Reading this was a good way to start the new year. The Golden Sheep is a three volume series that follows Tsugu as she returns to her childhood town after her parents get divorced. She is excited to reunite with her three childhood friends and get back to their previous closeness. However, while she’s been away dynamics have shifted and her reappearance riles things up. Tsugu expects things to have remained the same, but the friendship between the two boys (Yuushin and Sora) has turned into a violent bullying situation, with Yuushin regularly beating up Sora and threatening his dog’s life. Tsugu’s previous best friend, Asari, is jealous of the attention that Yuushin is giving Tsugu and views her as new competition for his affection. Asari starts leading a secret bullying campaign of the other girls against Tsugu, whose blithe confidence in the face of this whole mess starts to get shaken. The series as a whole explores the themes of social pressure, the consequences of bullying, and how friendships can change and be mended to be something different and new.
The art here is pretty perfect, providing a cute contrast to the seriousness of the subject matter. Ozaki has a very clean line that I really like. The arc of the story works well and is overall satisfying, with everything wrapped up neatly. Personally, I don’t think I would have the same capacity for forgiveness that Sora does, but it made sense for his character and the complexity of the social dynamics. I also thought that Yuushin’s behavior as a whole gets forgiven a little too easily by the narrative, especially his attempted sexual assault of Asari. He has a lot of complicated motivations, but his emotional switch from that scene and his extremely cruel treatment of Sora to being nice again was jarring. But overall, I really enjoyed this and will keep it for the collection.
Warnings for: depiction of attempted suicide, threatened animal abuse, bullying (physical and emotional), blood, attempted sexual assault, teacher having sex with a student.