#otogami gakuon

[mastomysowner]

PPPPPP’s Otogami Gakuon by Shiro Usazaki (Act-Age’s artist).

[comradeyurika]

This week's chapter of PPPPPP was just an amazing visual experience. That's nothing new for what has been one of the most visually insane series in the history of Weekly Shonen Jump, but Mapollo3 has taken things to an even higher level with the most recent chapter.

It's an amazing set of images that our brains can't fully process just by looking at, but which evoke wonder and imagination. Writing a manga about music is obviously a challenging task, but I always feel like I can "hear" the essence of what is going on. We're exploring the minds of some very broken people, and the images bring that all into focus by making comprehension impossible, but making understanding very possible. We may not know exactly what is going on, but we can always understand who these people are and what drives them.

And at the end of the chapter we have this beautiful splash page without dialogue, saying nothing, yet everything. Lucky being banished by Gakuon and him and his mother being cut off from the rest of their family has been the driving focus behind everything that has happened so far. And now we're seeing father and son in the same place in the present day for the first time, 64 chapters into the series. We know how Lucky is feeling about his mom's death, but we're only just beginning to understand how Gakuon might feel about his estranged wife's death. Most interestingly, this chapter is not framed from the perspective of Lucky, our protagonist, but from Gakuon, perhaps the closest thing the series has to an antagonist. It would have been very easy to have this chapter focus primarily on Lucky and then have Gakuon walking up on him at the end, but instead Mapollo3 opts for the opposite path, giving us our first real insights into how Gakuon might be feeling, and only at the end revealing that he has been walking towards Lucky. It makes that ending have significantly more impact than it would have had otherwise.

I'm really excited to see how this meeting goes in two weeks. PPPPPP remains my biggest highlight every week of a new issue of Jump, and I remain stunned that this series is actually running in the magazine. From the art of the story matter, it all seems far beyond what we typically expect from the premiere shonen magazine.

[miminmimikyu]

Like AAAAAAAAAA I look at Sorachika, Don and Shikato's portraits in between PPPPPP's final chapters in the final volume and I'm so frustrated!

I really wanted to know where the story was going with them. I bet Sorachika "Death is the final unknown" + "favourite sibling's his brother's semi-dead alternate personality that spoke to him through a piano" Otogami would have had such an interesting arc. And Don and his fixation on understanding the composer's intent, was his encounter with Lucky going to result in him composing his own music? Or did Fanta and Shikato speedrun his arc in one chapter and was the conclusion always going to be "Maybe you don't need to understand". And Shikato!! What was up with Shikato!!! Always pasted onto Gakuon, visually the most similar to Gakuon except Shikato had that creepy grin, the only sibling not to meet Lucky at all (at least Don met Lucky off-screen at the funeral). Even in an early chapter when Mimin and Lucky were discussing what to do about telling the others about Chocho's illness their conclusion was "Shikato will not come". fuck wsj

[chococococya]

Fandom: PPPPPP

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings: Major Character Desth

Relationships: Hino Sadame/Sonoda Lucky, Otogami Mimin/Yamanaka Meloli

Characters: Sonoda Lucky, The Otogami Septuplets (PPPPPP), Hino Sadame, Yamanaka Meloli, Sonoda Chocho, Otogami Gakuon, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Furusu Ako, Maki Rokku

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Female Sonoda Lucky, Music, Social Media, Youtube, No Brilliant Lucky

Summary:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star started out as a nursery rhyme. Then a poem. A lullaby after that. Retold and reshaped throughout time. An endless permutation. An invitation to look at the stars shining above.

For Sonoda Urara, it is a song about love. It’s as if the song itself is telling her that everything will be alright.

It doesn’t. Everything rarely is.

But this song allows her to continue to play the piano.

Music has always been her life. It is the start of their family, their end, and perhaps it will give her another beginning.

(In which Lucky is a girl, no brilliant version of them lurk underneath, and their broken family is haunted with more than just broken promises. Still, the stars shine bright.)

[pin-yao]

[wickedsick]

Gakuon otogami stop abusing your children challenge

[shysheeperz]

[theanimeview]

PPPPPP - Why I Keep Reading a Music Manga That I Can’t Fully Recommend (Review/Analysis)

Source: VIZ Media, https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/chapters/pppppp?locale=en

By: Beata Garrett  | @zhongxia246​​

PPPPPP is a manga about a family of geniuses with piano superpowers, and it’s everything I expected something with that premise to be, yet underwhelming in ways that I’ll do my best to describe. I feel like it’s the kind of work you’d read if you want to read a mashup of The Umbrella Academy and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, but I can’t promise you’ll have as good of a time consuming it in comparison to either. 

When I wrote this review, there were only 16 chapters available on VIZ, but the representations of music in it has been stuck in my mind since I began reading it in September (2021). I’ll delve into the art later, but will focus on PPPPPP’s themes and plot first.

What It’s About

The protagonist, Lucky Sonoda, is the only mediocre child in a family of piano-virtuosos but continues loving it from afar while taking care of his ill, hospitalized mother. 

He’s like other shounen main characters: he’s optimistic, resilient, and has a deep passion for something he may not have the talent for even though the rest of his family does.

Since his parents’ divorce ten years ago, Lucky has been sidelined in the family as the untalented and oft forgotten seventh child of what should be the Otogami Septuplets. From the sidelines, he’s been forced to watch people fawn over his genius siblings, called the “Otogami Sextuplet Pianists,” along with having his surname changed to their mother’s, hence him being the only “Sonoda” of the seven children.  

Source: Chapter 1, PPPPPP

Lucky now lives with his aunt from his mother’s side and her spoiled son rather than his father or mother. The trauma of Gakuon and the aunt’s abuse are clearly affecting him, but he doesn’t blame anyone else other than himself--regularly attributing their terrible treatment of him to his mediocrity at the piano. He also blames himself for separating his mom from the rest of the siblings because he sees himself as the cause of their divorce, and is unable to imagine any future with his siblings as a result. 

He doesn’t exist to the family, especially to its patriarch, Gakuon, or to the rest of the world.

Source: Chapter 1, PPPPPP

Everything changes when his mother encourages Lucky to become a pianist because she loves his playing. She tells him to also prove his father wrong by showing him that anyone, including the mediocre, can play the piano. This is only the beginning of his journey into the musical profession that will inevitably draw him deeper into the world of his siblings and father.

Meaning in The Title

PPPPPP stands for pianissimo (or, pianississimo if you prefer the British-English spelling) repeated twice. A pianissimo note should be played very, very softly. In terms of voice, this would be even softer than a whisper. Playing pianissimo is difficult because you can’t hit keys with the typical force you would use, but it helps train your sensitivity to subtleties in music. 

Source: https://socratic.org/questions/what-does-ppp-stand-for-in-music

I do like how pianissimo represents Lucky’s gentle nature and soft playing--a tendency born from playing for his mother in the hospital. It nicely contrasts the more aggressive styles of the siblings raised by Gakuon. 

It wasn’t a bad trait to give Lucky in and of itself, but when combined with the power of granting wishes by recreating reality... well, that makes him overpowered. 

To be fair, unlike other music-focused manga, PPPPPP tries to tackle experiential-visual music as though it’s really happening rather than some fantasy the listener is simply imagining. It’s really interesting that, instead, Lucky is creating these images himself with music and sharing it with his listeners. In my search, I haven’t found anything that fits this in reality besides sound-color synesthetes (a form of synesthesia), a phenomenon in which one can associate music with colors. There’s also visual music, but that requires artists to make a visual component based on the music, which is not expressed within the manga. Moreover, I haven’t seen this brought out in other manga or comics before either. 

Chapter 12, PPPPPP

That said, PPPPPP’s idea, though great in visualizing music most of the time, also feels like a shortcut to avoid the more difficult issues that face any artist about their self-worth in their chosen field.

What makes this stand out is how clear of a level difference Lucky has compared to his peers. After all, once Lucky enters Shibuya Music High School, it’s clear that he’s below his peers in terms of skill and knowledge. He’s unable to discern notes that are played or follow along with much of what’s being said. However, despite this, his mentor, Hideo, tells him that his playing is special because of his history, desire, and its softness.

Source: Chapter 2, PPPPPP

While being able to play pianissimo better than other pianists allows Lucky to stand out and understand the nuances of his pieces better, it doesn’t compensate for other necessary techniques. It also puts him at a disadvantage for pieces that require louder emotions like joy or anger. 

I expected the manga to raise questions about authenticity, skill, and talent, and the worth of these traits in discerning the winner or best pianist in a competition. These are topics that have been raised frequently in sports manga like Haikyuu and Ping Pong, and music manga like Blue Giant and Blue Orchestra. One of the marks of a great sports or music manga is how they’ll approach these deeper themes of competition, talent, and skill.

Source: Chapter 3, PPPPPP

When Lucky begins competing with others, PPPPPP removes a lot of the musical complexity from the plot. For the first competition, Hideo challenges Lucky and Ako, a girl with perfect pitch, to compete. They have to play “Pavane pour une infante défunte.” It is a piece intended to be played very slowly, and Hideo advises Lucky to use his talent to take the listener to another place, as seen in the image above. 

There’s no clear winner of the battle, as Ako is technically superior in her playing, but Lucky passes by granting Ako’s “wish.” Her wish is for her mother to pat her on the head like she used to, and Lucky grants it through his playing of the piece using his magical powers. 

Chapter 3, PPPPPP

Unlike the other Otogamis, Lucky can only bring others into his memories and can’t conjure anything he hasn’t experienced. It’s a good limitation to his powers, but he remains a horrible player on a technical level and has to rely on it to win all of his competitions. 

Because of this magic that so many people seem to ‘magically’ appreciate, there isn’t a great need to improve his technical skills and so, instead, he focuses on choosing a memory to bring someone into rather than developing holistically as a pianist. 

This scene is what made me realize that PPPPPP is best when it’s centered on the Otogami family and their issues rather than deeper themes of musical composure, competition, or innate talent versus earned skills. 

When Lucky battles his siblings, the manga utilizes his power to create very strong emotional moments, often reflecting on how his father has hurt him, and thereby helping his siblings begin to break free of their father’s abuse. It is a far more interesting and cohesive part of the story than nearly any focus on the musical profession or education. 

The Six Otagamis of the Septuplets 

Source: Chapter 3, PPPPPP

In PPPPPP, Gakuon (their father) uses emotional and physical abuse on his children so they stay by his side. This is seen primarily in the isolation tactics used on Lucky, showing his siblings what happens when you don’t have talent, but certainly expands when looking at the other six.  

The lives of Lucky’s siblings revolve around winning to earn their father’s approval and to grab any chance of agency in their micromanaged lives. All of them are assigned their own personal manager who report directly to Gakuon, and are unable to even dream of quitting the piano.

Their father’s influence is revealed best in Reijiro’s flashback to the only time he lost, albeit purposefully, to someone. Gakuon punished Reijiro physically by slapping him and later tells his son, “You’ll never be normal. Your only friend is the piano” (Chapter 9, PPPPPP). It also served as reinforcement for the other children who wanted to avoid being treated the same way, each of whom watch and even shamed Reijiro further, thereby perpetuating the abuse:

Source: Chapter 9, PPPPPP

While Lucky has also been abused by his aunt, he was able to have a semblance of normalcy through his mother. Moreover, by leaving the aunt to go pursue music at his new school, he’s able to advance and gain freedoms beyond what his siblings have had under Gakuon. 

When Lucky plays in the competition against Reijiro and fulfills Reijiro’s wish to walk home with a friend, he thinks, “Reijiro’s wish is just normal for me. But that ordinary experience is what [Reijiro’s] been tearfully longing for” (Chapter 12, PPPPPP).

After Lucky finishes, Reijiro hugs him and requests that they go back home and Lucky play the piece for him everyday. However, Lucky gently reminds him that that would be escaping reality and he wants all of his siblings to get the opportunity to live in the real world. 

Source: Chapter 12, PPPPPP

It’s a powerful goal that’s made effective because it comes from a member of the family that has already been abused and abandoned. It’s not from some random stranger who wants to save some children--which would be fine but not as emotionally impactful. 

These abused siblings can understand each other on a deeper level in many ways, so I appreciate PPPPPP addressing the ways in which they react to each other and to their abuser. In this case, the abuser is their parent and mentor, and that makes for an even more complicated relationship because they’re two positions that society teaches you to not fight back against. It’s hard to read, but powerful. 

Source: Chapter 16, PPPPPP

Another interesting example of how trauma manifests itself is in Lucky’s sister, Mimin. She’s sent to Japan to win as many competitions as she can for their father, and is personally invested in this mission because she believes beating all the pianists who lose to her will allow her to play the piano style she wants. 

Her logic is that people who enter competitions and win become judges, judges who restrict the freedom that can be found in piano. She’s not interested in whether a piece is “good” but wants to "live freely” and feels she can only do so if there are no other pianists to be compared against (Chapter 16, PPPPPP).

Mimin hasn’t realized yet that she doesn’t live freely because of Gakuon and that he’s redirecting her frustration towards other pianists who could be her friends, and not her enemy. It shows how far Gakuon’s ideology has taken root within his kids and prevented them from living fulfilling lives.

The Art

Now onto the fun part: the art. PPPPPP is visually striking with its way of depicting music through “fantasies” that are sometimes whimsical and sometimes painfully realistic. These are a few examples of the more whimsical panels:

Source: Starting top-left, going clockwise: Chapter 1, Chapter 8, Chapter 16, Chapter 5, PPPPPP

While it could benefit from changing the art style in the same way Blue Period does by hiring different artists, I still enjoy PPPPPP’s present style. 

The more realistic panels are emotionally impactful as they reveal the deep desires of the people Lucky plays for, such as when his playing conjures up a sunset and a friend for his brother Reijiro:

Source: Chapter 12, PPPPPP

There’s another great scene where Lucky allows a classmate to briefly taste his dream of being good enough to receive a standing ovation through his music:

Source: Chapter 7, PPPPPP

The classmate himself doesn’t really matter, but everyone can relate to that desire to be seen and appreciated by others. As a musician, standing ovations are an acknowledgement that your music has resonated with the audience and it’s bittersweet to see someone want it so badly in comparison to the Otogamis, who receive them so much that they’ve become bored of it.

It’s little moments like this that keep me returning to this manga and I applaud the mangaka, MAPOLLO 3, for creating a music manga that visualizes the experience of playing and listening to music in a way I haven’t seen before. 

Conclusion

I really hope the manga treats each Otogami with dignity and consideration. So far, MAPOLLO 3’s done a decent, if simplistic, job with Reijiro and Mimin, so I’m curious to see if they can keep it up with the other kids. 

Unfortunately, other parts of the story thus far have remained tedious in comparison. It’s hard to care about Lucky fulfilling some random classmate’s dream or believe in his new friendship with Ako when those characters have no personality and little time with him.

PPPPPP’s message isn’t unique or excellently done, but the way it combines a mix of realistic and fantastical art with its (touch-and-go) emotionally resonant story keeps me coming back. On that same note, the music is not for an elite audience or elite pianists but is for everyone, including the mediocre.

In the end, the message appears to be that the true growth and healthy self-value as a pianist comes from loving piano and learning from other pianists instead of dominating them. 

[mangafuyu]

Gakuon Otogami là một nghệ sĩ piano nổi tiếng thế giới, ông có 7 người con nhưng trong số đó chỉ có 6 người được coi là "thiên tài". Đây là câu chuyện về cách một người "tầm thường" đánh bại một "thiên tài"

[therealsoulking]

pppppp Chapter 70 - The Final Chapter

That’s it? That’s the last chapter of pppppp?

THAT WAS JUST AN INTERNAL DIALOGUE AND PUNCHING YOUR ABUSIVE FATHER!!!

MAPOLLO 3 BETRAYED US!!

Man, what a disappointing end. Barely anything for Don, absolutely nothing for Sikato, and this is the resolution for Laki? It’s cathartic as hell, but what does it mean? Who’s in control, brilliant Laki or the original? Did Mapollo intend to cut off the story like this, or were sales too low?

I suppose it’s best to enjoy the story that we’ve got, with the Reijiro, Mimin, and Fanta arcs, but too much of it all feels untold.

[miminmimikyu]

Every time with PPPPPP I keep thinking "am I reading too much into this" (-> probably -> who knows! -> no way to confirm now!). Today, I'm really impressed with how much the volume extras of volume 7 & 8 pack a punch despite them being really really simple. So I'm going to read (too much) into it again x_x

Volume 7 covers the end of the 4v4 piano battle, Chocho's death and its direct aftermath (ch 53 - 61).

After each chapter there's an extra page that's blank save for a stave with a single note like this, similar to the rings the sextuplets wear/wore:

(excuse the crappy phone quality, this twitter thread by @/ppppppupdates has the extras from all the volumes pulled from the digital versions which are much clearer. I've linked to a few of them here and there).

The first note is C (Do) and the note moves up the C major scale with each chapter. To me, this came off as "very ominous countdown". You reach the end of the chapter, turn a page and BAM, the note's crept up again. It took me out of it for a second while still building suspense and still maintaining the flow of the story. The last note is B (ti/shi). This happens after chapter 59, which is when Chocho dies. So the scale was counting down (ok, up) to Chocho's death, where the chapter ends on a "pi-----"/"beeeeep" sound effect.

I know the fact that the scale doesn't end on C probably has more to do with there only being 7 siblings + only 7 chapters preceding this moment, but I also like how the scale remains unfinished. Since the last note (B/ti) is the very unstable 7th degree in the scale my brain automatically wants the melody to resolve to C but it's cut short like Chocho's life is

(There are still two chapters in the volume after that but the extras are more like the previous volumes: Most of it is Sadame-centric, like the cover (little graphs depicting his ability, the acknowledgment page is a warped version of the electronics shop where Sadame and Meloli and the inside back cover is of Meloli and Sadame). Also, there's a conductor's baton for Furusu and the results of the popularity contest)

Volume 8 already immediately sucker punched me by having no one on this page. Then, in a break from the small drawings between chapters from previous volumes, each of those pages has a full-page portait of each sibling, starting with Reijiro, Mimin, Fanta (all smiling), then Sorachika, Don and Shikato and finally, after the final chapter-- a smiling Brilliant (?) Lucky dressed in the clothes he's wearing on the cover of volume 8.

The final extra pages are small items representing members of the Otogami family

Rejiro and Mimin

Fanta + the three pairs of polyhedron earrings might refer to Sorachika, on an Shitako?

Sorachika (scarf), Shikato (apple) and Don (score)

Gakuon, though I think it also could be referring to Brilliant Lucky as he's also associated with the necklace and his portrait has him wearing it while Gakuon/Sorachika(?)'s hand reaches for it

Lastly, there's a melancholic acknowledgments page (a room almost completely empty except for a piano) and the back inside cover (depicting the end of a measure, quite a definitive "the end" imo)

Interestingly, none of the extras depict or refer to Mediocre Lucky (unless the final portrait is what would have been Lucky's final form after, idk, he and Brilliant Lucky accept each other). Maybe this is fitting because his only appearances in volume 8 are 1) passed out in the cemetery in chapter 64 and 2) in that rigid, almost caricature-like form in chapter 70 where he's banished to the darkness by Brilliant Lucky.

All in all I think these extras make the volume end on an even sadder note than chapter 70 did on its own. A lot of them just remind me of stuff that we won't get to see: A happy Brilliant Lucky never appears in the actual story-- the story ends with Brilliant Lucky lashing out in anger and rejecting Mediocre Lucky. And if that final portait is (Mediocre) Lucky himself, then it's also a version of Lucky that we never got to see-- Lucky didn't get this good ending. Even the personal items on the extra pages are split between "siblings Lucky has saved" and "siblings Lucky has not saved" (& Fanta): Arcs that we got vs. arcs that we never will get.

[miminmimikyu]

Illustration by Mapollo3 of Gakuon Otogami and Ako Furusu to celebrate the mapollo3_off twitter account reaching 20,000 followers [x].

Translated text: Top: "Talk to Gakuon Otogami One-on-One" Special Cards on table top to bottom: (celebrating) Furusu-san / (celebrating) Nominated / (celebrating) 20000 people Bottom: Gakuon's room

[miminmimikyu]

Illustration by Mapollo3 showing the blood types of the different members of the Otogami family [x]

B: Chocho, Reijiro, Mimin, Don A: Fanta, Lucky AB: Gakuon, Shikato, Sorachika

[miminmimikyu]

Illustration of Gakuon Otogami and Sadame Hino from PPPPPP to celebrate Sadame's birthday (7th August) [x]

Translated text: "Ya-ho-- I'm Sadame Hino! Thanks for the strawberry! Here's some curry!" Gakuon's room. Today's guest: Sadame Hino

[miminmimikyu]

Re: Otogami sextuplet earrings: Did you notice that as each child went through their arc, they replaced their earrings with a different pair symbolizing someone they aspire to or love the most? Reijiro got stars and Mimin took bows, obviously for Lucky and Meloli, but it's easy to miss that Fanta swapped his out for jewels - like himself! I love this symbolism and I want everyone to notice it! Also you have good takes and I am also devastated by the loss of PPPPPP. :(

Aa thank you for this ask! I noticed it too! (lemme just paste the side by side comparison i made a while ago but didn't post, waiting for just one more sibling arc rip ;_; )

Fanta's change really stumped me for a while but I like your take that the jewels represent himself! What I also liked about Fanta's earring change is that it was much more subtle than the other two: like you said his change was easier to miss, the shapes were quite similar. And that's so fitting: Mimin and Reijiro completely broke with Gakuon and had an obvious earring change, but after Fanta had his realisation he decided to stay and continue to perform under the Otogami brand. So it makes sense that the jewels don't look so dramatically different to his original earrings.

I'm happy you liked my PPPPPP takes, PPPPPP was such a fun manga to pick apart and analyse with how much symbolism was in there. I really wanted to know what Sorachika, Don and Shikato's earrings were going to turn into... It's so unfair that we won't know now.

[miminmimikyu]