Kakusan

Kakusan, or Diffusion Disease is Hideji Oda's most known manga, according to MAL at least. I've only read one other manga by him, called Coo's World which I had kind of conflicting feelings on, but didn't feel strongly enough about to write a review lol. In short, Coo no Sekai is about a girl that starts living two separate lives, one when she's awake, and one when she is sleeping. The idea of dream worlds and strange creatures is something I like a lot in fiction, but the weird incest around the child mc and her much older brother really threw me off from liking it too much.

But back to Kakusan. No spoilers this time. This is a seinen manga about a guy called Katsuhiko Tobe that has a special ability to diffuse which he can't control. When he diffuses he disappears into particles and roams around the world uncontrollably. Through the course of the 7 long chapters, he meets various people, mostly women who fall in love with him, but he disappears in the most crucial moments. I'd describe him as a weak person with a hard life, as he usually diffuses in moments that would change his life forever, for better or for worse. He claims to be searching for "something", but he doesn't know what. The women that loved him continue longing for him as he made an impactful mark on their lives. In the end, all the women he met end up being somehow connected to each other through him, and the show culminates with him possibly (?) disappearing forever, or not. It's open ended so I don't think I'm really spoiling anything. The "point" of this manga is mostly in the journey, anyway.

The art style is pretty realistic, probably one of the most realistic styles I've seen in recent memory. It's also very sketchy and shadowed so it doesn't look flat. Personally I like his art when it's more animeish but to each their own. I did really like how the character on the left looks like, mostly because she bears a scary resemblance to a girl I've known since childhood. Which made all the sex scenes featuring her hard to look at.

This manga didn't really leave a strong impression on me. Maybe I was slightly annoyed by the mc's subconscious selfishness, and by the women falling in love with him so hard they could never stop thinking about him even when their lives moved on. He certainly didn't leave an impact on me, as a character. Just like Tobe is searching for something he doesn't know, I think this manga is missing something and I'm not really sure what. I didn't particularly enjoy the journey he went through, I caught myself being more interested in the girls/women he left behind lmao. The overall message in one of the last pages seems to be "I was so focused on myself that I didn't notice the people around me", which, alright. Cool I guess.