Here's a confession: I'm not a big reader of manga, including the many that have been made into Japanese films. Given the limited amount of reading time I have left on Earth, I'd rather spend it with Proust than "Gantz." So sue me.

One exception: Tenten Hosokawa's "Tsure ga Utsu ni Narimashite" (literally "Tsure Has Become Depressed") series, of which I devoured volume after volume. Based on the true story of how Hosokawa and her salaryman husband coped with his long bout of depression, the manga was honest and unsparing, but also gently humorous and usefully informative. Unlike the usual misery memoir, it didn't turn its subject into a martyr or hero. Instead it insisted on his human ordinariness, as well as the commonness of his illness. ("Depression," his doctor sagely tells him, "is like a spiritual cold.")

Kiyoshi Sasabe's film adaptation (with the odd English title "My S.O. Has Depression") respects the manga's spirit, while softening its story for the mainstream audience expecting a cute, warm-hearted relationship drama. But Sasabe, who has made other films mixing fact and fiction — such as 2007's "Yunagi no Machi Sakura no Kuni (Yunagi City, Sakura Country)," about Hiroshima atomic bombing survivors, and 2006's "Deguchi no Nai Umi (Sea Without Exit)," about World War II suicide submarine pilots — also describes the not-so-uplifting side of depression, from marital discord to attempted suicide, with unsentimental directness.