Nande Ikiteru ka Wakaranai Hito Izumi Sumi 25-sai

Sinking away into her thoughts, while laying around doing little to nothing, she starts pondering her existence more and more. And so, a relatable story takes form.

It centers around the daily life of Izumi Sumi, a self-loathing, bored 25-year-old woman who keeps thinking about why she is alive. She feels like she doesn’t do much, and there is nothing really happening in her life, resulting in an endless spiral of boredom. Aside from that, she’s constantly worrying that she isn’t doing things right. Often she realizes that she is distancing herself from others out of a sense of anxiety, and then blames this on herself. When looking back on something that just happened, she is momentarily plagued by feelings of regret and self-doubt, realizing her way of doing things and why she did them.

Yes, a lot of these situations she is in, can be quite recognizable.

Though admittedly, the manga is focussing fully on this, leaving little room for other things. Still, it is clear things are being fleshed out little by little in a slice-of-life manner. Every chapter introduces a new bit of concept that relates to her overall theme. And with that, I began feeling more familiar with the main girl.

The chapters are short, making them easy to read through. As for the artstyle, it’s clean and simple, adding to its readability, but it also manages to bring out Sumi’s emotions and thoughts well. Sumi herself has a nice design, kinda cute, but gloomy still.

I have to note that there are some moments of diegetic fanservice, or fanservice that fits the context of the scenes. Because of course, when you walk around in your house most of the time, there is bound to be one or two underwear or bath scenes. Moreover, in one chapter, the MC gets a call from a cute, attractive co-worker, who lays on bed in underwear, highlighting the contrast between the two.

Overall, this manga provides an interesting concept that could probably only be provided this way in manga. The anxiety is presented with more nuance than it might be otherwise. It’s not overly dark or tragic or such, more melancholic. Going fully for its relatable concepts, there will be quite a lot of readers out there who will be hit by them. I personally found it a nice read, while also recognizing the bits of Sumi’s daily life and struggles.

Early adult deals with avoidant depressive personality.

The initial chapters are simple personal vignettes of depressive episodes reminiscent of Watamote, but without much for deprecating cringe comedy, and focusing more on self-conceited introspection. These are done well enough if you look for something to identify with, but where the story begins to shine is past chapter 9 after adding to the cast. You get multiple views on experiencing avoidant anxiety, introversion and loneliness, with models to fight these issues. Though told overly simply, it's a pleasant and well-done surprise.

The artwork is competent, though it lacks a little in character design and distinguished art-style. Some panels can feel muddy, while the more important emotional scenes could do with more inventiveness. For what it is, it doesn't get in the way. That said, it seems to try for some moe appeal, but ends up too stale. Softcore half-nudity can add intimacy, but some choices get hard to interpret without cynicism.

It's a good healing story, sweet and short, exactly as it needs to be.

This is what real anxiety looks like. 25-Year Old Izumi Sumi Doesn't Know Why She Lives is an excellent look into the realities of living with anxiety/depression and covers some existential crisis of wondering "why do I even exist?" The manga starts off gloomily introducing our protagonist and titular character Izumi Sumi, at first I was personally worried this would just be a cheap sob story, if you feel the same way, don't stop reading, it's actually much better.

The story is overall a very simple look into the life of living with anxieties. It deals with this well and includes harsh realities and reflections on many events and covers many sides of the topic.

The art style was great and fitting and memorable.

Characters is where Izumi Sumi really stands out, it's a deep analysis of the main character dealing with every day life, covering her backstory and other character's backstories as well. It's something to be experienced and important we remember these feelings exist and to help people experiencing them as ignorance of these topics causes more anxieties in these people experiencing them.

Overall this was an outstanding manga in terms of enjoyment. It is extremely important to take the feelings shown in this manga to heart and to make the world the better for it. Definitely give this manga a try.

She Doesn't Know Why She Lives is a short story following Sumi Izumi, a 25 year old part timer struggling with anxieties over the uncertainty, and seeming unsuccessful life she has come to live in. Originally I started reading this manga expecting to drop it, but was surprised by how much it was able to suck me in and make me care for Sumi and her coworkers over the course of its 28 chapters.

=Story 6/10=
The story is simple, following how Sumi deals with various day to day interactions. Most of the time Sumi struggles to follow through with even everyday activities, such as cleaning or preparing food. While it may be frustrating to read at first, it quickly becomes charming and even relatable seeing how she deals with everyday life. Almost every panel features thought-bubbles that convey to the reader how Sumi is processing the situation; These range from being funny to depressingly relatable.

=Art 7/10=
I found the art to be a fun highlight of this manga. There was nothing astoundingly amazing, but every panel was drawn with purpose and attention to express Sumi as a character.
Every character’s eyes are drawn large, and stylized depending on the character’s traits (For example, Sumi having tired bags underneath her eyes). Special attention has also been paid to background items, the end of chapters often featuring a more detailed picture of one of Sumi’s personal items, or something she enjoys. The backgrounds are also pleasant to look at, and not noticeably jarring compared to the rest of the art.

=Character 7/10=
There are 3 characters prominently featured: Sumi, her coworker, and her manager, as well as a handful of side characters. Given that the manga is only 28 chapters long most of the side characters only served to characterize the main 3. I wouldn’t say this is a negative however. Since the focus is on Sumi, departures with side characters are not often, and help to improve the readers insight of the interactions between the main 3. As mentioned in the previous category, objects are also used to provide further insight into Sumi - the end of chapter pictures also featuring a blurb explaining the relevance of the item to her.
I was able to enjoy the main characters a lot, as I found elements of all of them to be or have been relatable throughout my life. The use of side characters and objects to characterize Sumi and her coworkers was surprisingly effective, tugging at my heart strings and making me care about them in a short amount of time.

=Enjoyment 9/10=
As someone who has been in situations where I felt or did exactly as Sumi did, my enjoyment of the manga was high. It plays off of common anxieties in life in a unique way to capture your heart and make you care for the cast. The art and characters further serve to amplify that, everything flowing nicely together to suck you in even if it is lacking in punch story-wise.

Overall, I found the manga to be quite a pleasant read. I would recommend it to anyone in a similar age bracket to Sumi (late teens, twenties). It blends its elements well to hit all the right feelings, whether they be comical, sad, or bittersweet.

8/10.

It leaves as quickly as it comes. For a quick summary spoiler free; it's worth a read as it's a very quick 28 chapters, decent art, and the start is very strong.

Spoilers below:

28 chapters sure flies by quick, especially when it pulls you in so well at the start. I was excited since the beginning truly shows what raw anxiety, stagnation, and a bit of depression can do to a person. A spiral of insanity as we peered into the mind of someone at the edge of humanity in SOL format is what I was hoping for. Instead we are given a rather lovey-dovey feel good ending, where the light is shown at the end of the tunnel within a mere 28 chapters! The artstyle is cute, light, while also being deary (a good thing!) sometimes. Eyes are what set characters apart alot of times.

My biggest gripe is the coincidences that act as saviors for the MC. Oh a coworker wants to be friends, oh shes extremely nice, oh shes desperate to be friends, oh she's also lonely and thinks the same as the MC, oh every time a misunderstanding could happen its cleared up through eavesdropping, oh the manager is also kind, ETC ETC. It stops the story from having any real meaning. In real life these are extraordinary situations, usually those who fall down in the way the MC has do not get free rides like this. In some ways it reminds me of Welcome to the NHK, a depressed and lonly MC meets friends and encounters situations. A key exception with that comparison is that the unrealistic friends and situations in NHK turned out to be just as broken or awful as the MC of NHK himself. This turned the friends from a savior, to a more nuanced look how broken people generally meet and befriend other broken people.

The characters of this manga (only two worth mentioning really) themselves are well done, especially the MC who carries the manga start to finish. Certainly the author must have some first hand experience in the kind of troubles that come to those with anxiety.The friend is fine in her personality, but her circumstance and relationship (story related really) to the MC are questionable.

It's cute, its quick, its depressing, its lighthearted. You get alot for28 chapters. 6/10: slightly above average, if the story was tad stronger then a 7/10 for sure.