This is a manga about how meaningless

This, Camus argues, is what we must likewise do in order to reach a state of contentment or happiness. That is, we must recognize the absurdity of our predicament as meaning-making creatures in a meaningless universe in order to reach a place of acceptance of this condition and to be okay with living out the day-to-day details of our existences. Camus concludes the essay by suggesting that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy,” indicating that meditating upon a happy Sisyphus can be instructive in realizing how to be content with one’s own life.

And this phenomenon of empty-accolade-pursuit extends far beyond video games. Just look at people who clearly try very hard to get 100+ ‘likes’ on their latest, uber-happy-seeming profile pic, or people who seek prestige and recognition while working for an unethical corporation, or people whose sole, underlying goal is just to accumulate as much money as possible to show everyone else how awesome and successful they are. To some extent, most all of us are enticed by the idea of being recognized for our efforts, even if our efforts are ultimately meaningless. And Existential Comics is poking fun at that tendency.

The other thing I mentioned that I like about the comic is that it suggests something about how to control people. The comic suggests that if you just dangle a sufficiently shiny carrot before someone’s eyes, they’ll be happy to do whatever you want. If you show someone how good a few ‘likes’ on Facebook feel, they’ll get on Facebook all the time and take hundreds of selfies to try to get the perfect profile pic for a 100-‘likes’ serotonin explosion. And if you present people with a prefabricated dream of a life of HDTVs, luxury automobiles, excessive cash, mansions, and beautiful people all around, they’ll be prepared to perform the most meaningless of labor in order to attain that vision. These dangling-carrot tricks arguably play a significant role in how modern societies compel millions of people to work long hours at dull, menial jobs to fuel the ever-growing global economy.

In the video is again the explanation of how to read manga. (Warning: Video is loud.) Jump to 0:35 to get right to the explanation. This video give a brief over view of manga. It gives keys points on how to read manga.

No matter how good you are at reading people, if you don’t want to see or acknowledge something, you won’t (and yes, that is actually a thing). Whatever it was, Shigure’s behavior towards Akito definitely starts changing for the better after this. I don’t think his intention was ever simply to cause Akito suffering – he wanted to break the curse, which he knew would case her pain (and by his theory, would REQUIRE a lot of pain all around), but it was all really in service of his own happiness. He didn’t care how Akito (or anyone else) felt as long as he could have her all to himself, which he thought would make him happy. For him, letting go of the Curse isn’t so much about finding another love as finally considering what’s best for HER for once in his life.