BOKURANO

so i was just browsing the internet when i remembered this old manga i read a while ago called "the moon".

i assume you're not familiar with it for obvious reasons, i don't think it's ever been officially imported either.

the point is, the moon is a manga about nine children who get assigned by a rich corpo guy with a god complex to pilot a giant robot called moon to SAVE the world!!!

in the end they all fail miserably and die along with the planet.

downer!

well, the point is, i remembered it for whatever reason, and i decided to give it a quick re-read, and while looking up stuff about it, i accidentally ran into a similar enough mecha manga titled "bokurano" directly inspired by the moon.

hell, they both even have a character named dung beetle who instruct and aid the children with their mecha bullshit.

THE POINT IS, oh my god this was depressing.

OHHHH my fucking god!!! i knew bokurano was gonna have a depressing ending just by being based off the moon, but i thought it'd be like a "the children fail to save earth and die horrible deaths!"

no!

they succeed! and that's the horrible part!

unlike most mechs, the children don't have to WORK TOGETHER to pilot the robot, they take TURNS per fight, and the problem is that the robot uses LIFE FORCE TO WORK.

meaning you have to sacrifice your life to pilot it once, with no going back, which effectively means ALL these children are on a weird fucked up death timer.

the fights are NOT the focus in bokurano, hell, some of them are even offscreen, the BUILDUP to the fights is what truly matters, as they are the last moments these children get to live in peace.

and then HALFWAY THROUGH THE STORY they reveal the "aliens" they've fought against aren't just ordinary monsters, they're OTHER mechs being piloted by REAL humans just like them! the whole story is a secret tournament bracket where the losers get their earths and their universes erased! so not only do these children have to fight knowing they'll have to die, they also have to do so knowing winning means they're directly responsible for the deaths of BILLIONS of people.

no, yeah, it's fucked! but the writing is SO GOOD.

i was genuinely caught offguard at the first child's death, he was set up like your standard mecha  protag! brave boy with a heart of steel shit! shouting attack names and stuff, and then it just... woop! pulls the rug from under you!

i'm not good at closing off writings, so i'll just say it's something you should read if you can.

ta-daaahh!!!