bokurano ours, vol. 3

bokurano ours, vol. 3
mihiro kitoh
graphics/manga/scifi
viz media 
published 2011

Saving the world is hard.  Saving yourself is even harder.  The underage pilots of Zearth are starting to crack under the pressure.  In the beginning all they wanted to do was play a fun game.  Now they're fighting for their lives and the fate of the planet.  Say goodbye to childhood.  It's time to grow up and be a hero.

This shit is fucked up.

There's no other way to express that.  It is really just fucked up.  First of all, you have to think about the psychological stress these kids are under.  They know they are going to die.  There's no way out, at least as far as they know at this point.  They either know they are next to die or they just know they are going to die shortly, but they don't know exactly when.  So every day they wake up knowing this could be the day they are called to pilot and then they will die.  

And they're around 12 years old.  Which makes the circumstances involving some of these backstories even worse.  *****spoilers*****  An affair with a teacher, gang rape, attempted rape, murder....it's a lot to take in.  And then along come these adults who are half blaming the kids for the death toll the robots have caused.  They tell them they'll take care of everything so the kids think this is it, they're saved.  But the adults are just arrogant jerks.  

It's heavy, heavy stuff.  While Volume 2 made me incredibly sad this one just kind of made me feel ill, creepy crawlies and all that.  There's a whole lot of drama packed into these volumes, no doubt.