DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

MOVIE DramaJosee to Tora to Sakanatachi

REVIEWS

• 

  Gallad

  90/100
  Yes, You Should Read The Manga Too

  Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is a wonderful manga. It has been adapted into a movie which is probably the reason why you know about this manga / are reading this review. In this review, I will be discussing the story, characters and the manga.
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  James Asks

  

  
  
  Yes.
  The movie, Josee, the Tiger and the Fish has an amazing OST, amazing animations and a beautiful song made by Eve. The movie is longer than the manga and It leaves a better emotional impact compared to the manga.

  So why bother with the manga?

  Well, the manga has only 10.5 chapters. You could finish it in time, it would take you to have lunch tbh. Another great reason is the gorgeous artwork which is why I read the manga. The art of this manga is so good that it gave me orgasms while reading it fr.

  
  
  
  
  I will be analysing and spoiling the story in this review. It's like 10.5 chapters long bro, If I don't include spoilers what do you expect me to talk about???
  
  the manga cover?
  

  Anyways, I will be discussing these three characters and the scenes that involve them. For a quick recap the characters are :-

  Josee, Our female lead who has been using a wheelchair since birth.
  Mai Ninomiya, A female colleague of our male lead at his part time job.
  Tsuneo Suzukawa, Our Male lead. ( I will be calling him as 'male lead' or 'MC' or 'boi' from here now)
  

  
  
  
  

  Mai Ninomiya

  Mai is in love with our male lead so she does not want the male lead to leave her side or leave her alone. We can sympathise with her, after all finding someone you love is very hard to do and I personally know people who have done crazy things in their life in order to fulfil their love.
  
  She plays the part of the antagonist in our story, if the relationship of the male lead with wheelchair girl helps him become a better person and supports him. This girl tries to make the life of the male lead worse and De-supports him smh.

  OMG GALLAD, how can you say such a thing about her? That's so fucking mean :(

  Let us break down some scenes in the manga ( or movie smh ) so that I can explain and support my statement.
  

  ---

  Protagonist is le sad
  

  This is the part after our beautiful boy got hit by a car and has received the news that his dreams may never come true. Basically, he is very sad and pensive after such terrible news.
  In the hospital, his part time job friends visit him (this girl included) and he shares his worries with her, expressing that his dream has been crushed. His words and expressions clearly convey that he is experiencing the dread and despair of his failed dream and ambition.

  To all the words spoken by the mc, Mia replies "I love you". I believe there are two ways to see and interpret this message. Let's discuss.
  
  
  
  
  This behaviour is really scummy because this statement is subtly telling our boy to give up on his dream and focus on her instead. She gets to have him all for herself because he would not go to Mexico. She knows the fact that he has worked really hard for his dream and she completely ignores his work, ambition and dream.

  After hearing this our boi has this reaction on his face, which I can only interpret in two ways.

  

  I have just been confessed to, I never realized that this girl had feelings for me. This is crazy. What should I do now? What about Josee? What about my future plans? Should I give up on my dreams and settle down? AHHHHH, THIS IS TOO MUCH

  or

  Bruh

  Another interpretation Of The Above Situation

  In situations where a loved one is in a dire state, for example badly injured in a hospital. It is very hard to determine what should be said and what shouldn't be said. People who are suffering through a lot of pain really need that emotional support.
  Considering his family can't stay with him in the hospital, he lacks support in this current situation. By her saying that she loves him, it might improve the MC's emotional state and well being.

  Showing him that there are people out there who care about him and want him to recover as soon as possible. Therefore, improving his recovery. If we look at this situation in such a perspective, Mia hasn't really done anything wrong or scummy instead she has actually helped our beloved mc a lot.
  So in the end, this situation is up for debate. Different people can view in different ways. I wonder what you thought about it when you watched it/read it.
  Anyways, this next section that I will be talking about is definitely not up for debate.

  ---

  Unnecessary Comments
  

  I think my hate towards Mai mainly stems from what she says to Josee throughout the story. You know how they say Actions speak louder than words, well Words can speak pretty loud too.
  
  Let us consider the following scene.
  Josee's grandmother ( or her caretaker ) has just passed away. The grandmother who had been taking care of her throughout her whole life is now dead. There is no one left to take care of her now, she has to learn to live on her own and figure out how to take care of herself. Basically, she is going through a lot.
  

  Mia knocks on Josee's door with an agenda that she is going to comfort her.
  I repeat, COMFORT HER
  

  and you ask, how is she gonna do this comforting ?
  
  She tells Josee that she should leave the mc alone and not get involved with him. Saying that her presence holds him back from achieving his dream which is very fucking stupid thing for her to say because in the previous section, she was literally doing the thing that she is accusing Josee of.

  She also proceeds to say that the only reason that the mc hangs out with Josee is because he pities her which is very a harsh thing to say to anyone ( especially to a disabled person).
  

  

  This portrays how mean, insensitive and fucking rude Mia can be. The audacity of this bitch to say those things to someone who has just lost someone so close to her.
  It's just so fucking rude bro.
  
  The Second and last dialogue between Josee and Mia happens right after the "Protagonist is le sad" scene. Mia once again comes to Josee's house to "secure" her love, telling Josee that she will be keeping the mc to herself by stopping his "silly dream" and she will "win" because she knows more about him than her.
  
  Then she gets absolutely destroyed by Josee who says the MC will never give up and that her feelings are stronger than Mia's feeling could ever be.

  

  After this Mia leaves and starts crying as she goes, because she lost.

  RIP BOZO Mia hahahaa, get fucked bitch.

  10/10 great scene, loved it. Peak storytelling.
  
  
  

  
  

  Tsuneo Suzukawa

  Unlike the other two, I do not have much to talk about with our beloved male lead. He is a nice guy who works hard, is ambitious and likes girls in wheelchairs.
  
  
  

  Josee

  My friend ( @JGamer ) has done a nice review about the movie. In this review, he criticizes Josee for being insensitive and a bad person throughout the story because she does not treat the male lead in the best of ways and ends up being the reason for his accident. These points hold true. I know it may be a bit controversial but I want to look at her a bit deeper and explain why I think she is actually a good character.

  ---

  Being Insensitive

  In 1991, the Japan Council of Independent Living Centres (JIL) was opened and, by 2006, over 130 ILCs (Independent Living Centre) existed in Japan that were associated with JIL. The ILCs offered an independent living program which aimed to build on the social skills, confidence, and attitudes of participants. This provided those with disabilities with essential skills for living in the community that were not offered in segregated schools.

  In 2008, the Law for Employment Promotion, etc. of the Disabled Persons (1960) was revised to ensure that employers would provide equal opportunities to those with disabilities both during the hiring process (article 34) and while they are in employment, including wages, training and welfare (article 35).

  The Elimination of Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities Act was enacted prior to ratifying the CRPD in June 2013 and came into effect in April 2016.

  What the fuck is all this? Why has this reviewer guy put all this info that he copied from Wikipedia here? How does this have anything to do with the review?

  Let me explain, we are gonna look at this in a more realistic way.

  According to the first point ( and other various other events not stated here), Japan started taking disabled people seriously around 1991-1995. Josee would have probably been born in 1996-1998 because she is 24 years old. That means she didn't have the benefits and support that disabled children of today get to experience. Considering she was in a wheelchair from birth, her parents and her must have struggled a lot to cope with the difficulties of life. Here are some screenshots I took from a video explaining the situation of disabled kids in 2021, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JcJaw60-gk ). If the situation is like this in 2021, you can imagine how it would have been like in the 90s or 00s.
  

  

  
  
  Let's us consider point 2 and 3 i.e. Discrimination and employment. In the country India, the caste system was made illegal in 1950 yet the discrimination based on caste was still very prevalent and continues to this day.
  
  Why?
  
  Because this caste system was deeply rooted in Society. Being followed for centuries, ingrained in the minds of children from the time that they were born. It can be quite difficult for society to forget something hardwired into them.

  The History of discrimination against disabled people in japan is really fucked up. The society in Japan believed that "disabled people should be hidden by their families like a shameful secret".

  The 1960s saw an increase in disabled children being separated from their families and placed in residential institutions. At the age of 18, many of these children would be transferred to adult facilities where they would remain until death. Within the residential institutions, many human rights violations took place, including child residents being used as guinea-pigs for their doctors in surgical procedures and numerous incidents of sexual abuse towards female residents

  The government of Japan made discrimination against disabled people illegal in 2016.

  FUCKING 2016

  Considering the history of the country, the discrimination faced by disabled people must be something that I can't even begin to describe in words. Though I can't really blame Japan as many other countries have also have made discrimination against disabled people illegal in around 2010s ( https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/disability-laws-and-acts-by-country-area.html ). In such a situation, I think we all can see that getting a proper job or education would be quite difficult even if there are laws promoting it.

  Discrimination is not the highlight or given much importance in the story due to it's short run time. We only get a few panels to highlight it. Let us consider this panel right at the start of the story after Josee falls on the male lead. The grandmother says that she only takes Josee out for walks during the nights because "the outside world is overrun by wild animals'' and in the previous scene, we know that Josee flew from her wheelchair.
  
  Maybe she was running away from someone?

  
  This illustrates the daily struggles and pain both the grandmother and Josee have to withstand on a day to day basis. Now all the laws and history aside, let's get back to the review.
  ***What do I want to convey with this?***
  Basically that it would be very stupid, unrealistic and unfair to make Josee to be a super-sweet, cute and kind girl from the very beginning. Disabled people have such a hard life living in japan and you can't just ignore the effects of society and people that they have to face. It would be quite distasteful and offensive to the disabled people living there. Yes she can be rude in the beginning but It's not like Josee remains rude throughout the story either, she becomes a kinder and more affectionate person as the story goes on. It's not so black and white. Though Josee is not the perfect character. I believe she is very unique, interesting and a good person. Disabled people around the world have had a special connection to her and this story which is a very beautiful thing because they deserve all the recognition, respect and validation they can get.
  P.S. I know I made the Japanese government and society seem like the bad guys here but it's not like that. I admit that there are many problems that still need to be fixed regarding this situation but the government makes sure to provide disabled people with proper funding and living maintenance. They make sure each company hires a certain number of disabled people, fining them if they don't hire enough and rewarding them if they hire more than the required number of disabled people.

  ---

  #The Accident It's kinda hard to blame Josee alone for this. If nothing, it's the driver's fault for driving at such speeds in heavy rain and not focusing on the road. The mc should have paid attention to the traffic signal and the road ( also Josee's fault too ) . It was just an unfortunate event, stay safe on the roads kids.
  
  #Wings Of Life

  The overall message of the story is that no matter what happens in one's life, as long as one has a fire in their heart ( or wings ) they can absolutely succeed in their goals. (It's similar to Naruto's message) . Josee overcame her fear of the outside world and our male lead giving it his all during his recovery. Beautiful stuff, illustrating that life can throw various shit at you and you can't help it.
  But fuck life.
  Keep your head up and the wings in your heart flapping as long you believe and have faith in yourself, you can fucking crush it KING.

  

  
  

  Conclusion

  Yukichi is a really cute cat.

  

  Thanks for reading my review, I hope you liked it :D

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• 

  LiyuuSix

  90/100
  Because it is amazing, even as a manga only

  Funny enough I got the idea of this review from my friend Gallad, that wrote one of the funniest reviews I've read in a while, and there it is explained why you should also read the manga but here I will try to explain why you should, or could, start directly from the manga because in this manga I saw something that very few times I saw in other works which is hard to put into words.
  I will put my hands ahead and I will say that I especially know what it means to have to do deal with a disabled person, because my dad has been living on a wheelchair since more than 20 years, and this manga was special for this aspect; for how it shows how someone like that can see the world.
  Embrace a sea full of fishes.
  

  ---

  I honestly wish it was longer

  
  To be fair I enjoyed a lot reading the manga and watching the movie only consolidated what were my thoughts.
  I found the story extremely fluid and easy to digest with many great twists and wholesome sections, but there is a thing that caught my interest and it was the massive difference from the first and the second volume.

  The first volume was extremely bright and shiny, it was like watching a wholesome romance slice of life with the nice addition of these two characters that are so different yet complete each other. It was magnificent to see Josee's struggles in the everyday life and it gives an idea of how tough it must've been for her to live such a hard life; on the other hand there was Tsuneo experiencing for the first time her struggles and seeing him defending and helping her really warmed my heart.
  

  Then there is the second volume that completely changes the direction of the manga and goes extremely dark and depressing where everyone is down in terms of emotions and this left in me a big sadness while reading it because you cannot feel the same pace, the same engaging one, of the first volume that kept me smiling all the way to the end of the first volume; however it is not a bad thing if you ask me because the product of this choice brings some incredible final chapters that are written on my heart : the sides got almost completely swapped and Josee grew up a lot in the time and became strong, a lot strong.

  As well I am giving some extra words to the side characters because I felt like they were good enough for the pages left and for what the story was meant to be, especially if I take Mai in consideration because the bozo gave a massive help in continuing the second volume, and as well Josee's grandma was really a one of a kind.

  It took me some time to understand the title of the manga but once that I got it my love for it only increased : Josee is a fish in a vast sea populated by tigers, and the tigers shouldn't be in the sea that belongs to the fish Josee and yet they are there scaring her off.
  And this brings us to the next section of this review.

  ---

  It is insane how someone can show the mentality of an entire group

  
  After reading the manga and watching the movie twice I went to my dad and asked him the very first question that came up in mind : "How do you see yourself? Like do you feel like you are different from the other "normal" people? Do you think it is fair?"

  He replied to me stating that he is different physically, of course, but mentally he is not which comes really obvious from our point of view, why would they ever? However in the manga it is shown differently because Josee gets treated poorly by almost everyone, even Tsuneo, because she needs special help and cannot be like us all.

  "There are many things that I would love to do but I cannot" and here, right here, it's the essence of the work because Josee cannot live as she would love to because she wants to travel, explore, experience and feel new things : she wants to know the taste of the water of the sea, she wants to visit the zoo and she has dreams; but everything is blocked from being forced to live in a condition that forces you to need the help of someone or something else, most of the times, which is mentally devastating. I could also touch how poorly your health degrades but it is not the point but just an extra to show how is this life.

  "But I am sure that we are some of the toughest people on this planet" and nothing else is more true because it takes an insane amount of soul to overcome these things, as well it takes a lot of strength to accept everything. It was interesting and fun to see how Josee behaved with Tsuneo because they are completely different, from body to brain. The second volume of the manga was completely different from the first and a completely grown up Josee, with a greater mental strength, took over her life and managed to reach not every dream but a big one, a massive one, and it's not something that should be ignored.

  In fact, going back to the title, it is appropriate to show the disabled people as fishes and the "normal" ones as tigers because as a normal reaction we are likely to stare at someone like Josee and question us what is going on, who is that person and how did they get in those conditions; and on the disabled's side is is truly devastating to be seen this way and not as a normal person and they feel different, like fish, because the scary normal ones, the tigers, think different of them.
  And it is not fair.

  ---

  To be fair this review is completely different from what I initially expected and even wanted but actually I am really happy with this final result because I managed to speak about the manga itself and also speak about what I think it wants to tell us.
  Very few times I've fallen in love this much with a work and Josee truly conquered my heart.

  Personal scores :
  Story : 8.5/10
  Characters : 10/10
  Arts : 9/10
  Personal enjoyment : 10/10

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• 

  Benkei

  78/100
  Spoiler free review of Jose. Short and sweet, but nothing more.

  ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ Considerations ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ ● __This is a spoiler-free review.__ ● 70+ in my rating means average. ● I've watched the amazing anime adaptation made by bones before, which I greatly recommend. ● A big shout-out to Gallad, who made a very amusing short-review of the manga and actually got me interested in reading it. ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The Story ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ Tsuneo is a college student who works several part-time jobs. His busy life is disrupted when he meets Josee, someone who's stuck in a well-chair and is forced to live most of her life in solitude. Now, both of them are getting to know each other more and discovering how different they are. The story of Josee, the Tiger and the Fish is good. Although it is short (11 chapters), the pacing is comfortable, and things don't feel rushed, even with the good development that the story as a whole has. I think my biggest criticism would be that the story is absurdly predictable. By reading, you kind of have an idea of everything that's going to happen next, and without the artifacts that the movie has, such as the color palette and soundtrack, the manga falls short if compared to the adaptation. ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The Art Style ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The art style is pretty damn good. I wasn't expecting this level of quality, and I was very surprised by the fluidity of the panels; sometimes they look just like frames of an animation, which really gives you the impact of the scene. Every key moment is absurdly well drawn, the shadowing is amazing, and the author uses some flare effects that really suit the manga. (The level of details on the metal parts...) ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ The Characters ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ There are a small number of characters in this manga: Josee, Tsuneo, and a few friends. Side characters serve only to support the main plot, and nothing other than the two main characters is given much attention. As I always like to talk about the main characters, Josee and Tsuneo are good. The average romantic setting has someone who's difficult to handle and someone who's actively trying to be more proactive, but I personally don't care about the overused setting since it works well with this story ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ Conclusion ════ ⋆★⋆ ════ If you're like me, you skip everything and read only the conclusion because you don't want to get spoiled with other themes. So I will try to be brief on this point: Maybe read it. The story is pretty short so it's not like you're going to spend a day reading it. I personally like it, but I can see how others would feel that it's not as good. If you're into drama and romance, that's a good choice.
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