Since the thread's dying and I don't really feel like giving it some CPR, I'll end this thread by saying in the time since I was last really active on here until now, I went out of my way to absorb as much literature as I could regarding Sakura. I was initially expecting Coji-Coji to be some shitpost, but no it's actually quite down to earth. Coji-Coji reminds me of Beavis at times, but everything's actually quite level headed and feels like Sakura exploring things she couldn't quite do with her flagship comic (and show).

Her essays are the most enlightening shit, though. I won't go and blab about all of what she's written, but in short she had seen and experienced so many things that, while she wasn't well read and used some really fucking weird metaphors, she could gather a crowd like nothing else. It's worth noting that, technically, Maruko has always been an independent function. She published it through Ribon, yes, but it's always been hands-on with her and her family always having a say. Toriyama had a company, too, but at the end of the day the core heart of Maruko was just one person and a skeleton crew (which included Kodocha's author!).

This is the part where things get sad.

I find her last few entries in her online blog and her last ever Maruko ED to be haunting as fuck, though. Her blog tries to maintain a visage of normalcy but the ED's lyrics that she penned is very obviously that of a swan song. The translation basically says that days are just days but it feels like it never ends sometimes in a bittersweet manner. Chibi Shikaku-chan was a brash parody that she released, and while she always had a penchant for dark humour with what we know now I can't help but think she had some really fucking ugly thoughts as she was penning all three in the span of two years.

She was a great woman. An iron woman, too. She left us too soon.