Ozomashiawasetsunai by Curry Zawa Kaoru - [New Series] Feels! A lot of feels!

Everyone knows what a tag is. It's the guidepost that leads us to piles of treasures.

When you click on the tag of your favorite pairing and find more than 1,000 works, you can't help but feel a sense of achievement. There's also the option of using the "millionaire method" which allows you to start viewing the works based on the number of bookmarks, for example, over 1,000 bookmarks.

On the contrary, when your search results don't even reach two digits, you might want to try a different code for your favorite pairing and explore the "possibilities". For instance, the pairing Cucumber and Radish might not be referred to as Cucurad but Cucudish. And that is how your aimless journey begins.

So while tags can lead you to hope, other times it might lead you to despair.

Tags always increase. They are growing in numbers even as we speak.

Now I know it's only natural that tags always increase because the number of works and characters increases as well. But other tags are also increasing, including those that represent attributes, such as "childhood friend", "younger sister", "Komeri staff", sexual preferences and plays, such as "One-shota (older female/boy)" or "Sigmoid colon stimulation", and the work's atmosphere or endings, such as "sadness" and "bad ending", and finally, the tags created simply because the readers want to, such as "I'm naked and waiting for the sequel".

The first theme is "Ozomashiawasetsunai" (おぞましあわせつない).

The tag represents a lot of feels. A lot.

The tag is clearly an emotionally unstable one for it includes both the words "happy" (shiawase) and "sadness" (setsunai). But when you realize that the tag also includes the word "disgusting" (ozomashii), you will know that the tag is anything but calming.

So I looked up the meaning of the tag Ozomashiawasetsunai on pixiv Encyclopedia.

It is rare for a tag to have such a brief description.

But what's important here is the sentence that follows. It says, "Caution: Due to the nature of this tag, your search results might contain age-restricted (R-18 and R-18G) works."

This isn't a tag that I can take lightly because I'm the kind of person with minus 2 trillion IQ who usually reads age-restricted novels based on the number of bookmarks and not words.

However, knowing that I wouldn't be able to understand what the tag Ozomashiawasetsunai is about without looking into it, I decided to search for the illustrations tagged with Ozomashiawasetsunai.

First of all, there are more original works in the search results than derivative works.

Also, most of the characters that appear are non-human, for instance, devils, witches, and yokai.

Most of the works feature deformed characters as well as depictions of death and violence, so we can assume this is where the "disgusting" part of the tag comes from.

And then, there are many stories in which those strange beings interact with humans and foster friendships or romantic relationships. But because the characters belong to different races, the works make the readers imagine that the characters will go through hardships and finally a farewell--this is what the "sad" part of the tag refers to.

After coming this far and feeling so gloomy, you might think you will be tempted to browse for age-restricted contents of your favorite pairing, namely the works tagged with "All they do is flirting", to cheer yourself up. But no.

The tag doesn't contain the word "happiness" for nothing.

However, unlike most people's definition of "happiness", the characters in this tag earn their happiness by eloping or sacrificing something. So in this sense, the process to achieve happiness may wind up emphasizing the "sad" part of the tag.

Either way, I recommend this tag for people who want to find works that will make their heart clench without experiencing too much angst instead of works that depict bad endings that will leave a sour taste.

There are a few derivative manga and illustrations that use this tag. After a brief observation, I did spot derivative works of Pokémon, Kitaro, Dragon Ball, and more.

I was surprised because I thought the aforementioned works wouldn't go well with this tag, which is more of a tag for experts, but those works indeed feature many non-human (appearance wise as well) characters. In that sense, those works might be a good match for this tag.

Still, at first, I was shocked to see Pokémon on the top of my search results when I browsed for novels using the Ozomashiawasetsunai tag.

What's interesting about the Ozomashiawasetsunai tag is that most of the manga are original works, but most of the novels are derivative works. The contribution of literature is so palpable here.

Also, as I said at the beginning, Ozomashiawasetsunai is a tag that takes you on a huge feels trip hence why it requires skills to use the tag. As a result, many of the works under this tag are created by people who are generally skilled at creating stories.

If you're thinking of creating something that will tug at people's heartstrings, using this tag as a reference might be a good idea.

Then again, some works in the search results are so good that you might lose your confidence because you realize you can't come up with such brilliant ideas.

That happened to me. I won't search this tag ever again. I will stick to browsing age-restricted contents of my favorite pairing today, too!