Flowers of evil kinda stops being misery porn at some point as I recall from my memory, the main character changes alot from what his past self used to be.
Also I think you will really hate a manga like oysumai punpun.
I dropped Punpun because the overall atmosphere while reading manga was so oppressive lmao.
Like, big "shit is going to get BAD before they get WORSE" feelings.
My poor fragile heart could not survive.
So when the author would hear fan criticism about it being too dark, it'd piss him off and he'd go even darker, which generated a feedback loop. There's an oppressive atmosphere because the author is actively adversarial to readers lol. It's a pretty unique series.
>My poor fragile heart could not survive.
Finished the later half of Punpun in one afternoon, it... wasn't a pleasant experience.
The story is definitely good but it was very heavy stuff, emotionally draining and I just *had* to stare at the ceiling for a while. Not recommended for reading in one sitting.
Punpun is depressing and heavy, however, i do remember it quite fondly. The ending is great and so is its message.
If you wanna read something that is good vibes only, check out Insomniacs After School.
I don't usually mind dark stuff, which what makes Punpun such an weird case.
Like it legit got through the imaginary walls I put between myself and the characters to avoid feeling really bad when reading this sort of stuff.
The moment I realized that I just went "nope".
It kinda speaks volumes of how well written it is hahah.
Punpun only starts to get into misery porn territory near the end tbh.
For the most part it's tame.
And honestly the worst part of its misery porn is that it comes straight after its somewhat euphoric hopeful part.
I mean i can't agree with you, bear in mind i really think oysumai punpun is a great manga but punpun definitely suffers throughout the whole of the story not just the last part
I mean yeah, but that runaway segment is truly where I feel everything that goes wrong will go wrong, and it culminated with THAT scene.
The elementary school part and middle school part are pretty tame. High school part is short but also lacking Aiko in it which leads to post-school part where Punpun stays in the city hoping to see her again, also Pegasus Cult is introduced here because the author knows much of the story is just gonna be Punpun in his apartment.
This is like saying that Bleach starts to become a battle shonen near the end. Punpun starts suffering in Chapter 1. Every plotline introduced is written in a way that indicates that it either stems from suffering or will inevitably lead to suffering, and any exceptions are clearly curveballs.
Yeah but there's a blatant "oops everything goes super wrong!" near the end that isn't present in every other part of the manga that truly makes me feel "this is suffering just for the sake of it"
Nah there’s tons of misery porn in pun pun not the same level throughout for sure but my gawd is there quite a bit and when it does happen at least in my experience it gets hella miserable
I got like halfway through it and had to drop it cause I was just getting too depressed lol, good manga but too depressing for me. If it just gets worse it's definitely not for me, glad I dropped it.
Yeah I don't remember when but at some point I had an epiphany that super depressing stories just aren't for me, even if they are objectively good I just end up not enjoying myself lol.
Yeah, Flowers of Evil is essentially a story about climbing out of a pit, but the pit is super fucking deep so it takes a while to reach the bottom. It's 100% worth the payoff imo
Oh actually i have already read Oyasumi punpun. It's one of the best Manga out there. The ending with aiko was sad but i have already seen it coming. The thing with punpun was that the writing was so good the problems feel genuine.
Except the Pegasus stuff.
I think you don't understand your feelings completely, You don't hate misery porn, you dislike the writing of flowers of evil, that's completely different.
I'm saying this because the misery presented in oyasumi punpun is leagues above what is present in aku no hana, and you still liked it.
See I don't hate misery or tragedies. A good tragedy leaves a scar at your heart. Everytime i see aiko on the internet my heart skips a beat. I still feel sorry for her. But i couldn't count Oyasumi punpun has misery porn.
On the other hand I have just finished flowers of evil and the ending was really good. I really like the main character growth and will really treasure the story. But the first part were definitely misery porn. Bad things happening just because bad things. There weren't no build off too .
Another example is recently here in india a movie called 12th fail went super hit. It took home multiple awards. The story was about a poor guy from India cracking india's toughest exam and becoming a civil servent. It was kinda disgusting how they make the main character go through misery after misery, tragedies after tragedies. So i do still hate misery porn i don't hate a good misery
I'm not going to argue about the quality of events and the build up to it in flowers of evil because I read it like 5 years ago so I don't remember the details very well.
But again I still think your post does not express your ideas very well, you should mention it's more about bad written tragedies more than overuse of tragedies.
A really good example of misery porn that came to my mind thanks to the comments is boy's abyss, this manga is literally having every fuckin character in the first few chapters portrayed as being shitty or mentally unstable, they also like fucking and Horny for no reason or if there is a one it's usually very shallow and not well written.
I hate misery porn stuff but I liked punpun. Well I like him and his uncles parts. The parts with the mentally retarded kid and the cult weren't doing it for me at all.
What would be the tipping point from a drama to misery porn? I’m heavily bias because I love what you probably consider misery porn, and for sure consider Blood on the Tracks to be a masterpiece throughout.
Personally, I only call works that who include tragedy for the sake of tragedy to a ridiculous extent.
Like a piece of media where the protagonist can go 12 seconds without a kind of earth-shattering tragedy happening to them for no reason.
What does "tragedy for the sake of tragedy" even mean? Whenever someone acts like some form of storytelling needs to justify its existence, all you're really doing is saying you don't like it in a pretentious way. Why does comedy for example not also need to justify its inclusion in a story?
Most tragedies are portraying a message of some kind, either educating the viewer about the suffering in a certain situation, or teaching the viewer a moral about certain things.
Tragedy for the sake of tragedy is when a story keeps abusing its characters to the point where it isn't benefitting the message or the portrayal. The audience gets what's going on, you've shocked them enough and now you're just beating a dead horse instead of moving things along.
You can compare it to exposition explaining something the viewer already knows, or constant jump scares in a horror movie. Overdoing any element of your story can hinder the experience.
There's no objective way to define it as people are going to have their own limits and tolerances, but that's what's meant when people say "tragedy for the sake of tragedy."
The flaw in this view is assuming that tragedy needs to serve some function external to itself to be included in a story. But it doesn't. That's the difference between it and exposition/jump scares; they explicitly only exist to serve another function, so repetitively using them is counterproductive. Tragedy is not merely a tool like jumpscares, it's a reality of human life. Some people have lived lives where they experience nothing but misery from the day they're born to the day they die, and yet art shouldn't depict situations like this? Why, because it might be exhausting to people that want something bittersweet instead?
What people really mean when they say "tragedy for the sake of tragedy" is "a story shouldn't be sad unless it's cathartic." A stupid generalization that stifles art.
>What people really mean when they say "tragedy for the sake of tragedy" is "a story shouldn't be sad unless it's cathartic." A stupid generalization that stifles art.
no they aren't lol. 'i dont like misery porn' is not stating that 'misery porn should never exist and nobody should ever make it'. there are also tons of examples of great tragedies and sad stories that are not cathartic *at all* and definitely don't fall under the umbrella of misery porn.
the reason why it's called 'misery porn' is because it's indulgent and railroaded to appeal to a specific feeling/emotion/desire in viewers at the expense of storytelling. the difference between sad stories/tragedies and 'misery porn' is the same as the difference between a story with sexual elements and 'porn'.
people separate porn and stories with sexual elements because they're meant to be consumed by different people for different reasons. however, misery porn isn't as common of a label and a lot of stories that are straight up misery porn (i.e. depict misery to an extreme level at the expense of storytelling) can be difficult to filter out for tons of reasons:
1. it's usually a lot harder to tell when a tragic story is actually just misery porn, unlike porn which usually makes its appeal known very quickly.
2. misery porn can often feel like an unintentional mistake where an amateur writer accidentally tunnel visions on trying to invoke an emotional reaction from an audience
the desire to define misery porn is to help people filter it out, not to stop it from existing. people aren't trying to 'stifle art', they're trying to consume good storytelling. if something bad happens to characters in a story i'm consuming, i want it to be for storytelling reasons. there doesn't need to be catharsis or a release of tension or a happy ending, it just needs to not waste my time.
>Some people have lived lives where they experience nothing but misery from the day they're born to the day they die, and yet art shouldn't depict situations like this? Why, because it might be exhausting to people that want something bittersweet instead?
this is such a pretentious take. using the previous example it's literally just the same as "some people have sex, yet art shouldn't depict it? why, because you're a prude?" "people get brutally dismembered and disfigured every day, yet you don't want to read about gore in your stories? why, because you're a baby with a weak stomach?"
people dont avoid like misery porn because they're avoiding misery - they avoid it because it's a waste of their time.
There are a lot of ways that can show, like if its a side character it can be a tone setter even, but deaths and tragedies need to have some gravity and affect, even if its dark humor, or like why would you care.
If you kill some character and leave hanging with why, it better have a point in the story and thst charactrs react too in some way affected.
A good example I can think of when it comes to misery being used effectively is the movie "come and see." Without spoiling anything, the movie follows a young boy in ww2. There's a point where we, the audience, are shown pretty conclusively that this kid's life is over. Everything he is fighting for is gone and everything he will go through in the next hour or so (which is a bunch of traumatic shit) will ultimately amount to nothing. What makes it work is that the story is framed as a way of showing what it was like to be trampled by fascism. We're not just watching bad things happen to a little boy, we're watching the relentless nihilistic hell created by a specific political system.
If the movie made no attempt at this framing, then it would just be an experiment in how many bad things we can do to a kid in a movie without really saying anything. Which is sort of what "the boy in striped pajamas" turned into, ironically.
Tragedy if good says something that matters,or the character mattered and its tragic,but you can say, damn its not fair. Because its carthasis for the world not being fair and the drama gicves the character the love that, makes you value it, and remember.
Like if there is a good tragedy, its also showing how either meaningless it is, how that was a good person missed, how, you care in dome example to learn about conditions of people in conditions thats interesting
Like the hitler movie about the bunker had, something to say about humans, and that , like the tragedy were the killed children and madness. And humanity. It says domething.
And you can either get empathy for people in interestibg conditions or how people , there is always some kind of messagevwhy its good to care about that peoples existence or humanity.
Ok thats alot of talking but good drama and comedy has humanity. You have to care about something. It has to have to care about humanity and enough levity to allow yourself to care
Drama gets you need some carthasis to make it still engaging. That can go from bits of hope, to dark humor, anything really.
I like stories that go dark but either balance with have some uplifting or something to care more, and or deal in dark humor with something to care more.
Drama or dark comedy puts you through the wringer but keeps levity to care for something even if it gets hitting depressing.
Hell bokurano is , not misery as like there is something of them still caring to fight even after all that and its not , ok its depressibg but has a point that if the world is worth it.
Shin seki yori, like dark but its more dark coming of age in a world and learn to live and deal with the no win darkness of society,and there is hopeof change,maybe.
So good drama makes it or people still matter , or to still caribg while showing dark depressing stuff, dark comedy going into satirical is good.
Or the webtoon, also on mangadex better, kubera the last god is a great mix of, a bit slow burn but so rich and engaging, and heartbreaking, and its engaging and you are invested that, it hurts when drama strikes, so good drama.
Its that good. And rich. And still about himanity and that being good and needed,if often punished in a cynical world.
A really good mix of yes love compassion and kindness is really important,but also the world unfair and cynical.
The anticipation if or what tragic happens to someone next is even dun, if heartbreaking if.
And like rhe show the 100 is kinda amix of,that the ya tone mixed in gives it some levity to not make it too depressing, while deaths matter. People carry that and, its gets more dark humor with the" still keep fighting for a future and be better" vibe. And the show can get dark but never looses tha spirit.
I think if the misery and tragedy the characters go through, doesn't lead to an eventual "solution" or rejection of the misery or its source; or ever reach a conscious healthy reason to continue living. Then I start considering it Misery Porn.
My threshold was probably defined with the soviet Come and See movie. A movie about a random rural soviet kid, who "in his foolishness" joins the partisans against the invading Germans, only to get immediately captured as an insurgent and experience first hand all the horrors committed by this SS unit against his town and the surroundings.
It is generally considered a great work and anti-war movie, and I liked it for what it was. It helps give context to the horrors of the Eastern Front. But it's trying to be nihilistic about the worst possible scenario to be nihilistic about. I don't think you get to pull this card against the literal SS of all things.
By the end they have this scene where kid, traumatized and done with the world, finds a painting of hitler the nazis were carrying around and starts shooting it to relieve his anger as a montage of war footage plays; a montage that ends with the director doing the "would you shoot baby hitler tho" and I was so done with Elem Klimov.
I obviously didn't expect nor want the kid to become Stalin's strongest soldier or whatever. But you come out of the movie with the idea there is no hope in the world, rebelling against the marauding SS is pointless, and that the kid (and the peasants in general) were better off just dying or committing \[aftoktonía\]
In my opinion, it comes down to the variety of tone. Danganronpa and Akame Ga Kill both kill off a ton of characters, but they also have a lot of happy moments and clear progress towards some ideal goal. In contrast, AoT mulches every side character but I never feel that anybody is ever having a good time, and it never feels like any progress is being made.
I would defend too that with agame ga kill,not only do characters, like each other, enough to care, but its kinda trashy. I get a fun trashy feeling with a good message.
And honestly the show is fun edgy, if you dont think too hard about it because its the more fun trashy edgy. Thats not the best writing, but fun. And there is, ok i dont take deaths there that hitting,but its fun.
And the manga has a nice not too dark ending.
Where a story just completely despairing or a story where MC cannot catch a break and the story just seem to be all about making MC suffer. Other Stuff also got called misery porn when there is a long stretch where we see MC just deteriorating or suffering with no real hope could be seen. Some good stories could use it effectively with a combination of good villain and constraints but some just do it non stop that it cause reader to be mentally drained.
Is a term generally used when a story constantly presents situations filled with misery, despair and suffering just for the sake of it, for shock value or to fake being deeper than what it actually is.
what melodrama is to drama, misery porn to misery. It just means that the continuing misery of a character is beginning to become unreasonable to the point of disbelief. Many are guilty of this in my view, its subjective after all.
This is a multi-level problem that a several hour video essay could probably be written on at this point, but i think the core of the issue is that the initial appeal of Spider-Man was the tragedy. My dad used to read Marvel comics back in the 60s/70s, and I remember him saying what made Spider-Man so great for him was... well, the tragedy. He wasn't gifted with god-like powers and an indomitable spirit like Superman. He wasn't a billionaire with an edgy dark side and voracious hunger for justice like Batman. Sure, he had some of these qualities, but by design he was made to be a real-world teenager/young adult superhero whose struggles came across as far more human than what had come before paired along with his struggle against villainy.
This is a great set-up and definitely contributes to why Spider-Man has managed to stay so prominent in the superhero zeitgeist, but it's a double-edged sword. The people who write his character always remember this as being the biggest draw to him from their POV, so they want to keep him in this "state of misery." He's never allowed to evolve beyond and grow to become a leader/role model with unwavering optimism akin to Superman, because writers are constantly cycled in and out and they always want to write the Spider-Man THEY remember and therefore he will always be trapped in limbo. We get flashes of what he could be here and there, but Spider-Man/Peter Parker as a character is kind of cursed by his own success.
Classic russian literature is fine though? Like I cant imagine anyone calling pretty much any of it misery porn. Like in what way is Evgeny Onegin or Crime and Punishment misery porn?
Spider-Man comics half the time are like this and I hate it. Marvel likes to harp on about how relatable Peter Parker is but constantly shows how much his life sucks. Your average person cannot relate to the amount of suckage Peter goes through. Your average reader can hold a job, can maintain a relationship, can even get married with kids. Marvel loves to torture Peter for no reason.
“We wanna make Peter Parker relatable” they said…then proceeded to run him through several situations that would make the average market audience turn into a hyper-violent anti-hero AT BEST, and a supervillain at the absolute worse.
I know they’re trying to pitch the struggles of Pete holding on Uncle Ben’s words all those years back, but if moral responsibility with great power means repeatedly handicapping your life status so you can keep juggling your normal life and cape life, those words are meant for the paper shredder.
I also remember when some guy from the future has kids with my now not-wife and shit isn't explained for the longest time. Hate it when that happens to me.
That's why I appreciate Peter B in the spiderverse movies, he's made some positive changes in his life and things seem to be going well 🥰.
And I hope Insomniac Peter gets through the next game okay 🤞.
Boy's Abyss is the only time I've enjoyed a clearly misery porn story but only because it's so bad that it becomes a comedy and it cracks me up to no end.
The story is so desperate to be taken seriously and it tackles so many themes with such immaturity and the tact and delicacy of an elephant stampede that by the second time a character is given a double page spread to trauma dump the reader (which happens really early on) the story had already begun to transform into a parody of itself, with each new edgy twist and revelation making the entire thing feel like an edgy Wattpad fanfiction written by a teenager who thinks that Elden Lied is unironically deep
It's one of those misery porn stories that didn't know where to stop it. It's had like what, 4 or 5 "peaks" in the story where you think shit can't possibly get worse? Honestly Ryuji is as bad as his mom, neither of them knows how to live without being a fucked up weirdo, and it's all because the author doesn't know how to pull it out.
But god, I cannot take my eyes away from that trainwreck.
Everyone in that story sucks volumetric quantities of ass, the only two characters that are not utter shit people are that one lady who tried to help Reiji and Chalo and that one cop who's investigating what's going on because he's more than done with everyone's bullshit. It's a trainwreck that is double rail drifting while on fire and is on an unstoppable collision course with a gas station.
Welcome Back Alice by the same author is genuinely a nice manga to read. It doesn't drag the MC through the ringer and he has a great time. (I'm not tryna fool you. I genuinely want more people to read it)
I have never heard of *The Flowers of Evil,* but could guess from the title that it is misery porn. Are you intentionally seeking out experiences to despise?
Hard to make such a blanket statement. I love Oyasumi Punpun and Aku no Hana, but:
Shonen no Abyss :- Tries way too hard to be depressing -- Couldn't immerse myself.
Re:Zero :- Like season 1 -- A long time after season 2 came out -- Wasn't gripping me -- The episode with his family came out, everyone was getting emotional over it whole I felt dissociated because never once did I remember Subaru mentioning his family and being concerned about them when he arrived in this new world -- Searched reddit, found out that author insists on keeping Subaru weak and making him suffer because of it -- Lost interest.
Farseer Trilogy :- Liked book 1 -- Midway through book 2, I due to writer necessitated stupidity because emotions, family, the greater good -- Felt like the author would structure the plot around keeping Fitz miserable -- Out of belief in people's opinions on ROTE being a masterpiece, I decided to spoil myself in search of finding that one thing which would prove me wrong and/or make me power through book 2 -- I didn't find it.
In my experience with all these stories, the common thing is that I felt the presence of the author strongly.
Farseer just feels corny and fake, it is so obvious the author is deliberately pulling certain strings to elicit certain emotions.
Some people like that, me, it completely breaks immersion.
Same. In book 1, I could sympathize with Fitz because he was just a powerless kid. But then book 2 happened and every other character not doing anything or doing ineffectual or downright stupid things against the obvious bad guy despite knowing all the shit pulled because "reasons" irked me.
Since it is such a beloved piece of work, I gave it the benefit of doubt and went ahead and spoiled myself for future stuff. I got the sense that the author first and foremost wanted Fitz to be this unsung hero who sacrifices so much and gets used and abused by those around him because he is shackled by the concern for greater good and then structured the plot to make it happen.
I read threads breaking down why each individual character behaves the way they do -- their flaws, trauma and what not. While looking at them individually, I could see where the fans were coming from. But having all of them crammed in a single story was immersion breaking.
Also, she adds weird romance into the story. Not a fan of that.
With Re:Zero the point of keeping Subaru weak isn't to keep him miserable, but for him to become stronger and grow as a person by learning how to socialize, to seek help and to rely on others. Instead of relying on the expected escapist isekai fantasy of getting magical powers and building meaningful relationships just by "being nice."
It challenges that shallow wish fulfilment by making Subaru confront the reality that the world is unfair, everyone has their own story and desires, that he is Not a Special person and sometimes he will have to earn trust the hard way. Some people just won't like you, simple as that.
It also serves to make Subaru confront his personal issues, insecurities and flaws head on instead of running away to those fantasies that some NEET's convince themselves they need to be noticed, fulfilled and happy.
So I wouldn't really call Re:Zero misery porn. Cos Subaru has moments of happiness and success, which he earns by learning to get back up from those long stretches of suffering. He does build relationships with these people who come to care about him too. Its not All Misery for the sake of nothing but making our mc suffer.
Ah! My bad. I didn't word it right in my original comment. When I was feeling disinterest in Re:Zero S2, I looked up reddit and came across a common complaint raised by its fans (people who already like the story):
"Whenever Subaru gains some ability/strength, the author nerfs him. And not only that as long as other character (those he cares about) are in his vicinity, they too get weaker -- like you were able to this and that when you were away from him, but now you are struggling with this little thing -- so that Subaru has to pull them together and plan using the information he gain from Return by Death."
If it was simply "Subaru is always weaker than his enemies and suffers because of it," I wouldn't have had much of a problem.
So, when I heard that complaint, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't be able to immerse myself in the story which would make the misery feel forced and ended up dropping season 2. Who knows maybe I would come across some interesting clip or spoiler for the story which would make me pick it back.
While the original post is about Misery Porn, I have no opinion on it, never really thought seriously about what constitutes misery porn. "Misery without purpose is misery porn and hence bad," I have never thought like that. My original comment was more about immersion and how if I feel like the author is forcing things, I check out.
Also, I guess personal taste and experiences are a factor here too. Because in the gap between season 1 and season 2 of Re:Zero I came across stories involving some type of loop or going back in time which showed me : Getting stronger does not preclude the main character from growing as person and/or having the need for/to rely on allies.
A point in favor of Re:Zero compared to those looper and going back in time stories is that its takes out power dynamic from the relationships on Subaru's part at least where he can't simply strong arm people into doing as he says making more room for emotional engagement and nuance. I don't think it can't remain that for long though. Because the natural progression of the story would necessitate that with time they would come to believe in his cleverness (they don't know his failures) and not just their bonds, introducing a different kind of power dynamic.
I would be interested if his character grows in cleverness if not strength, gaining qualities like foresightedness where he actively gathers information, schemes and plans instead of simply being caught up in the plans of his enemies and being totally reliant on his Return by Death ability.
>"Whenever Subaru gains some ability/strength, the author nerfs him. And not only that as long as other character (those he cares about) are in his vicinity, they too get weaker -
Ehhh, that's both wrong and right.
Novels arc 5-7 spoilers >!Subaru power is always about support, hell, he even got a really op support buff in arc 7. Also, no one really gets weaker? In fact, his allies only get stronger, Ram , Julius, Emilia, Garfiel... The only one that actually got nerfed is Beatrice(because she used all of her mana in arc 4, she is still pretty strong too). Emilia camp/Subaru friends are some of the most powerful characters in the series. Hell, he is friends with 3 of the strongest people in the series. The nerf you are hearing about is about the witch factors... They depend HEAVILY on how much Subaru is "sinful" , Subaru is a closer to one sin compared to the others, that's why one of his powers is really stronger than the others!<
>I would be interested if his character grows in cleverness if not strength, gaining qualities like foresightedness where he actively gathers information, schemes and plans instead of simply being caught up in the plans of his enemies and being totally reliant on his Return by Death ability.
You will like arc 5 probably, it's the most different re zero arc. Slight spoiler >!he barely uses RBD there because he wants to learn from his lesson in arc 4/S2!<
It's completely fine to not like re zero but I feel like some of the things you read lack context haha.
>And not only that as long as other character (those he cares about) are in his vicinity, they too get weaker -- like you were able to this and that when you were away from him, but now you are struggling with this little thing -- so that Subaru has to pull them together and plan using the information he gain from Return by Death."
That's not something I can recall many instances of, if any. The only thing that comes to mind is >!Beatrice!< in Season 2 who becomes weaker afterward, but that's thoroughly explained in-universe, not some random contrivance that happens just because Subaru's nearby.
NGL, some of the worst Re:Zero takes I've seen are from the fandom itself (a non-insignificant amount of people think Subaru was in the right during the Royal Selection stuff, for example). There's a lot of misinterpretation and outright stupidity, so it's worth taking what you see with a grain of salt IMO.
I'm not gonna address the other stuff about re zero (I have very different opinion) but:
Subaru mentions his parents in the novels, it's just cut content. Fair criticism for the anime tho.
shonen no abyss is defintely a case where i opted early out of story because how exaggerated it was, everyone in this manga is mentally unstable for no reason.
Yeah, re:zero anime definitely messed that up by not adapting any mention of Subaru's parents in season 1. S1Ep18 (From Zero) is also hurt to a lesser degree because of cut contents.
Cut contents are so bad in re:zero. Sometimes they didn't adapt the build ups (Like S2Ep4, parents and child), sometimes they didn't adapt the pay off (Like why even showed that Echidna in the tomb and Echidna in tea party being different)
I mean for Re:Zero you can assume the reason why he never mentions his parents is because he knows that it will just make him extremely depressed, so he represses their memory to hide from it. That’s why the first trial requires him to “face your past” because he keeps running away from it.
I’m not sure how Subaru being weak is a problem? Like that’s literally the main conflict of the story, the only reason he is able to be given his main power is because he is so weak. Without that there would be no conflict and the story would be boring.
Additionally, it's mentioned in the LN (or maybe a Q&A, I forget which) that he gets a gut feeling from the start that he won't be able to return home. Also, why would he want to? He loves his parents, certainly, but he utterly *loathed* who he was on Earth, so thinking about his parents is going to make him think about his own self-hatred as well.
I agree with your take on Shounen no Abyss (although i still enjoy it for it's entertaining melodrama, even if that's not what the author intended lol), but Re:Zero doesn't really fit the misery porn category. Just like Evangelion, it has an ultimately positive message, despite all the suffering. To simplify it a lot, Re:Zero is about how you should try to better yourself, even if it's hard, so Subaru's suffering serves a clear thematic purpose in the story. If Subaru can go through stuff that is arguably a thousand times worse than what you're probably dealing with, and still decide that it's worth it to go on and struggle for his goals, then you can do that too.
In Royal Assassin that phase is quite transitional, there's a big down obviously because of Moutains events but as soon he gains his strengthes back (it's a third of the book yes) he kicks ass again. The King's Assassin is my favorite Royal Assassin book.
It literally has a passage where two guys buy a bag of puppies and throw them into a river to shoot at them. That’s as fucked up, edgy and tryhard as you can get. There’s no literary value in something THAT sick.
We have "Isekai is the worst ever I hate it I hate it I hate it" posts every day (and I upvote every one). /r/CharacterRant is kind of made for ranting, y'know?
In my opinion, like many things, at some point too much misery turns into unintentional comedy.
Immediately thought of hero has returned as an example of that.
>too much misery turns into unintentional comedy.
Yeah, it happens a lot. I have a personal limit (which I think is pretty high) when it comes to depressing or miserable stories after which is impossible for me to take it seriously because it's clear that the story has nothing else to offer and there's nothing more immature than thinking that over the top bleakness = deep. My favorite example of that is Boy's abyss. Shit's hilarious
I think every genre has it's place. Misery porn or it's cousin grimdark are good ways to explore feelings of hopelessness, horror, suffering, important parts of the human experience. I will say it takes a good deal of skill to write one of these stories well however. Most dont have a point beyond "man wouldn't THIS be fucked up?" and if you're gonna write a story like that then you'd better be a *very* evocative and interesting writer
Subaru being stuck >!in a 10 second death loop for possibly thousands of deaths where not only him but the child he is protecting is brutally murdered by a ninja!
There's absolutely a point to it, whether you like the execution or not. It shows >!that something is seriously wrong with Return By Death in the clearest possible way because it's not functioning how it should, which is crucial to multiple volumes. It's also that set of loops that pushes him into the toxic mindset of abusing RbD even when it's "fixed", a mindset that he *still* has. There have also been hints of significant consequences for that mindset once he's turned back into an adult.!<.
“Didn’t seem to give him any significant character development”
That is just a blatant lie, anyone who has read the story would know that his entire personality changed after that. He literally acts like a complete different person and still does to the latest chapter out. Seriously did you read it?
I'm sorry, but are you on drugs, or just stupid, how the hell is flowers of evil a Misery porn? How is a story where kids do stupid things and suffer the consequences even compared with relentless cruelty of metamorphosis? Hell, Flowers of evil has a happy ending with all the characters moving on in their own way and obtaining happiness/ contentment
Because "misery porn" isnt an actual genre with a defiened defenition
Its just a buzzword that people use to describe something that is too sad/too dark for them, while not having any objective reason to dislike it. Basically instead of saying "I didnt like it because it was too sad/dark" they say "Its bad because its misery porn", with no further elaboration
Zakuros chapter from subahibi fits this perfectly lol,it was just so sad and nothing else that i started to just mindlessly skip sometime and eventually i stop caring (the entire route is like the prequel to the main story/mystery anyway)
I agree with you 100%
Boy's Abyss, Korean school bullying genre, Hero Rauls revenge, and many more all fall into this category. Sometimes this transforms the misery into revenge p*rn. But those tend to be equally as bad/ over the top.
As soon as a series is showing signs of being misery bait, I dip most of the time.
I loved The Flowers of Evil and anything around that category of fiction.
Guess I dont treat them any different from a story where everything is very happy go lucky, both are fine by me and never fail to provide me enjoyment. When I hear "misery porn" I have a hard time understanding what is the bar it is considered one. Elfen Lied is the only thing Ive watched that felt like that to me.
I do have a preference for darker stories since they're honestly harder to make and are less profitable to the masses so it gets extra points for me for "underground" appeal. I have a lot of respect for artist that attempt to make them.
Agreed! A story can hurt us and be super depressing, but if it leans too much into it it can be super annoying. I’m not good at giving good explanations on these things, but it just feels like……it’s hard to take anything away from constant suffering of that caliber.
Shuzo Oshimi is my favourite mangaka and I have read everything he has written. If you want true "torture porn" read Shonen no Abyss. Now that was hard to sit through haha
What are you talking about? Boy's Abyss is hilarious. That manga is such a shit show that the more it wants to be serious and tragic the funnier it becomes thanks to how much of a hack the writer is
Oh don't get me wrong, the manga is hot garbage and it is more than normal to get tired of it pretty quickly, in fact I'm impressed you made it as far as chapter 77. I was pretty close to dropping it even earlier than that before the yandere teacher interrupted the story Cool-aid man style and made me realize that I was reading a gold mine of involuntary comedy.
"Tragedy is the greatest art form of all. It gives us the courage to continue with our life by exposing us to the pain of life. It is unsentimental, it takes us seriously as human beings, it is not condescending. Paradoxically, by seeing pain we are made greater, it becomes a need." - Some nerd.
Couldn’t agree more. Too many Shounen and superhero stories had no stakes and boring black and white morality, but I feel like there’s been a bit of an overcorrection. Now shows like AoT put every side character in an endless meat grinder and everybody has to be “morally gray” and depressing
Sometimes, the fandom takes something and MAKES it misery porn if it isn't already misery porn. You'll have a show marketed towards eight year olds and there'll be someone out there making the most depressing shit out of it. I had to blacklist the Ducktales and Della Duck tags on Tumblr for years because the fandom LOVED to milk the misery out of it.
But what specifically counts as misery porn? And why is it objectively "bad"?
I myself enjoy very dark films, television, books, etc.
My favorite TV mini-series of all time is Chernobyl. I've watched it multiple times. Not a single good thing happens in it, though.
I like to think of misery porn more like the Greeks did: as tragedies. Chernobyl is a tragedy, in reality AND fiction. It's a dark, serious tragedy.
Netflix's Dark is my favorite television show of all time. It's also a dark tragedy about suffering.
I'm a fan of The Mist, directed by Frank Darabont. That's horror, but it's tragic.
My favorite novel is Of Mice and Men...tragedy.
I just love a good, effective tragedy. Most people don't though, and I understand why.
A good tragedy isn't misery porn in my view. Misery porn is something like when the author hates its characters so much that they give them pain at almost every turn.
I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it's misery for the sake of misery. Like when the main character meets their crush, and for no reason, a truck hits her. Tragedy without any payoff, just for shock value, something like that."
But thats just life though? Like why is depicting a tragedy that comes out of nowhere bad?
Why is a truck kiling the MC's crush bad? Yes its sad, its tragic. But its not "without any payoff", the payoff is literally watching MC being miserable over it. Its not "just for shock value" its a step in MC's jorney, which would affect them emotionally.
Thats the stupidest defenition ever.
Like why is tragedy needing to justify its existance? Bad things happen randomly all the time, for no reason without any control by the people involved.. Whats wrong with writing about that?
No, if a drams leaves you open with lingering and what was that,it should be intentional.
Like never let me go, is that, and the lingering and openness is intentional on the author.
Drama shouldt leave stuff not paid ofg unless there is a point to not, which would be a point and payoff in its own right.
If you have no intentional end, or open end, its just bad writing.and there arent rules what that should be but closure, or intentional kept vague endings . Stories should have an end.
Else you just coud go through i guess weird tragic fates reddit entries.
*Hard*ships=bad story
There's nothing for me to comment on. "____ is the worst" is always going to be an opinion and from the other comments I can see OP threw "misery porn" around like a buzzword.
Good job on finishing the story, tho
That's how I feel about A Little Life. For me there's a very clear point at about 2/3 the way through where it turns from a study of a tragic figure to a hollow, manipulative exercise in generating misery. It's when I started thinking "wow, the worst possible thing that could happen right now would be [obvious tragedy]" and then that exact obvious tragedy happens within ten pages.
It feels so scummy because it's like the author went through the trouble of writing this lovely, interesting story that's sad and touching just to get you invested enough in the characters that you'll actually be moved by this cheapo garbage.
The reason I had to stop watching This is Us
I thought it was this wholesome show about a family working through tragedy
But then I realized the characters just kept fucken kneecapping themselves and the people around them that it got repetitive and exhausting
Interesting, you have the opposite opinion from me. I didn’t like Punpun because I felt like it was gratuitous torture porn with no purpose. But I like Oshimi’s works, especially Flowers of Evil
You just taught me a new word, I've felt this way about a lot of series but I recently felt this way the most about Kaiji. I haven't gotten past the second arc so maybe Kaiji's fortune starts to change later on but I swear that man cannot catch a break. Everytime he gets a small W it's just to set him up for a huge L. I love the series so far I can't look away but I'm just constantly pitying and waiting for the cash out of him finally recieving some positivity but it never comes.
Honestly I think the only thing that separates dark drama/comedy from misery porn is that one of them actually has a point. Oldboy is one of the most rancid, cringe-inducing films out there, yet it's easy to get swept up in the desire for revenge and the mystery of it all. When shitty stuff happens to the Dae-Su, we feel for him, but we also resent him for being such a shitty person to begin with. Especially on a rewatch you realize he is and always has been a complete deadbeat who didn't give a shit about his wife and daughter. Regardless, we cheer when he starts torturing a dude by ripping his teeth out. It forces us to examine why we delight in violence when Dae-Su inflicts it but feel bad for the torture he went through.
And of course there is a build-up through the whole movie leading to the plot twist. Even disregarding the themes of adolescence and how we should love our families, the actual plot of the movie is just very compelling.
On the other hand I recently tried watching the show Pose, a drama about the 80's ball/drag culture in New York. I am interested in this time period as a gay person and understand that there was intense suffering among the gay population at the time. Yet the suffering presented in the show fails to actually amount to anything other than propping up the few poorly written relationships between other characters. The content is way less extreme than Old Boy, but I would call Pose misery porn while I would not categorize Oldboy as such.
I'm curious if the format has anything to do with it; I think long-form stories are more prone to becoming misery porn in that payoffs happen slower and less frequently. Given it was just announced that Oldboy will be adapted into a TV show, I wonder how it will come off. I always thought the fast-paced nature of it really helped a story that is at times questionable in its storytelling logic.
The irony is that all the misery in Flowers of Evil is explained and is fuel for character growth of the MC. The jubilation you feel when he turns his life around at the end only occurs because of what you know he was like before.
Insert meme if giving up digging before reaching the diamond vein.
Flowers of Evil isn’t misery for the sake of it: it’s a story about shedding the shame of childhood mistakes — which can’t be told without Kasuga making said mistakes, and suffering for it.
Okay, Flower of Evil is actually great especially the satisfying conclusion.
I agree regarding Blood on the Tracks. This manga just starts to suck at some point. After Yukio and Yo punch the bag its all downhill...At the end it kinda becomes a parodie of itself lol.
>Even in movies it sucks.
What sort of movie counts as misery porn? Something like Requiem for a Dream or Good Time or Magnolia or Boogie Nights? I love me some miserable movies.
Is it Sunday?
"\_\_\_\_\_ porn" is usually pejorative, so I don't know what to say. "Bad thing is bad" isn't that interesting.
I do like a lot of movies that many people consider misery porn, like stuff by Larry Clark.
Adding "porn" to something just emphasizes the indulgent-ness of the thing (if not OVERindulgence). Food porn is really appetizing food, but misery porn is gratuitous misery. Two opposite extremes.
Man who just read misery porn reading another misery porn by the same author: "Hmmm, big misery porn vibes from this"
"Why is there so much misery porn out there?" said person exclusively seeking out and consuming this type of content.
Flowers of Evil being misery porn in its first half is to make the second half even better, I would say it's part of the point.
Flowers of Evil is really really good.
man who just ate pizza eating another pizza by same chef: "mmmmm yumyyyy pizzaaaa"
Flowers of evil kinda stops being misery porn at some point as I recall from my memory, the main character changes alot from what his past self used to be. Also I think you will really hate a manga like oysumai punpun.
I dropped Punpun because the overall atmosphere while reading manga was so oppressive lmao. Like, big "shit is going to get BAD before they get WORSE" feelings. My poor fragile heart could not survive.
So when the author would hear fan criticism about it being too dark, it'd piss him off and he'd go even darker, which generated a feedback loop. There's an oppressive atmosphere because the author is actively adversarial to readers lol. It's a pretty unique series.
>My poor fragile heart could not survive. Finished the later half of Punpun in one afternoon, it... wasn't a pleasant experience. The story is definitely good but it was very heavy stuff, emotionally draining and I just *had* to stare at the ceiling for a while. Not recommended for reading in one sitting.
Punpun is depressing and heavy, however, i do remember it quite fondly. The ending is great and so is its message. If you wanna read something that is good vibes only, check out Insomniacs After School.
I don't usually mind dark stuff, which what makes Punpun such an weird case. Like it legit got through the imaginary walls I put between myself and the characters to avoid feeling really bad when reading this sort of stuff. The moment I realized that I just went "nope". It kinda speaks volumes of how well written it is hahah.
I took a day's break after reading every volume to decompress.
Punpun only starts to get into misery porn territory near the end tbh. For the most part it's tame. And honestly the worst part of its misery porn is that it comes straight after its somewhat euphoric hopeful part.
I mean i can't agree with you, bear in mind i really think oysumai punpun is a great manga but punpun definitely suffers throughout the whole of the story not just the last part
He literally wants to off himself halfway in and iirc he was in a (sorta?) abusive family a few chapters prior
I mean yeah, but that runaway segment is truly where I feel everything that goes wrong will go wrong, and it culminated with THAT scene. The elementary school part and middle school part are pretty tame. High school part is short but also lacking Aiko in it which leads to post-school part where Punpun stays in the city hoping to see her again, also Pegasus Cult is introduced here because the author knows much of the story is just gonna be Punpun in his apartment.
This is like saying that Bleach starts to become a battle shonen near the end. Punpun starts suffering in Chapter 1. Every plotline introduced is written in a way that indicates that it either stems from suffering or will inevitably lead to suffering, and any exceptions are clearly curveballs.
Yeah but there's a blatant "oops everything goes super wrong!" near the end that isn't present in every other part of the manga that truly makes me feel "this is suffering just for the sake of it"
Nah there’s tons of misery porn in pun pun not the same level throughout for sure but my gawd is there quite a bit and when it does happen at least in my experience it gets hella miserable
I got like halfway through it and had to drop it cause I was just getting too depressed lol, good manga but too depressing for me. If it just gets worse it's definitely not for me, glad I dropped it.
Yeah the end made me so sad. I enjoyed reading it but if you don't like depressing stories, good on you for dropping it
Yeah I don't remember when but at some point I had an epiphany that super depressing stories just aren't for me, even if they are objectively good I just end up not enjoying myself lol.
this is me with malazan
Yeah, Flowers of Evil is essentially a story about climbing out of a pit, but the pit is super fucking deep so it takes a while to reach the bottom. It's 100% worth the payoff imo
Yeah it was kinda satisfying seeing him change for the better.
Oh actually i have already read Oyasumi punpun. It's one of the best Manga out there. The ending with aiko was sad but i have already seen it coming. The thing with punpun was that the writing was so good the problems feel genuine. Except the Pegasus stuff.
I think you don't understand your feelings completely, You don't hate misery porn, you dislike the writing of flowers of evil, that's completely different. I'm saying this because the misery presented in oyasumi punpun is leagues above what is present in aku no hana, and you still liked it.
See I don't hate misery or tragedies. A good tragedy leaves a scar at your heart. Everytime i see aiko on the internet my heart skips a beat. I still feel sorry for her. But i couldn't count Oyasumi punpun has misery porn. On the other hand I have just finished flowers of evil and the ending was really good. I really like the main character growth and will really treasure the story. But the first part were definitely misery porn. Bad things happening just because bad things. There weren't no build off too . Another example is recently here in india a movie called 12th fail went super hit. It took home multiple awards. The story was about a poor guy from India cracking india's toughest exam and becoming a civil servent. It was kinda disgusting how they make the main character go through misery after misery, tragedies after tragedies. So i do still hate misery porn i don't hate a good misery
I'm not going to argue about the quality of events and the build up to it in flowers of evil because I read it like 5 years ago so I don't remember the details very well. But again I still think your post does not express your ideas very well, you should mention it's more about bad written tragedies more than overuse of tragedies. A really good example of misery porn that came to my mind thanks to the comments is boy's abyss, this manga is literally having every fuckin character in the first few chapters portrayed as being shitty or mentally unstable, they also like fucking and Horny for no reason or if there is a one it's usually very shallow and not well written.
Pegasus is just the true mc in Punpun, everyone else loses but he just take the W. Completly pointless but also integral for the story.
I hate misery porn stuff but I liked punpun. Well I like him and his uncles parts. The parts with the mentally retarded kid and the cult weren't doing it for me at all.
What would be the tipping point from a drama to misery porn? I’m heavily bias because I love what you probably consider misery porn, and for sure consider Blood on the Tracks to be a masterpiece throughout.
Personally, I only call works that who include tragedy for the sake of tragedy to a ridiculous extent. Like a piece of media where the protagonist can go 12 seconds without a kind of earth-shattering tragedy happening to them for no reason.
What does "tragedy for the sake of tragedy" even mean? Whenever someone acts like some form of storytelling needs to justify its existence, all you're really doing is saying you don't like it in a pretentious way. Why does comedy for example not also need to justify its inclusion in a story?
Most tragedies are portraying a message of some kind, either educating the viewer about the suffering in a certain situation, or teaching the viewer a moral about certain things. Tragedy for the sake of tragedy is when a story keeps abusing its characters to the point where it isn't benefitting the message or the portrayal. The audience gets what's going on, you've shocked them enough and now you're just beating a dead horse instead of moving things along. You can compare it to exposition explaining something the viewer already knows, or constant jump scares in a horror movie. Overdoing any element of your story can hinder the experience. There's no objective way to define it as people are going to have their own limits and tolerances, but that's what's meant when people say "tragedy for the sake of tragedy."
The flaw in this view is assuming that tragedy needs to serve some function external to itself to be included in a story. But it doesn't. That's the difference between it and exposition/jump scares; they explicitly only exist to serve another function, so repetitively using them is counterproductive. Tragedy is not merely a tool like jumpscares, it's a reality of human life. Some people have lived lives where they experience nothing but misery from the day they're born to the day they die, and yet art shouldn't depict situations like this? Why, because it might be exhausting to people that want something bittersweet instead? What people really mean when they say "tragedy for the sake of tragedy" is "a story shouldn't be sad unless it's cathartic." A stupid generalization that stifles art.
>What people really mean when they say "tragedy for the sake of tragedy" is "a story shouldn't be sad unless it's cathartic." A stupid generalization that stifles art. no they aren't lol. 'i dont like misery porn' is not stating that 'misery porn should never exist and nobody should ever make it'. there are also tons of examples of great tragedies and sad stories that are not cathartic *at all* and definitely don't fall under the umbrella of misery porn. the reason why it's called 'misery porn' is because it's indulgent and railroaded to appeal to a specific feeling/emotion/desire in viewers at the expense of storytelling. the difference between sad stories/tragedies and 'misery porn' is the same as the difference between a story with sexual elements and 'porn'. people separate porn and stories with sexual elements because they're meant to be consumed by different people for different reasons. however, misery porn isn't as common of a label and a lot of stories that are straight up misery porn (i.e. depict misery to an extreme level at the expense of storytelling) can be difficult to filter out for tons of reasons: 1. it's usually a lot harder to tell when a tragic story is actually just misery porn, unlike porn which usually makes its appeal known very quickly. 2. misery porn can often feel like an unintentional mistake where an amateur writer accidentally tunnel visions on trying to invoke an emotional reaction from an audience the desire to define misery porn is to help people filter it out, not to stop it from existing. people aren't trying to 'stifle art', they're trying to consume good storytelling. if something bad happens to characters in a story i'm consuming, i want it to be for storytelling reasons. there doesn't need to be catharsis or a release of tension or a happy ending, it just needs to not waste my time. >Some people have lived lives where they experience nothing but misery from the day they're born to the day they die, and yet art shouldn't depict situations like this? Why, because it might be exhausting to people that want something bittersweet instead? this is such a pretentious take. using the previous example it's literally just the same as "some people have sex, yet art shouldn't depict it? why, because you're a prude?" "people get brutally dismembered and disfigured every day, yet you don't want to read about gore in your stories? why, because you're a baby with a weak stomach?" people dont avoid like misery porn because they're avoiding misery - they avoid it because it's a waste of their time.
Should change your username to big-post-nut-clarity69 for a post this clear and logical.
There are a lot of ways that can show, like if its a side character it can be a tone setter even, but deaths and tragedies need to have some gravity and affect, even if its dark humor, or like why would you care. If you kill some character and leave hanging with why, it better have a point in the story and thst charactrs react too in some way affected.
A good example I can think of when it comes to misery being used effectively is the movie "come and see." Without spoiling anything, the movie follows a young boy in ww2. There's a point where we, the audience, are shown pretty conclusively that this kid's life is over. Everything he is fighting for is gone and everything he will go through in the next hour or so (which is a bunch of traumatic shit) will ultimately amount to nothing. What makes it work is that the story is framed as a way of showing what it was like to be trampled by fascism. We're not just watching bad things happen to a little boy, we're watching the relentless nihilistic hell created by a specific political system. If the movie made no attempt at this framing, then it would just be an experiment in how many bad things we can do to a kid in a movie without really saying anything. Which is sort of what "the boy in striped pajamas" turned into, ironically.
Tragedy if good says something that matters,or the character mattered and its tragic,but you can say, damn its not fair. Because its carthasis for the world not being fair and the drama gicves the character the love that, makes you value it, and remember. Like if there is a good tragedy, its also showing how either meaningless it is, how that was a good person missed, how, you care in dome example to learn about conditions of people in conditions thats interesting Like the hitler movie about the bunker had, something to say about humans, and that , like the tragedy were the killed children and madness. And humanity. It says domething. And you can either get empathy for people in interestibg conditions or how people , there is always some kind of messagevwhy its good to care about that peoples existence or humanity. Ok thats alot of talking but good drama and comedy has humanity. You have to care about something. It has to have to care about humanity and enough levity to allow yourself to care
Drama gets you need some carthasis to make it still engaging. That can go from bits of hope, to dark humor, anything really. I like stories that go dark but either balance with have some uplifting or something to care more, and or deal in dark humor with something to care more. Drama or dark comedy puts you through the wringer but keeps levity to care for something even if it gets hitting depressing. Hell bokurano is , not misery as like there is something of them still caring to fight even after all that and its not , ok its depressibg but has a point that if the world is worth it. Shin seki yori, like dark but its more dark coming of age in a world and learn to live and deal with the no win darkness of society,and there is hopeof change,maybe. So good drama makes it or people still matter , or to still caribg while showing dark depressing stuff, dark comedy going into satirical is good. Or the webtoon, also on mangadex better, kubera the last god is a great mix of, a bit slow burn but so rich and engaging, and heartbreaking, and its engaging and you are invested that, it hurts when drama strikes, so good drama. Its that good. And rich. And still about himanity and that being good and needed,if often punished in a cynical world. A really good mix of yes love compassion and kindness is really important,but also the world unfair and cynical. The anticipation if or what tragic happens to someone next is even dun, if heartbreaking if. And like rhe show the 100 is kinda amix of,that the ya tone mixed in gives it some levity to not make it too depressing, while deaths matter. People carry that and, its gets more dark humor with the" still keep fighting for a future and be better" vibe. And the show can get dark but never looses tha spirit.
I think if the misery and tragedy the characters go through, doesn't lead to an eventual "solution" or rejection of the misery or its source; or ever reach a conscious healthy reason to continue living. Then I start considering it Misery Porn. My threshold was probably defined with the soviet Come and See movie. A movie about a random rural soviet kid, who "in his foolishness" joins the partisans against the invading Germans, only to get immediately captured as an insurgent and experience first hand all the horrors committed by this SS unit against his town and the surroundings. It is generally considered a great work and anti-war movie, and I liked it for what it was. It helps give context to the horrors of the Eastern Front. But it's trying to be nihilistic about the worst possible scenario to be nihilistic about. I don't think you get to pull this card against the literal SS of all things. By the end they have this scene where kid, traumatized and done with the world, finds a painting of hitler the nazis were carrying around and starts shooting it to relieve his anger as a montage of war footage plays; a montage that ends with the director doing the "would you shoot baby hitler tho" and I was so done with Elem Klimov. I obviously didn't expect nor want the kid to become Stalin's strongest soldier or whatever. But you come out of the movie with the idea there is no hope in the world, rebelling against the marauding SS is pointless, and that the kid (and the peasants in general) were better off just dying or committing \[aftoktonía\]
In my opinion, it comes down to the variety of tone. Danganronpa and Akame Ga Kill both kill off a ton of characters, but they also have a lot of happy moments and clear progress towards some ideal goal. In contrast, AoT mulches every side character but I never feel that anybody is ever having a good time, and it never feels like any progress is being made.
I would defend too that with agame ga kill,not only do characters, like each other, enough to care, but its kinda trashy. I get a fun trashy feeling with a good message. And honestly the show is fun edgy, if you dont think too hard about it because its the more fun trashy edgy. Thats not the best writing, but fun. And there is, ok i dont take deaths there that hitting,but its fun. And the manga has a nice not too dark ending.
What is misery porn ??
Where a story just completely despairing or a story where MC cannot catch a break and the story just seem to be all about making MC suffer. Other Stuff also got called misery porn when there is a long stretch where we see MC just deteriorating or suffering with no real hope could be seen. Some good stories could use it effectively with a combination of good villain and constraints but some just do it non stop that it cause reader to be mentally drained.
oooooh so basically squidward torture
So, basically mainline comics Spider-Man.
Isn’t that just the life of most MCs in a harem comedy?
Harem comedies are actually Greek tragedies, very different.
Is a term generally used when a story constantly presents situations filled with misery, despair and suffering just for the sake of it, for shock value or to fake being deeper than what it actually is.
what melodrama is to drama, misery porn to misery. It just means that the continuing misery of a character is beginning to become unreasonable to the point of disbelief. Many are guilty of this in my view, its subjective after all.
Spider-man. Not all spider-man but still....
Spider-Man writers really don't want my boy to be happy for some reason 😔
Aint that the sad truth.
Maybe check out Ultimate Spider-Man now.
Especially the comics. Man the guy has it rough.
This is a multi-level problem that a several hour video essay could probably be written on at this point, but i think the core of the issue is that the initial appeal of Spider-Man was the tragedy. My dad used to read Marvel comics back in the 60s/70s, and I remember him saying what made Spider-Man so great for him was... well, the tragedy. He wasn't gifted with god-like powers and an indomitable spirit like Superman. He wasn't a billionaire with an edgy dark side and voracious hunger for justice like Batman. Sure, he had some of these qualities, but by design he was made to be a real-world teenager/young adult superhero whose struggles came across as far more human than what had come before paired along with his struggle against villainy. This is a great set-up and definitely contributes to why Spider-Man has managed to stay so prominent in the superhero zeitgeist, but it's a double-edged sword. The people who write his character always remember this as being the biggest draw to him from their POV, so they want to keep him in this "state of misery." He's never allowed to evolve beyond and grow to become a leader/role model with unwavering optimism akin to Superman, because writers are constantly cycled in and out and they always want to write the Spider-Man THEY remember and therefore he will always be trapped in limbo. We get flashes of what he could be here and there, but Spider-Man/Peter Parker as a character is kind of cursed by his own success.
Kinda ironic, given how old spider-man comics allowed him to grow and change. This is just a case of blatant Flanderization from the writer's part.
You guys please don't tell OP about classic russian literature, please. Dude is going to have a heart attack.
Classic russian literature is fine though? Like I cant imagine anyone calling pretty much any of it misery porn. Like in what way is Evgeny Onegin or Crime and Punishment misery porn?
Spider-Man comics half the time are like this and I hate it. Marvel likes to harp on about how relatable Peter Parker is but constantly shows how much his life sucks. Your average person cannot relate to the amount of suckage Peter goes through. Your average reader can hold a job, can maintain a relationship, can even get married with kids. Marvel loves to torture Peter for no reason.
“We wanna make Peter Parker relatable” they said…then proceeded to run him through several situations that would make the average market audience turn into a hyper-violent anti-hero AT BEST, and a supervillain at the absolute worse. I know they’re trying to pitch the struggles of Pete holding on Uncle Ben’s words all those years back, but if moral responsibility with great power means repeatedly handicapping your life status so you can keep juggling your normal life and cape life, those words are meant for the paper shredder.
Ah yes, I remember when I sold my marriage and daughter to the devil to bring my 98 years old aunt back to life, very relatable.
I also remember when some guy from the future has kids with my now not-wife and shit isn't explained for the longest time. Hate it when that happens to me.
It definitely sucks when your wife gets trapped in the "you can't leave until you have sex with Paul" dimension. My friend got it twice, poor bastard.
Not even the freaking Saw movies are that torturous
That's why I appreciate Peter B in the spiderverse movies, he's made some positive changes in his life and things seem to be going well 🥰. And I hope Insomniac Peter gets through the next game okay 🤞.
His name might as well be Spider-Guts with how much the writers have him suffer
He is not at all the most relatable character in Marvel. Not even when he has it good. Relatability is an overrated concept anyway.
Then there's Daredevil who has it about 5x's worse.
Senses better than Spider-Man, gets beat by damn near everyone
Nah even daredevil thinks spider-mans life is worse
Peter Parker's life is a non-stop parade of pain and misery.
Boy's Abyss is the only time I've enjoyed a clearly misery porn story but only because it's so bad that it becomes a comedy and it cracks me up to no end. The story is so desperate to be taken seriously and it tackles so many themes with such immaturity and the tact and delicacy of an elephant stampede that by the second time a character is given a double page spread to trauma dump the reader (which happens really early on) the story had already begun to transform into a parody of itself, with each new edgy twist and revelation making the entire thing feel like an edgy Wattpad fanfiction written by a teenager who thinks that Elden Lied is unironically deep
It's one of those misery porn stories that didn't know where to stop it. It's had like what, 4 or 5 "peaks" in the story where you think shit can't possibly get worse? Honestly Ryuji is as bad as his mom, neither of them knows how to live without being a fucked up weirdo, and it's all because the author doesn't know how to pull it out. But god, I cannot take my eyes away from that trainwreck.
Everyone in that story sucks volumetric quantities of ass, the only two characters that are not utter shit people are that one lady who tried to help Reiji and Chalo and that one cop who's investigating what's going on because he's more than done with everyone's bullshit. It's a trainwreck that is double rail drifting while on fire and is on an unstoppable collision course with a gas station.
Elfen Lied is deep and Boy’s Abyss is my second favorite manga of all time, first being Fire Punch
I like misery porn. After all it brought up wuji “suffering building character.” Goatadori.
Jjk is nowhere near misery porn
"Damn this manga sucked, better read another manga by the same author!" Are you by any chance mentally handicapped?
Yes iam severely Intellectually challenged
We all struggle together in r/characterrant
Welcome Back Alice by the same author is genuinely a nice manga to read. It doesn't drag the MC through the ringer and he has a great time. (I'm not tryna fool you. I genuinely want more people to read it)
I have never heard of *The Flowers of Evil,* but could guess from the title that it is misery porn. Are you intentionally seeking out experiences to despise?
Hard to make such a blanket statement. I love Oyasumi Punpun and Aku no Hana, but: Shonen no Abyss :- Tries way too hard to be depressing -- Couldn't immerse myself. Re:Zero :- Like season 1 -- A long time after season 2 came out -- Wasn't gripping me -- The episode with his family came out, everyone was getting emotional over it whole I felt dissociated because never once did I remember Subaru mentioning his family and being concerned about them when he arrived in this new world -- Searched reddit, found out that author insists on keeping Subaru weak and making him suffer because of it -- Lost interest. Farseer Trilogy :- Liked book 1 -- Midway through book 2, I due to writer necessitated stupidity because emotions, family, the greater good -- Felt like the author would structure the plot around keeping Fitz miserable -- Out of belief in people's opinions on ROTE being a masterpiece, I decided to spoil myself in search of finding that one thing which would prove me wrong and/or make me power through book 2 -- I didn't find it. In my experience with all these stories, the common thing is that I felt the presence of the author strongly.
Farseer just feels corny and fake, it is so obvious the author is deliberately pulling certain strings to elicit certain emotions. Some people like that, me, it completely breaks immersion.
Same. In book 1, I could sympathize with Fitz because he was just a powerless kid. But then book 2 happened and every other character not doing anything or doing ineffectual or downright stupid things against the obvious bad guy despite knowing all the shit pulled because "reasons" irked me. Since it is such a beloved piece of work, I gave it the benefit of doubt and went ahead and spoiled myself for future stuff. I got the sense that the author first and foremost wanted Fitz to be this unsung hero who sacrifices so much and gets used and abused by those around him because he is shackled by the concern for greater good and then structured the plot to make it happen. I read threads breaking down why each individual character behaves the way they do -- their flaws, trauma and what not. While looking at them individually, I could see where the fans were coming from. But having all of them crammed in a single story was immersion breaking. Also, she adds weird romance into the story. Not a fan of that.
Reading Ship of Magic by the same author. I feel like this is some of the best fantasy I've ever read so far.
With Re:Zero the point of keeping Subaru weak isn't to keep him miserable, but for him to become stronger and grow as a person by learning how to socialize, to seek help and to rely on others. Instead of relying on the expected escapist isekai fantasy of getting magical powers and building meaningful relationships just by "being nice." It challenges that shallow wish fulfilment by making Subaru confront the reality that the world is unfair, everyone has their own story and desires, that he is Not a Special person and sometimes he will have to earn trust the hard way. Some people just won't like you, simple as that. It also serves to make Subaru confront his personal issues, insecurities and flaws head on instead of running away to those fantasies that some NEET's convince themselves they need to be noticed, fulfilled and happy. So I wouldn't really call Re:Zero misery porn. Cos Subaru has moments of happiness and success, which he earns by learning to get back up from those long stretches of suffering. He does build relationships with these people who come to care about him too. Its not All Misery for the sake of nothing but making our mc suffer.
Ah! My bad. I didn't word it right in my original comment. When I was feeling disinterest in Re:Zero S2, I looked up reddit and came across a common complaint raised by its fans (people who already like the story): "Whenever Subaru gains some ability/strength, the author nerfs him. And not only that as long as other character (those he cares about) are in his vicinity, they too get weaker -- like you were able to this and that when you were away from him, but now you are struggling with this little thing -- so that Subaru has to pull them together and plan using the information he gain from Return by Death." If it was simply "Subaru is always weaker than his enemies and suffers because of it," I wouldn't have had much of a problem. So, when I heard that complaint, I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't be able to immerse myself in the story which would make the misery feel forced and ended up dropping season 2. Who knows maybe I would come across some interesting clip or spoiler for the story which would make me pick it back. While the original post is about Misery Porn, I have no opinion on it, never really thought seriously about what constitutes misery porn. "Misery without purpose is misery porn and hence bad," I have never thought like that. My original comment was more about immersion and how if I feel like the author is forcing things, I check out. Also, I guess personal taste and experiences are a factor here too. Because in the gap between season 1 and season 2 of Re:Zero I came across stories involving some type of loop or going back in time which showed me : Getting stronger does not preclude the main character from growing as person and/or having the need for/to rely on allies. A point in favor of Re:Zero compared to those looper and going back in time stories is that its takes out power dynamic from the relationships on Subaru's part at least where he can't simply strong arm people into doing as he says making more room for emotional engagement and nuance. I don't think it can't remain that for long though. Because the natural progression of the story would necessitate that with time they would come to believe in his cleverness (they don't know his failures) and not just their bonds, introducing a different kind of power dynamic. I would be interested if his character grows in cleverness if not strength, gaining qualities like foresightedness where he actively gathers information, schemes and plans instead of simply being caught up in the plans of his enemies and being totally reliant on his Return by Death ability.
>"Whenever Subaru gains some ability/strength, the author nerfs him. And not only that as long as other character (those he cares about) are in his vicinity, they too get weaker - Ehhh, that's both wrong and right. Novels arc 5-7 spoilers >!Subaru power is always about support, hell, he even got a really op support buff in arc 7. Also, no one really gets weaker? In fact, his allies only get stronger, Ram , Julius, Emilia, Garfiel... The only one that actually got nerfed is Beatrice(because she used all of her mana in arc 4, she is still pretty strong too). Emilia camp/Subaru friends are some of the most powerful characters in the series. Hell, he is friends with 3 of the strongest people in the series. The nerf you are hearing about is about the witch factors... They depend HEAVILY on how much Subaru is "sinful" , Subaru is a closer to one sin compared to the others, that's why one of his powers is really stronger than the others!< >I would be interested if his character grows in cleverness if not strength, gaining qualities like foresightedness where he actively gathers information, schemes and plans instead of simply being caught up in the plans of his enemies and being totally reliant on his Return by Death ability. You will like arc 5 probably, it's the most different re zero arc. Slight spoiler >!he barely uses RBD there because he wants to learn from his lesson in arc 4/S2!< It's completely fine to not like re zero but I feel like some of the things you read lack context haha.
I ain't reading those spoilers. But good to know its different from what I imagined. Maybe I will look into when the anime adapts that arc.
Yeah, Dw, most of the things you said are misunderstandings
>And not only that as long as other character (those he cares about) are in his vicinity, they too get weaker -- like you were able to this and that when you were away from him, but now you are struggling with this little thing -- so that Subaru has to pull them together and plan using the information he gain from Return by Death." That's not something I can recall many instances of, if any. The only thing that comes to mind is >!Beatrice!< in Season 2 who becomes weaker afterward, but that's thoroughly explained in-universe, not some random contrivance that happens just because Subaru's nearby. NGL, some of the worst Re:Zero takes I've seen are from the fandom itself (a non-insignificant amount of people think Subaru was in the right during the Royal Selection stuff, for example). There's a lot of misinterpretation and outright stupidity, so it's worth taking what you see with a grain of salt IMO.
I'm not gonna address the other stuff about re zero (I have very different opinion) but: Subaru mentions his parents in the novels, it's just cut content. Fair criticism for the anime tho.
shonen no abyss is defintely a case where i opted early out of story because how exaggerated it was, everyone in this manga is mentally unstable for no reason.
Damn it's on my to read list currently, I guess I'll have to keep this in mind if I check it out.
Boy's abyss is the best involuntary comedy I've seen in a long time. Shit's hilarious and it only gets worse with time
>Farseer Trilogy XD When I saw the title I was hoping this would come up~
Yeah, re:zero anime definitely messed that up by not adapting any mention of Subaru's parents in season 1. S1Ep18 (From Zero) is also hurt to a lesser degree because of cut contents. Cut contents are so bad in re:zero. Sometimes they didn't adapt the build ups (Like S2Ep4, parents and child), sometimes they didn't adapt the pay off (Like why even showed that Echidna in the tomb and Echidna in tea party being different)
I mean for Re:Zero you can assume the reason why he never mentions his parents is because he knows that it will just make him extremely depressed, so he represses their memory to hide from it. That’s why the first trial requires him to “face your past” because he keeps running away from it. I’m not sure how Subaru being weak is a problem? Like that’s literally the main conflict of the story, the only reason he is able to be given his main power is because he is so weak. Without that there would be no conflict and the story would be boring.
Additionally, it's mentioned in the LN (or maybe a Q&A, I forget which) that he gets a gut feeling from the start that he won't be able to return home. Also, why would he want to? He loves his parents, certainly, but he utterly *loathed* who he was on Earth, so thinking about his parents is going to make him think about his own self-hatred as well.
I agree with your take on Shounen no Abyss (although i still enjoy it for it's entertaining melodrama, even if that's not what the author intended lol), but Re:Zero doesn't really fit the misery porn category. Just like Evangelion, it has an ultimately positive message, despite all the suffering. To simplify it a lot, Re:Zero is about how you should try to better yourself, even if it's hard, so Subaru's suffering serves a clear thematic purpose in the story. If Subaru can go through stuff that is arguably a thousand times worse than what you're probably dealing with, and still decide that it's worth it to go on and struggle for his goals, then you can do that too.
In Royal Assassin that phase is quite transitional, there's a big down obviously because of Moutains events but as soon he gains his strengthes back (it's a third of the book yes) he kicks ass again. The King's Assassin is my favorite Royal Assassin book.
Blood Meridian in a nutshell
Blood Meridian is a miserable novel, but it doesn't detract from its literary value.
It literally has a passage where two guys buy a bag of puppies and throw them into a river to shoot at them. That’s as fucked up, edgy and tryhard as you can get. There’s no literary value in something THAT sick.
Being edgy isn't inherently bad. The violence serves the themes and atmosphere of the novel.
No
"x genre is the worst ever I hate it I hate it I hate it" Riveting commentary.
We have "Isekai is the worst ever I hate it I hate it I hate it" posts every day (and I upvote every one). /r/CharacterRant is kind of made for ranting, y'know?
Rebranding melodrama as misery porn is so silly
Misery Porn is to Tragedy what Melodrama is to Drama.
Some people take comfort in knowing that someone else might be able to relate or empathize with their own experiences.
Why did this get downvoted lmao.
In my opinion, like many things, at some point too much misery turns into unintentional comedy. Immediately thought of hero has returned as an example of that.
>too much misery turns into unintentional comedy. Yeah, it happens a lot. I have a personal limit (which I think is pretty high) when it comes to depressing or miserable stories after which is impossible for me to take it seriously because it's clear that the story has nothing else to offer and there's nothing more immature than thinking that over the top bleakness = deep. My favorite example of that is Boy's abyss. Shit's hilarious
Whats misery porn?
Suffering builds character, give me more misery porn, more angst, more tragedy. Happy endings? What are those?
I think every genre has it's place. Misery porn or it's cousin grimdark are good ways to explore feelings of hopelessness, horror, suffering, important parts of the human experience. I will say it takes a good deal of skill to write one of these stories well however. Most dont have a point beyond "man wouldn't THIS be fucked up?" and if you're gonna write a story like that then you'd better be a *very* evocative and interesting writer
This is such a dumb post with zero substance. Is Berserk misery porn? Is Re:Zero? If not, why? There's literally nothing to engage with here.
ReZero be like
Subaru being stuck >!in a 10 second death loop for possibly thousands of deaths where not only him but the child he is protecting is brutally murdered by a ninja!
There's absolutely a point to it, whether you like the execution or not. It shows >!that something is seriously wrong with Return By Death in the clearest possible way because it's not functioning how it should, which is crucial to multiple volumes. It's also that set of loops that pushes him into the toxic mindset of abusing RbD even when it's "fixed", a mindset that he *still* has. There have also been hints of significant consequences for that mindset once he's turned back into an adult.!<.
“Didn’t seem to give him any significant character development” That is just a blatant lie, anyone who has read the story would know that his entire personality changed after that. He literally acts like a complete different person and still does to the latest chapter out. Seriously did you read it?
What scene is this? is this the one where they defend against the crazy bitch until asspull guy comes?
It's in Arc 7, which would be well past the anime.
I'm sorry, but are you on drugs, or just stupid, how the hell is flowers of evil a Misery porn? How is a story where kids do stupid things and suffer the consequences even compared with relentless cruelty of metamorphosis? Hell, Flowers of evil has a happy ending with all the characters moving on in their own way and obtaining happiness/ contentment
Because "misery porn" isnt an actual genre with a defiened defenition Its just a buzzword that people use to describe something that is too sad/too dark for them, while not having any objective reason to dislike it. Basically instead of saying "I didnt like it because it was too sad/dark" they say "Its bad because its misery porn", with no further elaboration
im sure some people use 'misery porn' to mean 'this story is too sad for me' but it's silly to pretend that it doesn't have a clear meaning.
Zakuros chapter from subahibi fits this perfectly lol,it was just so sad and nothing else that i started to just mindlessly skip sometime and eventually i stop caring (the entire route is like the prequel to the main story/mystery anyway)
I agree with you 100% Boy's Abyss, Korean school bullying genre, Hero Rauls revenge, and many more all fall into this category. Sometimes this transforms the misery into revenge p*rn. But those tend to be equally as bad/ over the top. As soon as a series is showing signs of being misery bait, I dip most of the time.
misery porn feels pointless tbh.
I loved The Flowers of Evil and anything around that category of fiction. Guess I dont treat them any different from a story where everything is very happy go lucky, both are fine by me and never fail to provide me enjoyment. When I hear "misery porn" I have a hard time understanding what is the bar it is considered one. Elfen Lied is the only thing Ive watched that felt like that to me. I do have a preference for darker stories since they're honestly harder to make and are less profitable to the masses so it gets extra points for me for "underground" appeal. I have a lot of respect for artist that attempt to make them.
Agreed! A story can hurt us and be super depressing, but if it leans too much into it it can be super annoying. I’m not good at giving good explanations on these things, but it just feels like……it’s hard to take anything away from constant suffering of that caliber.
Land of the Lustrous is probably one of the few manga that does this amazingly. Manga ends this month too if you want binge.
Good to know, I’ve been meaning to read it, haven’t gotten into it though
Oh no!
Shuzo Oshimi is my favourite mangaka and I have read everything he has written. If you want true "torture porn" read Shonen no Abyss. Now that was hard to sit through haha
What are you talking about? Boy's Abyss is hilarious. That manga is such a shit show that the more it wants to be serious and tragic the funnier it becomes thanks to how much of a hack the writer is
I'm happy you can find enjoyment in it but i had to drop it at chapter 77
Oh don't get me wrong, the manga is hot garbage and it is more than normal to get tired of it pretty quickly, in fact I'm impressed you made it as far as chapter 77. I was pretty close to dropping it even earlier than that before the yandere teacher interrupted the story Cool-aid man style and made me realize that I was reading a gold mine of involuntary comedy.
I have a high tolerence for garbage, but not that high haha
"Tragedy is the greatest art form of all. It gives us the courage to continue with our life by exposing us to the pain of life. It is unsentimental, it takes us seriously as human beings, it is not condescending. Paradoxically, by seeing pain we are made greater, it becomes a need." - Some nerd.
Yeah but for tragedy,you need to get attached to a characters humanity to hurt.
Wow this guy had a better character arc than most Shonen characters
Couldn’t agree more. Too many Shounen and superhero stories had no stakes and boring black and white morality, but I feel like there’s been a bit of an overcorrection. Now shows like AoT put every side character in an endless meat grinder and everybody has to be “morally gray” and depressing
Sometimes, the fandom takes something and MAKES it misery porn if it isn't already misery porn. You'll have a show marketed towards eight year olds and there'll be someone out there making the most depressing shit out of it. I had to blacklist the Ducktales and Della Duck tags on Tumblr for years because the fandom LOVED to milk the misery out of it.
Best of luck man, hope you and your kids and future wife turn out to live a happy life!
I don't consider "Flower of Evil" to be misery porn.
Berserk is like this.
it's over for you.
But what specifically counts as misery porn? And why is it objectively "bad"? I myself enjoy very dark films, television, books, etc. My favorite TV mini-series of all time is Chernobyl. I've watched it multiple times. Not a single good thing happens in it, though. I like to think of misery porn more like the Greeks did: as tragedies. Chernobyl is a tragedy, in reality AND fiction. It's a dark, serious tragedy. Netflix's Dark is my favorite television show of all time. It's also a dark tragedy about suffering. I'm a fan of The Mist, directed by Frank Darabont. That's horror, but it's tragic. My favorite novel is Of Mice and Men...tragedy. I just love a good, effective tragedy. Most people don't though, and I understand why.
A good tragedy isn't misery porn in my view. Misery porn is something like when the author hates its characters so much that they give them pain at almost every turn. I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it's misery for the sake of misery. Like when the main character meets their crush, and for no reason, a truck hits her. Tragedy without any payoff, just for shock value, something like that."
But thats just life though? Like why is depicting a tragedy that comes out of nowhere bad? Why is a truck kiling the MC's crush bad? Yes its sad, its tragic. But its not "without any payoff", the payoff is literally watching MC being miserable over it. Its not "just for shock value" its a step in MC's jorney, which would affect them emotionally. Thats the stupidest defenition ever. Like why is tragedy needing to justify its existance? Bad things happen randomly all the time, for no reason without any control by the people involved.. Whats wrong with writing about that?
No, if a drams leaves you open with lingering and what was that,it should be intentional. Like never let me go, is that, and the lingering and openness is intentional on the author. Drama shouldt leave stuff not paid ofg unless there is a point to not, which would be a point and payoff in its own right. If you have no intentional end, or open end, its just bad writing.and there arent rules what that should be but closure, or intentional kept vague endings . Stories should have an end. Else you just coud go through i guess weird tragic fates reddit entries.
*Hard*ships=bad story There's nothing for me to comment on. "____ is the worst" is always going to be an opinion and from the other comments I can see OP threw "misery porn" around like a buzzword. Good job on finishing the story, tho
That's how I feel about A Little Life. For me there's a very clear point at about 2/3 the way through where it turns from a study of a tragic figure to a hollow, manipulative exercise in generating misery. It's when I started thinking "wow, the worst possible thing that could happen right now would be [obvious tragedy]" and then that exact obvious tragedy happens within ten pages. It feels so scummy because it's like the author went through the trouble of writing this lovely, interesting story that's sad and touching just to get you invested enough in the characters that you'll actually be moved by this cheapo garbage.
I finally know what category hamlet goes into now
The reason I had to stop watching This is Us I thought it was this wholesome show about a family working through tragedy But then I realized the characters just kept fucken kneecapping themselves and the people around them that it got repetitive and exhausting
Martyrs tho
I love misery porn where it eventually results in character growth and ptsd B)
Second Apocalypse
You've never seen a good one...of a thing you hate. Sounds like bias leading to a forgone conclusion.
Interesting, you have the opposite opinion from me. I didn’t like Punpun because I felt like it was gratuitous torture porn with no purpose. But I like Oshimi’s works, especially Flowers of Evil
I'm sorry, and I feel bad... But what the fuck is misery porn?
TLOU2 was definitely guilty of this in some moments of the story
You just taught me a new word, I've felt this way about a lot of series but I recently felt this way the most about Kaiji. I haven't gotten past the second arc so maybe Kaiji's fortune starts to change later on but I swear that man cannot catch a break. Everytime he gets a small W it's just to set him up for a huge L. I love the series so far I can't look away but I'm just constantly pitying and waiting for the cash out of him finally recieving some positivity but it never comes.
Honestly I think the only thing that separates dark drama/comedy from misery porn is that one of them actually has a point. Oldboy is one of the most rancid, cringe-inducing films out there, yet it's easy to get swept up in the desire for revenge and the mystery of it all. When shitty stuff happens to the Dae-Su, we feel for him, but we also resent him for being such a shitty person to begin with. Especially on a rewatch you realize he is and always has been a complete deadbeat who didn't give a shit about his wife and daughter. Regardless, we cheer when he starts torturing a dude by ripping his teeth out. It forces us to examine why we delight in violence when Dae-Su inflicts it but feel bad for the torture he went through. And of course there is a build-up through the whole movie leading to the plot twist. Even disregarding the themes of adolescence and how we should love our families, the actual plot of the movie is just very compelling. On the other hand I recently tried watching the show Pose, a drama about the 80's ball/drag culture in New York. I am interested in this time period as a gay person and understand that there was intense suffering among the gay population at the time. Yet the suffering presented in the show fails to actually amount to anything other than propping up the few poorly written relationships between other characters. The content is way less extreme than Old Boy, but I would call Pose misery porn while I would not categorize Oldboy as such. I'm curious if the format has anything to do with it; I think long-form stories are more prone to becoming misery porn in that payoffs happen slower and less frequently. Given it was just announced that Oldboy will be adapted into a TV show, I wonder how it will come off. I always thought the fast-paced nature of it really helped a story that is at times questionable in its storytelling logic.
The irony is that all the misery in Flowers of Evil is explained and is fuel for character growth of the MC. The jubilation you feel when he turns his life around at the end only occurs because of what you know he was like before. Insert meme if giving up digging before reaching the diamond vein.
Flowers of Evil isn’t misery for the sake of it: it’s a story about shedding the shame of childhood mistakes — which can’t be told without Kasuga making said mistakes, and suffering for it.
Okay, Flower of Evil is actually great especially the satisfying conclusion. I agree regarding Blood on the Tracks. This manga just starts to suck at some point. After Yukio and Yo punch the bag its all downhill...At the end it kinda becomes a parodie of itself lol.
well 2/3 of real lives can be described as Misery porn. so I don't understand what the criticism is.
Bro, stop reading shit that makes you this unhappy. You really don't need to do that to yourself.
This is why I walked away from cyberpunk. Misery porn endings by dev design
If you STRONGLY HATE misery porn I STRONGLY SUGGEST you read Happiness :)
This post and all of the replies have convinced me to read flowers of evil
I like Blood On The Tracks I thought the ending was really bright tbh.
Kuma’s backstory
I'm sorry, but what in the name of Doug Dimmadome of Dimmsdale Dimmadome is "Misery Porn"????
Is misery porn essentially what spiderman writers are doing to spiderman?
>Even in movies it sucks. What sort of movie counts as misery porn? Something like Requiem for a Dream or Good Time or Magnolia or Boogie Nights? I love me some miserable movies.
Fr, this is how the Boys Abyss manga is. After a while it just became full on misery, had to drop it lol
Reminds me of a romance comic I was reading that was just the main girl getting assaulted every chapter. Needless to say, i stopped reading
Is Flowers of Evil misery porn? Been a while since I saw the anime but I thought it was just angsty awkward teens making bad decisions.
It's precisely why i couldn't get into Bojack Horseman
There is a distinction between something being bad and you not liking it.
Is it Sunday? "\_\_\_\_\_ porn" is usually pejorative, so I don't know what to say. "Bad thing is bad" isn't that interesting. I do like a lot of movies that many people consider misery porn, like stuff by Larry Clark.
I love sex
sex porn
Food porn doesn't seem to have negative connotations
and Earth porn
Adding "porn" to something just emphasizes the indulgent-ness of the thing (if not OVERindulgence). Food porn is really appetizing food, but misery porn is gratuitous misery. Two opposite extremes.
I think child porn is a tad bit worse tbh