Youkai Kyoushitsu

Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Supernatural Classroom, Dissolving Series, Youkai Bijo, Youkai Apartment, Chizumi no Koi, Akuma no Kaiken, Daichi no Ko, Dissolving Beauty, Chizumi in Love, Interview with the Devil, The Return, Children of the Earth

Japanese: 溶解教室

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Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 1

Chapters: 7

Status: Finished

Published: Mar 18, 2013 to Oct 1, 2014

Genres: Horror, Supernatural

Demographic: Josei

Serialization: motto!

Authors: Itou, Junji (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 6.90¹ (scored by 12,553 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #10319²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #784

Members: 23,102

Favorites: 171

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Jun 22, 2018

SequentialNel

Mixed Feelings

This was okay. A bit disappointing, but it was some silly fun. Junji Ito tends to have some amazing concepts, but unfortunately this is not one of them. This is essentially a collection of connected short stories, each with a similar premise, and all of the them ending the same way - with melting. The formula got tiresome quickly, but at least it was a fast read and the ending made it all worth it. Art wasn't as creative as Junji Ito normally is. Just lots of melting, and that's it. The characters were pretty memorable though, and now whenever someone apologizes profusely to me, ...

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Aug 9, 2020

anime_watcher151

Recommended

As someone who’s only read 3 works of Junji Itou I really really liked this manga.
Most people were disappointed because it’s not as good as his other works, since I’ve only read 3 of his work I have really almost nothing to compare it to.

Story 8/10:
Most of them were short but good. I wish they were a bit longer or more stories. I was sad when the manga ended.
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Jul 6, 2019

TheMAM

Recommended

According to friends IRL and users on MAL, this book allegedly pales in comparison to Junji Ito's other works. Well, as someone who had this book be their first Junji Ito work, I would make the rather bold statement that this would fit right it with iconic slasher films I grew up with.

What I mean by that is this book is ridiculous. You have cute, creepy-ass kids who have supernatural powers and act in almost cartoonish ways, with gore and imagery that well suits the expectations I had regarding Junji Ito's craft. I love both main characters the same way I loved Chuckie, Freddie, Jason, ...

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Dec 23, 2017

Krugo

Mixed Feelings

This mostly deals with the two siblings detailed in the synopsis. The stories are all connected (aside from the one-shots).

Story, 5: The two one-shots are extremely short, and while they offer mildly interesting premises, they simply didn't have enough time to develop into anything beyond average. The "Dissolving" series was interesting, but I didn't really like any of the chapters until "Interview with the Devil", where everything from the previous chapters comes together (which actually gave a satisfying conclusion).

Art, 7: There are some cool pieces here, namely for fans of biological horror (mostly to do with dissolving). It's solid otherwise as well.

Characters, 5: I thought ...

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Nov 6, 2022

shadow_snox

Recommended

"I'm Yuuma Azawa... And I... AM TERRIBLY SORRY!" -Yuuma Azawa

Dissolving Classroom (Youkai Kyoushitsu) has been the third manga by Junji Ito that I've read. I love how the story kept building up until the final chapter, making the story more suspenseful. The creepiness of the main two characters is something you would see in a horror movie. Also, at the back of the manga, there are two short stories: "The Return" and the "Children of the Earth". I didn't feel that they were necessary but they were interesting nonetheless.

Story: Dissolving Classroom has seven chapters in total. Five are the main story and the other two ...

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Nov 2, 2023

bboy_OatsnRice

Recommended

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I was given this manga. The front depicts a pale boy, and a fiendish looking girl beside him standing in a classroom of what appears to be melted bodies. Being a fan of horror manga, the cover made me even more enticed to start it ASAP. Because even if a horror manga doesn’t manage to make me wet myself, I can always appreciate the art, or sheer absurdity of the story. With that said, was Dissolving Classroom as scary as the cover depicted?

The story is created by Junji Ito, a famous horror mangaka mostly ... known for his series Tomie. A series I’ve yet to read as of writing this, but have heard nothing but great things about. Recognizing the name did make me more excited to see what was in store. So what was in store?

A story involving a brother and sister, both of whom are odd, must keep moving place to place after leaving behind a trail of peculiar instances. The boy, Yuuma, constantly apologizes to everyone on account of his sister causing mischief for everyone they encounter. Though apologizing is actually his way of communicating with the devil. Anyone he apologizes to gets caught between him and the devil in a sea of electromagnetic waves that slowly causes them to melt. When he praises someone’s beauty, he’s actually praising the devil and thus anyone he directs his compliment towards turns more and more hideous. His sister, Chizumi, has a much more sadistic appearance and goes out of her way to torment anyone unlucky enough to cross her path and enjoys devouring the bodies that her brother melts. The manga is an amalgamation of all their misadventures, culminating into one book.

As usual, the art is amazing. Aside from the attention to detail on the deformed victims, melted bodies, or even the normal humans themselves, Ito is able to convey such an uncanny and uncomfortable feeling through the expressions of the character's facial reactions. Sure, I won’t lie, before we see anything gory our first encounter with something out of the ordinary is Chizumi. And I thought she looked hilarious, maybe that was intentional but she did not freak me out in the slightest, at first that is. While her design was nothing too frightening, the way she interacted with others, aside from being an edgelord saying she wants to eat their brains, was off-putting and awkward. Her ugly appearance only enhanced her disturbing nature, which was much scarier than her physical appearance alone.

Though I’d say the same applies to her brother as well. Chizumi is constantly telling the people who they encounter that her brother is a freak who performs these rituals as a way to get closer to the devil. He gets off to both apologizing and complimenting others. He also enjoys bringing his abusive parents from back to the dead to beat him. Disturbing stuff I know, but his normal appearance juxtaposed with what he does behind closed doors makes him more intimidating than his sister. Both siblings constantly point the finger at each other for who’s to blame for all this wicked stuff happening. Yuuma tells people that his sister is possessed by the devil as a punishment for him killing animals as a kid, hence all the terrible happenings surrounding them. While Chizumi tells others that her brother killed animals as a ritual to appease Satan and that he’s the one creating all this madness as a means to get closer with the devil.

And the craziest part about all of this, is that by the end of the story, it’s still unclear who was telling the truth. Though there’s no doubt in my mind that Chizumi is possessed by a demon at the very least, I believe her story over her brothers. Though there’s validity to what he says as well. I think that as a kid he wished death upon his abusive parents so much that he wanted to send them to hell. And what better way to do that than to befriend the devil himself to give him the ability to do so? The devil making a demon possess his sister only makes his apologizing ritual easier to pull off, and whoever’s the demon inside Chizumi gets their payment through eating Yuuma’s victims. The final arc reveals that a detective that was using one of Yuuma’s victims, who managed to survive despite incurring brain damage as a result, to find the truth behind the siblings was, satan all along? Or did Satan just possess him as the siblings attended a press conference? Again, it’s unclear and up to the reader’s interpretation. Mine is that he possessed the detective spontaneously at the end, as Yuuma had performed the ritual enough times to bring Satan as close to him as he could. And the series ends with the author saying that nobody knows what happened to everyone who watched that press conference through their TV’s and that it’s up to the reader to decide what happened.

My only gripe with the series is of no fault of the story itself, but rather the translations. There were times where I had an inkling that something was supposed to be scary or conveyed in a different way than intended. Sometimes the dialogue felt very literal with zero subtly. For example, seeing a panel with text along the lines of, “Yes, I am chizumi and I love to suck brains. Muwahah.” was very common and lacked the same punch that the rest of the page had. Maybe it’s stilted on purpose and that’s just Ito’s unique style of writing. Who knows, but I personally felt it detracted from the horror aspect and made it more comedical at times. Which isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but I’m not sure if that was the intended effect.

Getting this book filled me with joy and confusion, and seeing Junji Ito’s name on it only made my craving for a spooky comic that much more voracious. Did I get what I wanted? Most definitely, I got much more than I expected. The combination of the art, grotesque imagery, and disturbing nature of their situations caught my intrigue and held it long enough that it only took me two sittings to complete. If you’ve yet to read this then please do yourself a favor and read it, especially if you love body horror, and guro.

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Youkai Kyoushitsu
Junji Ito's Dissolving Classroom
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