Blue Spring (2004)

Taiyo Matsumoto's seven stories about the delinquents of one rundown high school are the bleakest youth stories here, and the most inventive on the page. Boys skip class, fight and play a dangerous game on the school roof, and Matsumoto's jump cuts, daydreams and split-screen panels make their boredom feel urgent; one sequence cuts between a baseball game and a mahjong game until the two share a single rhythm. The scratchy black-and-white art is deliberately ugly and will not suit everyone. Read it alongside What a Wonderful World! for two very different takes on young people drifting.