This manga, Hoshi Mamoru Inu, truly was a surprise for me. It manages to be a touching experience despite its short length. The part where the social assistant thinks about his own dog after researching the case really hit me. It brought back those old feelings of, "I should have played more with my dog, spent more time with him, or not thrown a ball at his face." The manga draws a powerful parallel between losing a human family member and losing a dog. In the first story, all human family members are alive, and the only one who doesn't abandon him is the dog. Inthe other, everyone in his family dies except the dog, filling that emptiness. This recurring theme of dogs filling an emotional void in people's lives always gets to me and makes me want to cry every time I read it.