Juliette, Week 12 - Smother Me

Back in October, Hiroshi Shimomoto began to publish weekly chapters of a manga, titled Smother Me, about a thirteen-year-old trained assassin. Compared to most manga series, this work especially stood out because of the thick, messy art style and the brevity of the series—ending after only fifteen chapters published over three months, compared to typical mangas that are published over at least half a year and often contain over twenty-five chapters at least (this fact is also more surprising considering Smother Me was being published officially in Shounen Jump, a major manga magazine in Japan, and online). 

With all these factors in mind, and the unique story Shimomoto illustrates, I began reading it a couple weeks after it started being released online.

The main plot of the novel is unusual but straightforward: the main character, Akio a.k.a. Snake—given the name for strangling his victims—was sold off at a young age because of his mother’s poverty. From that point on, Akio ends up following the idea that all adults will always take advantage of kids, an idea introduced by his mentor, “Moreh” or Michael. (What a trusting view!)

The climax of the story is when it is revealed that Moreh is the brother of their enemy—Mikaela, also known by the name “Monkey.” The two of them have two opposing beliefs of what should happen to Detroit, the setting of the manga: Monkey believes the city should be protected despite the chaos, turmoil, violence, and corruption, and Moreh believes that the city and all the corruption must be destroyed for a fresh start in their messed up society.

In trying to achieve their goals, they pull innocent people into the conflict, and cause even more chaos, corruption, and disruption to the city. By doing so, those people end up getting hurt or dying, with even Snake himself dying when he decides to strive for a normal life.

All the killing and conflict of the story, really, is just about conflicts in upper levels of authority. Now, I could analyze this manga for days, but the main thing I want to focus on is the central theme of how disagreements within authority and power become irresponsible and lead everyone in the vicinity to be devastated by the effects.

This pattern, to me, is truly representative of our political, educational, and professional world. Our schedules might be messed up because teachers are trying out something new and could not agree on one due date, and our federal policies can be in shambles because people cannot agree on the legality of the situation which results in millions of dollars and thousands of jobs lost.

We cannot do much to solve these problems, but simply seeing such issues is essential to understanding the conflicts that many people experience as a result of them. Doing so also facilitates knowing how we can avoid contradictions in our own leadership positions in clubs, in future employment, and in other aspects of our lives. Disagreements in power do not just create frustration higher up, but the effects can be exponentially noticeable by the time it reaches the people under the influence of such power. 

Even though the dark, depressing story of Smother Me appears irrelevant to our current world and offers a view that is too cynical to be refreshing, it still serves as a warning of what role power has in our society, and how, without proper caution, people can overlook the consequences of their influence on those around them.

A picture of Mikaela was released as official art alongside chapter eleven of Smother Me