Buddha Boy Analysis

Kathe Koja’s novella Buddha Boy, intends to teach youth about their influence on others, as well as the power of friendship. The narrator Justin, is greeted by Rucher High School’s newest addition Jinsen, who is initially perceived as different, strange, and very “out-there.” Later on, Justin recognizes Jinsen as a talented artist, and a highly valued friend, and despite Jinsen’s peaceful wishes, want to push back and battle the bullies that Jinsen faces daily. Throughout the entirety of the story, Kathe Koja paints a stereotypical and overdone point of view on high school popularity, the concept of karma, and their effects on an unlikely friendship. Initially, the book establishes a generic and, quite frankly, mind-numbing character design for the popular

Where the classic concept goes, so does the story, for example, “Megan gave me a glare you could have used to cut metal, don’t talk to the weirdo because people were staring at us now, staring and snickering” (7). Megan, this book’s girl-next-door equivalent character, is afraid to break through societal norms, where people of two different social classes become friends, and warns the heroic (and, in this case, uncaring) Justin not to stray from the safety of the path she has taken. Justin takes interest in the so-called weirdo, and the unlikely friendship is born again. This is not the only place where the story resembles others of the same type, as is proven by the authors words, “McManus did this and you let him! You fucking let him, day after day after day! But not anymore! Not anymore!” (109). This plays directly into another side of the same concept, in which the more “socially acceptable” of the two in this friendship aggressively defends the other, even when the motive is unwanted, as in this instance, where Jinsen does not want to do anything, and does not let Justin fight