The Flowers of Evil (惡の華) is a psychological romance manga by Oshimi Shuzo. The manga was originally published between 2009 and 2014 and has been compiled into 11 tankoubon. For a more detailed review of this story I have broken it down into two parts. Part 1 covers tankoubon 1 through 6. Part 2 covers tankoubon 7 through 11.
Kasuga Takao is a bit of a loner in school. He spends much of his free time reading and obsessing over obscure poetry and literature. His favorite book is a poem collection by French surrealist author Charles Baudelaire called 'Flowers of Evil'. Like all middle school boys he has a crush on the prettiest girl in his class, Saeki Nanako. One day he goes back to school to retrieve his book and Saeki's gym bag falls to the floor, her gym clothes spilling out. Kasuga, drawn to it uncontrollably, picks them up, smelling them, taking in her fragrance. He becomes spooked and flees the school with her clothes under his shirt.
The following day the class is in an uproar about the pervert lurking in their halls who stole Saeki's clothing. Originally intending to return them secretly he is now paralyzed with fear of social ostracism and the inevitable hatred from his crush. On his was home that day he runs into a classmate who is more of an outcast than he, Nakamura Sawa. Nakamura performs poorly and has a nasty attitude towards both peer and staff. She stops Kasuga and tells him that she saw everything he did with Saeki's gym clothes.
Nakamura uses this to blackmail Kasuga into doing whatever she wants him to do, always holding the fact that he has Saeki's gym clothes with him over his head. As the parasitic relationship grows so does Kasuga's mental anguish. His psychosis is exacerbated when Saeki begins to warm up to him and they go on a date. Nakamura decides to play along and assist the two, but Kasuga can't figure out if she is working to sabotage his relationship or not. The anguish and torture push him further and Nakamura uses this to begin committing brazen acts of vandalism and social protest with him.
Can Nakamura gain any control over himself and will he be able to break away from Kasuga's influence or will he embrace it and sacrifice his relationship with Saeki and normalcy?
This story is entirely character driven and focuses almost exclusively on Nakamura, Kasuga and to some extent Saeki. Other characters are shown but they provide little in the way of influence on the plot as it evolves. What started as an innocent enough event evolved to something out of control because of Nakamura's influence. She dangles Kasuga's guilt over his head and forces him to enter her world, a world filled with hatred, fear and confusion. Nakamura views herself as someone capable of seeing through the veil or the world around her. She struggles to break through that veil to what she thinks will be satisfaction and truth. She see's a compatriot in Kasuga and forces him to help her to destroy normalcy and pursue a different path. She recognizes that they are perverse in wanting to abandon societies standards and feel's that the only way to become free of normalcy is through extreme actions.
Kasuga works hard to be different and above his peer's. He also see's hope and excitement with Nakamura, even if their relationship is abusive and destructive. When all of the odds stack in his favor and his wins the hand of the girl he yearns for he can't keep away from the allure of Nakamura's abnormality. Nakamura revels in the dark places, but Kasuga isn't strong enough to withstand the pending social rejection and personality destruction that Nakamura seeks. It soon develops into a case of Stockholm Syndrome and Kasuga attempts to impress his captor with increasing extremism.
Saeki on the other hand is the model student, the admired peer. She is drawn to Kasuga's difference and intensity. But she struggles with jealousy over his attention to Nakamura, not understanding why she controls him the way she does. As she begins to learn their secrets she begins to yearn for changing her reality as well, but she is unable to commit as deeply as them.
The characters, in their own way and as a group, explore and face the challenges of adolescence and understanding their place in society. They do it through extreme view points and actions, trying to establish their own version of order and acceptance, pushing at what is deemed appropriate and what is not, trying to gain ground on an ethos they see as being more correct. It is a fight that everyone goes through to some degree as they enter adulthood. Not everyone is able to escape the world they build as they transition into full members of society.
This is a very tense story and the characters are well established over its course. The writing and characters are quite realistic and the artwork is subtle. The backgrounds are well detailed, much of it based on the town the author grew up in. The characters themselves are simple but effective and realistic in their depiction, no big eyes small mouths here. At times you have to slow down while reading this story to really absorb the atmosphere in the artwork instead of pushing fast through the dialogue.
The conclusion of the story and the review will be in Part 2. Though there will be some spoilers in that review.
Kasuga Takao is a bit of a loner in school. He spends much of his free time reading and obsessing over obscure poetry and literature. His favorite book is a poem collection by French surrealist author Charles Baudelaire called 'Flowers of Evil'. Like all middle school boys he has a crush on the prettiest girl in his class, Saeki Nanako. One day he goes back to school to retrieve his book and Saeki's gym bag falls to the floor, her gym clothes spilling out. Kasuga, drawn to it uncontrollably, picks them up, smelling them, taking in her fragrance. He becomes spooked and flees the school with her clothes under his shirt.
The following day the class is in an uproar about the pervert lurking in their halls who stole Saeki's clothing. Originally intending to return them secretly he is now paralyzed with fear of social ostracism and the inevitable hatred from his crush. On his was home that day he runs into a classmate who is more of an outcast than he, Nakamura Sawa. Nakamura performs poorly and has a nasty attitude towards both peer and staff. She stops Kasuga and tells him that she saw everything he did with Saeki's gym clothes.
Nakamura uses this to blackmail Kasuga into doing whatever she wants him to do, always holding the fact that he has Saeki's gym clothes with him over his head. As the parasitic relationship grows so does Kasuga's mental anguish. His psychosis is exacerbated when Saeki begins to warm up to him and they go on a date. Nakamura decides to play along and assist the two, but Kasuga can't figure out if she is working to sabotage his relationship or not. The anguish and torture push him further and Nakamura uses this to begin committing brazen acts of vandalism and social protest with him.
Can Nakamura gain any control over himself and will he be able to break away from Kasuga's influence or will he embrace it and sacrifice his relationship with Saeki and normalcy?
This story is entirely character driven and focuses almost exclusively on Nakamura, Kasuga and to some extent Saeki. Other characters are shown but they provide little in the way of influence on the plot as it evolves. What started as an innocent enough event evolved to something out of control because of Nakamura's influence. She dangles Kasuga's guilt over his head and forces him to enter her world, a world filled with hatred, fear and confusion. Nakamura views herself as someone capable of seeing through the veil or the world around her. She struggles to break through that veil to what she thinks will be satisfaction and truth. She see's a compatriot in Kasuga and forces him to help her to destroy normalcy and pursue a different path. She recognizes that they are perverse in wanting to abandon societies standards and feel's that the only way to become free of normalcy is through extreme actions.
Kasuga works hard to be different and above his peer's. He also see's hope and excitement with Nakamura, even if their relationship is abusive and destructive. When all of the odds stack in his favor and his wins the hand of the girl he yearns for he can't keep away from the allure of Nakamura's abnormality. Nakamura revels in the dark places, but Kasuga isn't strong enough to withstand the pending social rejection and personality destruction that Nakamura seeks. It soon develops into a case of Stockholm Syndrome and Kasuga attempts to impress his captor with increasing extremism.
Saeki on the other hand is the model student, the admired peer. She is drawn to Kasuga's difference and intensity. But she struggles with jealousy over his attention to Nakamura, not understanding why she controls him the way she does. As she begins to learn their secrets she begins to yearn for changing her reality as well, but she is unable to commit as deeply as them.
The characters, in their own way and as a group, explore and face the challenges of adolescence and understanding their place in society. They do it through extreme view points and actions, trying to establish their own version of order and acceptance, pushing at what is deemed appropriate and what is not, trying to gain ground on an ethos they see as being more correct. It is a fight that everyone goes through to some degree as they enter adulthood. Not everyone is able to escape the world they build as they transition into full members of society.
This is a very tense story and the characters are well established over its course. The writing and characters are quite realistic and the artwork is subtle. The backgrounds are well detailed, much of it based on the town the author grew up in. The characters themselves are simple but effective and realistic in their depiction, no big eyes small mouths here. At times you have to slow down while reading this story to really absorb the atmosphere in the artwork instead of pushing fast through the dialogue.
The conclusion of the story and the review will be in Part 2. Though there will be some spoilers in that review.
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