The first story of The Town of Evening Calm; the Country of Cherry Blossoms really got me.

I think every story regarding the destructive power of the Atom Bomb is tragic.

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Life, what would it be without so much wrongs and rights?


Star Trek XI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiR-NETDr0

i don't read depressing manga. I have no interest in them, it just makes me feel bad about my life and wouldn't help things at all. I've seen a manga and something about Vietnam, pretty scary for me and i almost download it but i think maybe that is one depressing manga?

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Detective Horror Series

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Cheap at twice the price. Both the comment and the reality of the two atomic bombs actually used in warfare. The ugly truth is that war is always hell. What sort of hell may vary, but the hellishness is not in question.

Think I'm taking a potshot? Actually do some real live historical research and find out what the alternatives were, and how many people actually died how from what, instead of parroting something you heard somewhere. The US atomic bomb project was started because Hitler was developing one, and it looked like (and at the time was) a weapon with no defense against it. It was a matter of technological certainty that the US, and presumably Germany could build an airplane that could cross the Atlantic carrying such a bomb. The only question on anyone's mind in 1942 was: would the US be able to threaten Germany with the weapon to force a stalemate or would it only be a victim?

Fast forward to late 1944. Hitler didn't get his bomb, but war planning for the invasion of the Japanese home islands has begun. Using estimates derived from casualty figures of the Pacific campaign, the effectiveness of the French resistance, and British plans for dealing with a possible German invasion in 1940, the total US casualties estimated for the best plan are estimated to be around one million US soldiers killed or injured, with a Japanese civilian and military casualty number of five to ten times that. The best-case scenario still had hundreds of thousands of injured and dead American soldiers and millions of injured and dead Japanese. It was ugly. Nobody seemed to like the idea, but it was the only known way to end the war unless the Japanese surrendered first.

Unfortunately, the Japanese military government had made it clear that they weren't going to surrender before invasion. That meant that a US invasion of Japan with its millions of casualties was the only way to end the war.

The order was given to begin firebombing Japanese cities nightly to help reduce the Japanese ability to fight invasion. See Grave of the Fireflies for an accurate depiction of what it was like to be in a firebombed Japanese city. More than 70,000 people died during the March, 1945 firebombing of Tokyo alone. Two smaller cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were left alone as experimental targets should the atomic bombs be authorized for use.

The death toll currently estimated for the Hiroshima bombing is somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 people. The estimate for Nagasaki is about 80,000. So we do the math and get a total Japanese death toll of 230,000 people for the invasion of the home islands up to surrender. Given that the mildest estimate of conventional invasion was 2-3 millions of dead Japanese, less than an eighth of that price sounds like a comparative bargain.

It's a hellish bargain, yes. Kill almost the entire populations of two Japanese cities to save the majority of the rest. But that's what warfare is like. The only people who like it are psychopaths. Presented with this decision, the US president (who definitely wasn't a psychopath) authorized the bombings, and got the result he was told he would. The Japanese surrendered without one US infantryman having to forcibly invade the Japanese home islands. The one bright spot was that the Nagasaki bomb (the vastly more powerful of the two) was actually badly placed when it went off and did significantly less damage than it was expected to do. I've never seen an estimate of how many lives this bad weapon release saved.



Last edited by senile_seinen at 12:44 pm, Apr 16 2007

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War is ugly....but so is that person in your avatar.

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Life, what would it be without so much wrongs and rights?


Star Trek XI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiR-NETDr0

Anne freaks is the most depressing manga I've read (but I haven't finished Ai-ren yet)

Even if you don't say it no one will object that War is ugly. But we can't help it, it's the past and it's something life has to go through... Which is once i read this manga saying human is the one who dirty the land with the color red. Pretty nice words i'll say..

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Detective Horror Series

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I've never read a depressing manga, I read what I like and never get depressed. The only thing that depresses me is when I get close to finishing manga, from there I typically stop and don't start again. My bad manga habit.

Ojisan (from Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou) isn't ugly...just really experienced



I didn't find Ai-Ren all that depressing. Sad, yes. But not depressing. Ultimately the story is about love, rebirth, and renewal.

Now most of Town of Evening Calm; the Country of Cherry Blossoms...yeah, that was depressing (and accurate, again). I didn't want my rant about people who say "nukes are baaad" to be interpreted as a slam against an excellent manga.


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so wat ur saying is killing innocent citizen to save u.s. soldier's life is right? sometimes i found the war to be extremely unfair and during the war versus WWII agaisnt Japan. U.S. broke inifinte number of laws against humantiy including attacks on citizen which were banned from warfare

the whole thing i dont get is y does u.s. bomb its japanese citizens while japanese only targeted u.s. military base

atleast what they've taught in my old schools curriculum (private school in us) that they launced the bomb b/c japan straight up refused to surrender even though most of their military was near gone and the allies had them landlocked in Japan. basically the allies fwould have to take the capitol to end the war and they simply felt that the number of civilians and soldiers killed in an assualt like that would be astronomical. apparently they did what they felt was the right thing to do

but then again, its not like ive activily researched this so dont go balistic on me

but on the manga, def ichi the killer

I can't say which one is the "most" depressing. It depends on story style, the plot itself and my mood at the time I'm reading. But I do have some recommendations

Hanshin / Half God - I'd remember this if someone mention good sad manga. It's only one chapter but it's so impressive that I remember it for so long.

Shiawase no Jikan, an good example of extreme twists of tragedies related to extra marital affairs. Another example is Deep Love -Pao no monogatari, just being too tragic...tragedy for abandoned pet. But I don't really get sad as the plot is not well presented and there're too many tragedies injected into the same small scope.

Town of Evening Calm; the Country of Cherry Blossoms, it's a good work, not that very depressing for me, the sense of sadness is refined. Wartime manga is my favorite genre. Works with similar sadness level: Tetsudouen, Love letter.

Another war-time manga that I can recall now is Uncivilized Planet, by MATSUMOTO Jiro. May have a try. But it has a different style.

And a good post-war manga: Rainbow Nisha Rokubô no Shichini, well drawn, good plot, one of my top favorite seinen manga. It's not all depressing though but contains pretty much sad themes. Still going on.

True depression: Hitsuji no Uta, the main characters are probably depression patients themselves ...

While anime of Les Miserables is on show (I have not watched it), does anyone remember Sans Famille?

Last edited by megane007 at 12:40 pm, Apr 17 2007

try out some of the mangas suggested that you haven't read yet if that's how you feel, lol

don't worry, we'll get you depressed yet ^_^

So I kind of forgot that mangaupdates had a forum... >_>;

Not sure about Rainbow and Deep Love series since I haven't read them so I can't comment on them.

Hitsuji no Uta is... not a depressing series. It's a dramatic tragedy about the lives of two people who share the same cursed bloodline and the outcome that goes with said bloodline. It's not so much a tragedy as it is an exploration into the thoughts and emotions of people who are so afflicted by their condition that living a "normal" life is impossible. The bond shared between Chizuna and Kazuna isn't so much that of a sister and her brother, but more like mentor-student. The other issue is that the both of them had resigned themselves to their fates rightly or wrongly. The story was more of an ethics debate on what is morally correct for such afflicted people to do given what they have and what they face.

Ai-Ren wasn't so much depressing as it was sad. It was thematically about life and rebirth and that the greatest miracle of all is life itself.

I would have to say that AIR (the visual novel by KEY/VisualArts) is somewhat depressing. It was animated back in 2005 by Kyoto Animation and is worthy of its namesake in every way. AIR is depressing in that ultimately, the incarnations of Yukito and Kanna ultimately lost their lives to the curse. The small glimmer of hope is that Yukito was able to loosen the curse's grip on Kanna's soul. I see AIR as a philosophy exercise as in what are memories, what are souls, and what is existence.

ORFINA and Eden's Bowy can be pretty depressing series due to the massive character attrition that is essential to the war-themed plots.

If there exists a manga for Xenogears, I'd love to read it since the PSX game Xenogears has one of the most depressingly complex stories I've ever had the privilege of playing through. If you haven't played Xenogears, I highly recommend that you ebay it and play it. It is very much worth the time and effort.

Breath of Fire is actually a pretty depressing game mostly because very reason for Ryu's existence is to destroy the Black Dragon as the sole survivor of the White Dragon clan (and therefore the Dragon Warrior). The White Dragon clan itself imposes incestual relationships to maintain a "pure" bloodline to breed the ultimate Dragon Warrior, a role that Ryu accepted in order to protect his sister. In fact, the whole legend revolving the Dragon Warrior and the Black Dragon is that their mutual demise is guaranteed and the plot itself drives Ryu into a suicidal frenzy. Shame that there aren't any mangas for this as well.

Have I mentioned that Vampire Juuji Kai is really depressing? Sure, the first volume is all nice and interesting but the second volume immediately begins throwing curve balls at the audience. It's a very good manga series that is incredibly depressing to me personally. I think Vampire Juuji Kai most qualifies as "depressing" on my list since there really isn't anyone that you can truly hate. Absolute Justice simply does not exist.

I guess that's about it.

Interesting opposing ideas, to me Vampire Juuji Kai doesn't meet the rim of depressing manga. I didn't even feel sad when I read the past of Strauss. I'm more inclined to place it in the romance & fantasy genre,

The characters of Hitsuji no Uta are of true depression as they "resigned to their fate" which is not really so. Withdrawal from society, loss of interest of normal activities, believing their lives as hopeless / no future so much so that they are planning to end their lives are typical symptoms of depression. Blood lust alone are not that untreatable. The sister's decision on hiding from further medical help is also inappropriate. It's more or less affected by her bad mood. Depression can be "infectious"if the people around carry similar risk factors. When I read those stupid movements I couldn't help myself feeling sad for them. The world is full of different "cursed" diseases but there are many possible outcomes.

Anyway, depressing manga is like comedy, whether you feel the same depends on many factors.