DOWNFALL Is a Depressing Manga That Tries to Seem Smarter Than It Is

VIZ Media was kind enough to send me a copy of Inio Asano’s upcoming manga graphic novel Downfall. It will be available today. Here’s the synopsis to get everyone on the same page:

“Selling copies is the only thing that matters.

So what if your first series just ended and you have no idea how to start the next one, your marriage is breaking up, your pure love of manga has been destroyed by the cruel reality of the industry and nothing seems to fill the sucking void inside you…

Find the secret combo for a new hit manga series and everything will be okay.

Right?”

There are two things to mention before we dive into the review. First, there will be spoilers ahead, so read at your own risk. Second, the title is rated Mature and does feature a fair amount of nudity and sexual content including rape. This is not for kids.

If I’m being perfectly honest, this was possibly the worst manga/comic/graphic novel that I’ve read. The story follows a manga artist named Kaoru Fukazawa who, to put it simply, is a depressed jerk. He just concluded his big manga and the whole book he’s struggling to come up with ideas for his next series. This isn’t bad by itself and could’ve really driven an interesting story. This story is not interesting though. It’s depressing and gets really messed up at times with nothing positive in here.

As I mentioned, Fukazawa just finished writing the final chapter for his manga and he’s depressed and bitter about everything. He’s convinced the publishers don’t want to work with him, any time someone talks about loving manga or how someone may do better than him, he throws a giant tantrum and alienates anyone who would possibly want to be his friend. For example, one of his assistants has been wanting to help him because of her love of manga, and then when he doesn’t have any ideas she eventually goes and works with some other people. At first, he’s happy for her, but then she talks about how she actually loves doing it and he doesn’t (it’s very obvious that he doesn’t actually care about manga anymore, so it’s fair in my opinion), and so he throws a giant pissy party yelling at her and telling her she’s wrong. This is the same guy who can’t think of anything to write about and for almost the entire story doesn’t want people to know he’s a manga artist. He only tells people at the end after he seemingly sells out.

Another strike against this story is that Fukazawa is constantly cheating on his wife with prostitutes. He eventually goes to his wife and says he wants a divorce, but it’s still a jerk move to cheat. She doesn’t want to divorce so they separate for a while and then much later they’re talking, and it becomes a giant mess where he wants her to do something, but she doesn’t know what to do so he just gets pissed, and when she mentions that one of her clients (she’s an editor for a different manga publisher) is selling more than Fukazawa, he freaking rapes her! WHAT THE ACTUAL HECK!?!?!?!? Oh, and his wife’s reaction after is to make sure she’s not in trouble for missing a meeting and then says that if sex is what will make him happy, then they can do it more. WHAT!? NO! I mean this sort of makes sense since he apparently is a depressed jerk who has no empathy and only cares about having sex, but that doesn’t make this any less messed up.

Strike three is the fact that the first few pages start talking about some girl in college with cat-eyes and why he doesn’t ever trust them. That doesn’t come back into play until the final chapter, and it still doesn’t make sense at all. Can I just not recognize cat-eyed women in manga? Was there something vital throughout that I missed? It tries foreshadowing something, and then the only payoff is that at the end we find out this girl called him a monster. I could’ve told you he was a monster well before we get to that “revelation.” There’s literally no point to this whole cat-eyed thing. This leads me to my fourth big problem with Downfall.

The vast majority of the comic feels like the writer wanted people to think he was being deep and thoughtful and smart. Here’s a secret, it’s none of those things. At glance one, it’s about how Fukazawa can’t trust women because of their cat eyes. As I pointed out though, that makes no sense. At second glance it’s a commentary about the manga industry and how creativity is dead. I can sort of see that one, but it’s not done very well. Then, it maybe looks like a book about relationships but turns out to be more of a manual of how to be an absolute jerk and rapist.

We spend a lot of time with Chifuyu, a prostitute he takes a liking to. She has these cat-eyes, and she’s really nice to him. She even lets him tag along when she leaves Tokyo to go home for a bit, and they spend plenty of time together. Later, he basically just decides to not reconnect with her. They left on good terms it seems and she came back to the club she worked at previously. That’s just the end of things. He does mention that neither of them tried to reconnect, but it’s like, why? What? You spend all this time with her, seemingly getting interested in her, and then just nothing as he continues to wallow. I thought she was maybe going to be the key to get his head out of his butt and turn things around, but I guess I was a fool for thinking that it was possible to do that and maybe have development.

Finally, I got confused at times as to who was speaking. The speech bubbles aren’t always clear about who is talking and can create some really odd readings.

There is no joy in this book. In the end Fukazawa sells out and nothing comes of it. He still sleeps with prostitutes and seems depressed and jerky. He’s not actually happy. He doesn’t find that spark that breathes life back into him. Anyone who maybe was close to him is no longer around to be there for him since he pushes everyone away. A depressing story can be interesting still and worth a read if it makes you think though. Sadly, Downfall only makes you question why you’re reading this. I cannot recommend this book to anyone. I do not see any redeeming qualities for this manga.

Score: 0/10