Why do you think they've done this? To make all the grown ups, and some of the children more "exaggerated" or hyperbolic in total in the earlier arcs? There are no wrong answers imo, but.. If i were to come up with a reason, it'd be for 2 reasons. first, the world is a strange place for a child, and a bizarre one. that parents do these weird rituals that we don't understand until much later mixed with not understanding WHY people do what they do - while the second reason being that it comes off creepy (at least to me) and foreboding as these harsh, exaggerated actions about these adults having mental breakdowns, which seem so melodramatic - as a kid would view it.
what do you guys think? I'm looking for a nuanced discussion with y'all - i haven't engaged with this community much, but.. I'm hoping for it to be a calm rational discussion (for such a manga that can have many perspectives), even if that's a hail Mary lol.
Personally I think the reason it was designed that way was a mix of all of that. A child would see these things that adults do as strange or weird, especially Punpun as most of the adults in his life are exceptionally extreme. As a little innocent bird, he'd be able to spot the difference between what he labelled weird (which were really just adults suffering through their own life) and himself. He kinda had this barrier of it between the rest of the world and himself and his friends. An us vs. the world mentality. But really it shifted throughout his life, and the older he got there wasn't any less depravity in the world around him, there was just more depravity in himself. We saw him going through more and more struggle, having more and more lashouts, and conclusively becoming the monster he thought his life molded him to be.
In all, I think it's a decision on the author's part to make the adults act more obviously weird in the beginning, so that there is more meaning when he later blurs that line and taints the group with depravity.
But I could also be all wrong and bullshitting this lmao
nah, i think that's perfectly valid and i agree. it's almost like a shift from the adults acting ludicrous to him doing so himself, i hadn't thought about that.