: i argued that their positions in life remained stagnant while you argue that they got worse. I would like to amend my original argument: while I stick to the idea that the characters do not come to any resolutions to their problems by the end of the narratives, the fact that they remain stagnant is an overall sign of worsening status.
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