Manga Review: Aku No Hana (Flowers of Evil)

Aku No Hana is not the kind of manga I read every day, or week or even month. I rarely read any drama or school based manga. However I was convinced to give it a chance. So I picked it up and gave it a chance. I can't say whether I'm pleasantly surprised, confused or shocked. One thing that I can say is that I'm entertained.


If you're not familiar with Aku No Hana the story follows Takao Kasuga as he attempts to find himself and true love. This is not a harem. Every girl in this book is crazy. They don't love him, they just use him. There's Nakamura. She's just crazy, there's no way around it. She spends the first half of the series blackmailing Kasuga and forcing him to destroy, vandalize, steal and other criminal acts. She's your run of the mill psyche ward escapee. Next there's Saeki, originally she was a good girl, now she's a rapist. She also shows up in the second half with the sole purpose of driving Kasuga crazy. Lastly Tokiwa, she's not crazy. She's just afraid to tell people she enjoys reading. Those are your key characters. The classmates and parents are forgettable. They're just their for background noise and occasionally forcing the story forward.

The story isn't bad, it's actually pretty good and after the the first half it doesn't rely on fan service to keep the reader interested. The problem is the first half is extremely slow. It could be much faster but there are entire chapters dedicated to just classroom gossip when the characters in that chapter aren't even named.

On the opposite end of the spectrum the last fourth of the story is incredibly rushed. In fact, the last part is so rushed the story finished in the chapter 56, so chapter 57 was just a retelling of the first chapter from Nakamura's point of view. That's not to say it's bad, the story just has some pacing issues and the first part is sometimes too reliant of fan service. I also have no idea what grade these kids are in. Sometimes the translation says high school, sometimes it says middle school. That happens in both halves and there's a time skip between them.

Artistically it's not bad, pretty smooth actually. But there are some points where the drawings seem rushed and not in the usual style. Hair color changes on characters sometimes but it doesn't really matter because they're unnamed. We just know most of them as nameless classmates A B C and the others. There's also no real development with the parents. Kasuga's dad develops a drinking problem and then it's all over in one chapter.

Overall it's not a bad manga. It's a quick read and it's entertaining. There's some parts that are confusing because of new plot points being added. There are some loose ends that aren't tied up. But, if you want a short read with lots of twists and drama, this is for you. A word of advice, this isn't something you want to read in public. You can probably read the second half in public but the first half is entirely too raunchy and you'll get weird stares.

You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He's also playing Pokemon Liquid Crystal on YouTube
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