End of the World · review
Jesus Christ, can Kyoko Okazaki write a single story that does not contain in some shape or form: MKULTRA-like sexual abuse; Prostitution; Casual/self-destructive portrayals of sex; Pedophilic relations; Or hypersexual characters? If you're not interested in reading a collection of stories that seem like a Hollywood producer's/arthouse director's wet dream for making psyop-infested movies, you can safely skip this one. I gave it a 7/10 because Okazaki is an above average writer, and despite glamourizing abuse through "complex", bishojo characters, she is quite capable at portraying the esoteric beauty and elegance of femininity - in a way that is grounded in reality - like few other mangaka I know can. The firstshort story epitomizes the anthology. It features a girl that was sold into sexual slavery as its protagonist. She was abused by her rich adoptive father throughout her pre-teens. Her adoptive brother killed their parents and they went on a road trip to escape the authorities; they were forced to become Bonnie & Clyde-like criminals to survive. The girl - a minor - lures men with her sexuality so that her brother wacks them and they steal their belongings.
The story portrays its main characters as 'cool', and glorifies, in a subtle but noticeable way, their horrible condition.
By the way, there's a Netflix series (based on a Western comic) that plagiarizes this to a T, down to the name - The End of the F...ing World; and it negatively influenced a lot of angsty teenagers when it first came out, similarly to the magnum opus of slop psyop TV shows, 13 Reasons Why.