Aku no Hana

Zexcs has probably done the most bold thing of the season by animating Shuuzou Oshimis manga, Aku no Hana.

Apparently the manga was quite popular in advance and many people were looking forward to the adaptation. Yet after the first episode an uproar of many angry fans has shaken the industry. People were pissed and the show suddenly went to the lowest rated TV series on MAL.

I on the other hand finished the episode and it left quite a good impression on me. After I went to the forums I saw the gigantic flame war and was confused. Why are people so mad?

The answer lies in ... rotoscoping. A technique, were you take live action footage and draw over it so it looks like an animated show. Shows like Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, or Mind Game all use this Technique, as well as many other shows.

Without questioning whether it is good or bad, I ask a different question. If Aku no Hana is based on live action footage with real actors, can it be considered an anime? I think yes, though it is in this weird middle ground between live action drama and anime.

Disregarding whether or not it is an anime, I ask a second question, is it good?


Story
________________________________________

Aku no Hana takes place in a small town in the middle of nowhere in japan. Takao Kasuga is a middle school student who is interested in literature, especially into Baudelaire’s work, Aku no Hana.
He is also in love with one of his class mates, Nanako Saeki, who is his “muse” and source of inspiration.

One day he forgets his book in class and picks It up after everyone left, as he spots Saekis gym cloths and steals it on impulse. He feels guilt and shame and tries to bring it back but the antisocial loner, Sawa Nakamura saw him steal the gym clothing and now controls his life, trying to turn him into a deviant.

Though it is set in a normal middle school it takes a more dark approach than most other school based anime, and right from the start focuses on drama and tension instead of romance and comedy. It’s interesting and comparatively unique as a school anime and quite fresh especially in light of all the more cute and fun shows that normally air.

The show is extremely slow paced. I haven’t read the manga but many people complained it covers only a little of it so I guess it is much slower than the manga version.

Yet I have no problem with the slow pacing as it creates immense atmosphere you don’t see that often anymore. There are sometimes scenes of people walking or just background lasting several minutes with very minimalistic ambient music in the background. It’s quite daring to do this, in nowadays more fast paced oriented anime world and I liked it quite a bit. It reminded me of some scenes in Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze and Neon Genesis Evangelion.

If you are not a fan of slow pacing though I think you will not like it for that.

The Events and interactions are all quite simple though, you have Kasuga being controlled by Nakamura the entire time. They mostly talk and sometimes do things. It revolves mostly just around the 3 main characters and side characters just spice it up, but are never directly involved in the events.
Though it’s not super interesting. The things that happen revolve around normal first love/dating events plus Nakamuras devilish twists to those. It gives the overall story a good amount of tension and you always wonder “how in the world will this end well?”.

Speaking of how it will end well. The things that happened were also quite realistic, nothing internally destroyed the logic of the show, though you sometimes asked yourself how stupid Kasuga is, yet everything that happens makes sense within the personalities and world. There are no visible plotholes or desu ex machina, consequences are real, though not always as you expect them to be.

Sadly the show ends in a preview for a possible second season. I will most likely watch it when it comes out because it picks up where the buildup left.


Characters
________________________________________

Aku no Hana had some of the most realistic written characters I’ve ever seen in an anime. Maybe it comes from the fact they were actors, but it’s also the things they say, the way they react and the world around them. There are no silly school archetypes, no moe girl, no tsundere, no slapstick or fanservice as in other shows that revolve around school.

Takao Kasuga, is somewhat an outsider. He thinks of himself as better than others, though is introverted. He has a massive sense of righteousness and romanticizes not only Saeki but also his literature and the fact that he feels so different.

Yet he is easy to manipulate, emotionally unstable and is drawn to the wrong decisions. No really he is that guy in a horror movie who opens the door to the monster and gets killed and you are screaming “NO NO NOT THAT DOOR YOU IDIOT WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU GONNA GET KILLED!”.

It was pretty frustrating to watch him stumble from one bad decision to the next, especially when Nakamura takes over his life and he is to weak minded to fight back. There are several occasions he could have gotten out of the mess he was in. Burry Saekis clothing in the ground, throw them in a river, burn them down. But he never did. He only once tried to get rid of them but was too hysterical to do so.

His naïve sense of right and wrong is also extremely annoying but at the same time interesting. He is insecure and has a low self-esteem but hides behind his supposed intellectualism and books.

Sawa Nakamura is the crazy girl from Takaos class. She is offensive, insulting and acts how she likes. She is manipulative and overall I would call her a true sociopath. She is not intelligent but very charismatic. She was just as unlikable as Takao though. I hated her and her attitude and emotional instability. If I was Takao I would not have given her any attention and probably blamed the stolen underwear on her.

Yet she is one of the more interesting characters in anime history. Her evil nature and playful destructive behavior is sometimes quite entertaining. She also is the driving force for all the drama in the show, as she puts Takao into worse situations the more they spend time together.

My biggest problem though is that is never explained why she is such a “crazy bitch”. She comes from a relatively normal household, grew up without a mother and just her father who seems like a nice guy as well as her grandmother who also is very nice. It kinda feels sketchy and she is just crazy so the story has a crazy person.

You know Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki, she was also insane, but at least it was explained why she was insane, while Nakamura is apparently just insane.

Saeki is the class’ most popular girl. Kasuga loves her but at first he is invisible for him. Later when he stands up for Nakamura she adores his brave protection of her and seeks him out. Her character is also hard to understand. She later finds out about what Kasuga did but still likes him nonetheless.

Apparently she hates her sheltered perfect life and sees Kasuga as an interesting boy. Also she explains how she never had any male friends before and Kasuga seems to be the first interesting male she came into contact with.
The rest of the side characters are just extra and I don’t feel the need to go into them as they are almost unimportant for anything that happens.

Overall the main characters of Aku no Hana are very realistic and have a deep intertwined relationship. From this the entire plot and drama derives and makes the show interesting. Even though none of them is likable (at least for me) but their characters are interesting enough to watch.


Art and Animation
________________________________________

I will try to make it brief.
I liked the artstyle of Aku no Hana. The rotoscope was special and different. We might argue about the quality of it and how it makes the show less of an anime and how the characters are not cute and all.

But fact is, if Aku no Hana would have had a traditional artstyle with traditional character designs like those in the manga, it would have been less interesting as it is now. It’s good that a season has a black sheep that goes against the norm so it doesn’t stagnate and becomes the same shit we’ve seen a million times before. And I reward differentness.

Also the backgrounds are fucking beautiful looking. They are highly detailed (probably because they are based on real life) and add to the immersion and atmosphere.

The sometimes used evil flowers also add to the slightly surreal nature of the show and were a great addition effect wise.

In the end I enjoyed the art of Aku no Hana as it was something that I don’t see often and it made the show more interesting. Sure it doesn’t look perfect and beautiful like other school anime do, but it fits the more mature and dark tone of the show much better.


Sound
________________________________________

I can’t really call it voiceacting in Aku no Hana as they actually had their own voice. So I will just call it acting.

And it was great. The actors did a fantastic job, they had a great variety of emotions and gave the personalities of their characters great impact.
The openings were all pretty weird and had this ironic tone. They didn’t fit music wise but lyrics wise and I think it was intentional. I couldn’t like them but give credit for their dementia feel.

The ending song on the other hand is great. I don’t know what the song is called right now but you can find it and give it a listen, it’s very avant-garde and the first time this song kicked in in the first episode I was almost blown away. Definitely my favorite song of the season.

The rest of the soundtrack was also great. It was mostly atmospheric ambient. Some might find it boring but it hit my nerve and I will get my hands on it soon. It makes the show much more gloomy and atmospheric and helps the dark themes.


Enjoyment
________________________________________

It’s hard to say how much I enjoyed Aku no Hana. It was a very exhausting show to watch. The tension and stupidity of the characters made me cringe but also look for more. As I said about Kasuga it was like watching a horror movie in which the characters always did the wrong things. It pisses you off but you want to see how it all ends.
Overall though I think it is one of the best show of the season and that’s thanks to the fact of how daring it is.

Scores
________________________________________

Art and Animation 6/10

Artstyle +1 (rotoscope is different and special)
Quality -1 (the execution was pretty bad though)
Background +1 (Fantastic backgrounds)
Character Designs 0 (They are real humans what do you expect them too be designed after?)
Visual Effects 0 (sometimes the flowers of evil but rarely used)

Sound 7/10

Voice Acting +1 (for overall good acting)
Opening and Ending 0(the ending was great, the openings weird)
Soundtrack +1 (Gloomy and Atmospheric)
Sound Effects 0 (Nothing notable)

Story or Content 4/10

Premise and Setting 0 (It's still just a school drama...)
Pacing 0 (Slow but increased the feeling of dread)
Complexity 0 (simple story, simple world, interesting themes though!)
Plausibility 0 (internally coherent but will make you facepalm at how stupid the MC is)
Conclusion -1 (no real end...)

Characters 7/10

Personality +1 (some of the most realistic and excentric people you've ever seen in an anime)
Behavior and Chemistry +1 (Kasuga and Nakamura create great tension)
Development and Progression +1 (Kasuga slowly becomes a worse human being and removes his sense of righteousness)
Motivation and Backdrop 0 (not everything was well explained, though the motivations are not out of no where)
Likability -1 (argh those people piss me off!)

Enjoyment 8/10

Art and Animation +1 (I like different)
Sound +1 (great soundtrack)
Story and Content 0 (interesting but hard to watch)
Characters 0 (interesting but fucking idiots)
Value +1 (special anime and went into MAL history and probably everywhere else as well)


Conclusion
________________________________________

Aku no Hana is not for everyone. It is tough to watch, has some of the most annoying characters and an off putting artstyle.
If you are looking for something that sticks out of the normal then please go ahead and watch it. It's not a master piece and has many flaws. But at least it is ignoring what is popular and makes its own thing which I respect deeply.

6/10 (Fair)

I appreciate anime trying something a little different when it's appropriate. Flowers of Evil is a pretty good example of the kind of manga you should be doing this with. A teenage boy idolises a pretty girl in his class but then gets roped into stealing her gym clothes by nothing more than his own secret desire to defile her. It's a reactionary piece to trends in popular culture that references a 19th century poem which was also a reactionary piece to trends in poetry and art at the time. The mangaka didn't want a straight adaptation of his work, and only accepted when the ... director of Mushishi Hiroshi Nagahama came along with his radical idea. His adaptation was a reactionary piece to the response people who saw Flowers of Evil as, to put it in the words of the original author, "Nakamura unf unf".

I can see what they were going for with this adaptation. It shoves back in the face of the people who saw, in what was supposed to be a story about our creepy desires to defile the ideals we hold to be pure, an overly elaborate piece of NTR erotic fiction. These are real people, not the idols that you fetishise. It's supposed to heighten the sense of unease we get over the actions the characters take in this elaborate piece of NTR erotic fiction. At least, that's what I think it's supposed to be doing. It's certainly what a lot of the early chatter around this show suggested it was trying to be. Problem is that this was not only poorly implemented, but also seemed to have fuck all to do with the main theme of the actual story Flowers of Evil was telling.

Tell me Flowers of Evil, what are you supposed to be about? Is it about the mind-numbing mundanity of everyday life and screaming to get out, or is it about wanting to defile the things you hold pure? Because one half of the series focuses on one of those themes and the second half on the other. You could argue the two are connected, but then you'd be wrong. The directing likes to spend forever showing a decaying town and characters walking really slowly along streets with the only background music being a man randomly hitting a piano key every 10 seconds. I guess this is supposed to show how friggen boring everyday life is, although that's the director deliberately making his show boring and tedious to watch to make an artistic statement, for which I would like to kindly ask him to please take his head out of his own backside.

The second half of the story tries to focus more on trying to escape this mundanity, but this mundanity is presented as a crappy thing. The idolisation of purity is presented as a more careful balance between whether purity or defilement is the way to go. There's one attempt made in the entire show to marry these two scenes in an absolutely amazing scene at the end of episode 7 where the two characters destroy a classroom in a giant obvious metaphor for sex. But the series seemed to blow its load in that episode and after that spent its time piddling away doing next to nothing. Then again, before that scene, the show spent most of its time piddling away doing next to nothing. At least then it was novel and I could kid myself this was going to lead to something. Spoiler warning (although this isn't really a spoiler at all) no it doesn't go anywhere. Instead the show ends on a fucking montage of all the things that happen later in the manga that will never get animated because this show was never going to get a sequel and was pathetically stupid of the creators to even think that it would.

The biggest problem of all is simply that it's a goddamn boring anime to watch. Once the novelty wears off, and it will, you come to the realisation that only one thing happens per episode. No really, only one thing happens in each episode. The rest is padded with shots of people walking and the main character panicking. The camera liked to linger on the town falling apart, which I think was supposed to tie into this idea of the town being decaying and boring. But the show also lingered on Nakamura, lingered on the main character, heck it even lingered on the picture of the poet the main character kept in his room. This rendered the entire directing choice of lingering on anything completely pointless and only served to drag out the episode even further, which on reflection probably was the only point. The main character...also talks...like this...most of...the time...taking...deep breaths...between every....other word....he says. It's supposed to show his panicked mind, but I couldn't take it seriously after a while and just started hearing the kid from Malcolm in the Middle in the wheelchair with the missing lung.

Also I'm just going to say it: The rotoscoping looks dumb. I'm not a fan of this animation technique even when it's done well, but here it has characters spazzing out when they move and that curious way faces aren't drawn in when they're too far away from the camera but as they get closer the faces get drawn in as though we're on a crappy video game system and the textures only just loaded in. They got people in their 30's to play these middle school kids so it's way more difficult to swallow their middle-school stupidity when you can clearly see they don't look 14. Sometimes it's able to capture these wonderful moments of expression on their faces, particularly the joy on Nakamura's face during the classroom destruction scene, but most of the time their features look like they're are drooping off their face like they're made of plasticine and they've been out in the sun for too long.

I do appreciate the effort, and at the time I did enjoy picking Flowers of Evil apart to get at its juicy core themes. Unfortunately the more it went on and the more I picked at it, the more it started to come apart for me. There's evidently fuck-all enjoyment you can get from it on a surface level, and it was clearly asking to be picked apart for its themes. I like that it got weird moe fans all angry over their beautiful manga waifu longer being pretty, but stripping the sexuality away from a story that was precisely about dealing with sexual urges diminishes the point of the story in retrospect. All in all I'd class the whole thing as a failed experiment. An interesting experiment certainly, albeit one that is very boring to actually watch.

Overview:

Flowers of Evil is a coming of age story that borrows its title from the very famous volume of poems by Charles Baudelaire. This was based on a successful manga and directed by the same guy that did Mushishi. These elements seem like they would combine to make an absolute masterpiece of universal acclaim...unfortunately that isn't quite what happened.

Production:

When the original mangaka, Shuzo Oshimi, talked to director Hiroshi Nagahama, they had some creative differences that in my opinion adversely affected the anime. Nagahama felt that the story was very personal and realistic, so it would lend itself more towards a stage production or perhaps a ... TV miniseries. However, Oshimi was insistent that it be turned into a successful anime, so Nagahama decided to compromise by using rotoscope animation to give it a more realistic feel. In case you were unaware, rotoscoping is an animation technique in which animators trace over footage, frame by frame, for use in live-action and animated films and TV shows. An excellent example of Rotoscope animation done right would be the year 2000 film Titan AE. Incidentally, this was also the film that almost single-handedly ended the use of rotoscoping in big budget animated films in the West. Despite a solid script by Joss Whedon and fun characters, it struggled to find an audience and lost a LOT of money at the box office, becoming one of biggest bombs in Hollywood history! This is because good rotoscoping is an INSANELY expensive process and after Fox Animation Studios went bankrupt as a result of Titan AE bombing, it was seen as far too risky vs. cheaper and less labor intensive CGI animation. It is possible to use rotoscoping on a small budget, but it will look UNGODLY horrible like Adult Swim's "Tom Goes to the Mayor". If you know anything about Japanese film and television, you are well aware that the Japanese generally don't believe in having sky high budgets. The decision to use rotoscope on a highly limited budget was the single largest flaw with this anime. Fans accepted that Mushishi moved at a snail's pace because it had beautiful art and animation. If it looked like Tom Goes to the Mayor, it simply wouldn't have the same critical acclaim that it does!

Story and characters:

The main character is named Takao Kasuga and he is a socially isolated teen in a small town that likes to read classic poetry and feels isolated from his rural, working class peers. He is sort of like a less abrasive version of Holden Caulfield if I had to compare him to anyone. Takao especially loves Baudelaire and constantly bemoans the fact that none of his peers like French literature. Meh, if he wanted to know what isolation feels like he should try being a Russian literature fan in the deep south United States! Takao has a crush on a pretty girl (it is difficult to tell with the puke inducing animation) named Saeki and considers her to be his "muse". One day, Kasuga decides to impulsively steal Saeki's gym clothes and bring them home, but he is caught by the class stalker and social outcast named Nakamura. Kasuga feels extreme, crippling guilt over stealing the underwear and allows himself to be blackmailed by Nakamura and forced to do outrageous deeds in order to prevent Saeki from learning the truth. The problem is that the plot often seems like a comedy, but plays itself extremely straight faced and serious! Kasuga's guilt over stealing panties and acting like he just murdered his own family is so melodramatic and absurd that it is impossible to take seriously! Imagine taking the famous painting "Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan" and replacing the corpse of his murdered son with a pair of ladies underwear!" Look into his horrified, tormented eyes and feel his pain!!! This anime expects you to observe such a painting thoughtfully and NOT laugh your ass off, which is asking a lot! The other major problem is that the romance between Kasuga and his blackmailer Nakamura is telegraphed from the 2nd episode, and yet at no point does she EVER become remotely likeable or sympathetic!

Art:

I mentioned in the production section pretty much everything I wanted to say about the art. Basically, it isn't just bad, it is an absolute effrontery to your senses.


Sound:

There really isn't much of a soundtrack to speak of. Occasionally an atonal and unsettling theme will play, but mostly it uses silence. Once again, the silence worked in Mushishi because there was pretty art to look at and allowed the viewer to become absorbed. When your art is an absolute abortion, the strategic use of silence doesn't work effectively!


Overall:

Flowers of Evil is an anime with a LOT of problems in my opinion, but that doesn't make it a horrible anime. This was a highly ambitious project that tackled real themes that teenagers must deal with and has some instances of good writing, high culture, and impressive intelligence. The main character at times can be sympathetic and if this were a well directed stage play that perhaps toned down the panty stealing "played straight" melodrama, it would be at least very respectable if not loveable. It turned out kind of a mess, but I DO award points for effort and I think a 6/10 rating is honestly pretty fair for this one.

I am truly surprised by how low the score is. I am usually rating way lower then most of the rating, however I do find the average rating of this Anime to be low.

Yes, it is a 5. But it is a strong 5 and would very likely become a 6 someday. This means that It is better then some of your more celebrated shows, like Accel world, Angel Beats, Guilty Crown, Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, Sacred Seven.

so now you might be wondering why am I award a Five, right? as usual, I am going to defend my rating and my POV, with SPOILERS ... ALERT.

for me, the biggest flaw of the show lies in a few aspect. First and foremost, the art. I am not happy about the art not ONLY because it is horrifyingly bad, but also how unnecessary the producer would think their gimmicky "revolutionizing" ideas would pay off. It still amazes me that how someone would think these gimmicky ideas would sale, especially nowadays, you have got to have MOE, HAREM or some FIERCE FIGHT to sale (peaking at Sword Art Online). Playing Gimmicky doesn't and would NEVER work.

besides the Gimmicks, the still motions of scenes, or the landscapes are actually AMAZING to say the least: In detailed, stylish, realistic and generally unique. The character's arts, however, are a complete mess. there are NO shadows when a character had her/his facial expression. It was beyond the level of Unique or even style - it is really unacceptable at times.

also, consider how slow pace this show is, it is really hard for me to give the show credits. there are a incredible amount of time that was spend on internal dialogues, Monologues, reading Baudelaire. I am not saying I don't like Baudelaire - In fact, I like reading poems. It is just not the right thing to do in an anime like this. Think about this: What would you think if you buy your ticket to watch an hour show, and the actor's been reading and reciting Shakespeare's sonnets with a mere linkage with the show? if you are not sleeping, congrats. you are a true hipster.

so now you've got two things going AGAINST the show. it doesn't seem to be a 5 at all, right?

My first defend for a 5 is the plot. despite the plot is slow-paced, it really got into the detail thought of the character. it builds some of the more memorable character of the season, and you might be amazed how a total of 3 people can create such an intense drama. It would be easy to sum up their relationship: Nakamura holds the secret of Kasuga. Kasuga Likes Nanako. The secret would blown up the relationship between Nanako and Kasuga and Kasuga's doing whatever he can to prevent the leak. I am trying to keep the secret - but I would have to say it is a Naive, or even a silly secret that could have been resolved since the second episode.

I am not done with proving my scores yet. I do agree that the plot of this thing is sometimes silly and Naive, but when you add the personality we had into the mix, everything seems to run smoothly. Since Kasuga is always doubting himself and suspecting the others, even though he can get over and handle the secret in many ways, he can't: not because he didn't, but because he was doubting himself and suspecting the others of knowing the secret. such kinds of "doubt" were vastly available upon Kasuga's development as a character, and you can find lots of good example showing how he doubts the world and his friends, even Nanako at times.

Nakamura could also been summarized as someone that loves to watch drama. she's not interest in interferring any of Kasuga's business. however, she believes that everyone had hidden their true identity - which was evil behind them. She attempts to "strip off your mask" and does actually no harm to the people around her......that is, upon now. Nanako is the simple "girl-next-door" kind of character that is an obedient student. she does no harm as well......at least upon the airing of the sixth show. I am NOT trying to suggest anything, 'cause I actually have no idea, just thinking and hoping my predictions would come true.

To add on, the Sounds of this show is perhaps not the most thrilling sounds that you've ever got, but it is special. Ambient/Drone/Minimal music were rarely used as anime soundtracks; from what I remember, Lain was one the shows that I watch that used some. still, considering how good this anime complements with the peaceful, sometimes intriguing Drone Sound, would probably be a pleasure to many music fans.

further more, their opening and ending is really unique. I am not a fan of the opening track, but I do appreciate they change their lyrics every time they choose a different protagonist to sing. the new lyrics certainly complement and suits the character well. the Ending was actually a real BLAST for me. despite it is Pop, it comes with an arrangement featuring orchestra and Glitch elements on their vocal that these things actually goes well together. The vocals sound so much like a Vocaloid that freaks me out the first time. The auto-tuning only adds to the creepiness of the song, which makes it stands out and unique among the general anime song. It might be somehow inappropriate for me to do a review base on the TV version, but I think these elements should be accurate when the full version's out.

Consider how special this show is, it might appeal to someone who enjoys dark humor and twisted fantasies. 2ch had a slang called "独男" (Dokuo). that means males that were single and can't social well with females. such terms were usually equivalent to Low self esteem/Nerd/geek/Virgin, and sometimes Otaku. Understanding that kind of culture will kind of help you to understand and appreciate how interesting and how "strange" it is for this show to happen. I am probably one of those "Dokuo" and I could only jealously watch the show every week. But well, what can you complain? It's a good life, and you've got a show that is great - At least it has some kind of logic and a neat portrait of characters, plot-wise and character-wise.

If you are still not convinced, you just can't get used to the art, skip it then. It is not that big of a deal. But please, don't call this as "bad" - this is certain not the all time classics and not one of the year top 5s, but watching and saying "YES" to this show is nothing to be ashamed of, since this is not that bad of an anime either. If you still feel like complaining, you've got loads Harem acts waiting for you to get their ass kicked - now MOVE and press ALT+F4.

5.5.

Oh boy, oh boy, I've been craving to write a review for this one. And unlike some others, I will be reviewing this anime based on what has been shown, not what is to possibly come... because screw that... why try to review something that hasn't even been shown?

Now to say the least, Aku no Hana is absolutely one of the most controversial animes of the season for sure. When the first episode was released, I was not even 2 minutes in before realizing this anime was different. As many have seen or even heard, yes this anime is not traditional animation, but rotoscope. ... This caused huge controversy over whether or not to watch it right off the bat. Even after I saw the rating of a "4" that it once had, I said to myself it can't be that bad. So I watched the first episode and quit after a few minutes. I thought it was awful looking to be quite honest.

But then, about 7 weeks later I wondered how the anime was doing. I looked at the rating and saw it had done better, and so I figured it must have gotten somewhat better. I went back to watch it, saying to myself to at least give it the old 3-episode-rule that I give every other series. I also told myself to just simply look beyond the animation style and look at the story...lol. And so I watched 3 episodes (looking past the rotoscope style, which honestly isn't as bad as I thought in the first place) and then all the way until I was caught up to the recently aired episode.

I was completely hooked and it was because of these three things:

"MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.... I guess. Read the next 3 points at your own risk."

1. Why is Kasuga such a pathetic little piece of trash? He's a complete spineless wimp and hardly stands up for himself, ever. He is just a doormat basically.
2. Why is Nakamura such a crazy psychotic bitch and why does she give two shits about Kasuga? Honestly...
3. Why is Saeki such a fool to even be interested in Kasuga? Again, WHY? It makes little to no sense at all.

"SPOILERS END HERE."


These three things kept me interested, and so I kept watching. HOPING to find an answer to all of these 3 questions, or at the very least 1 of them. So then, here I am on the edge of my seat as I am just waiting to find out an answer to one of these questions in the final minutes of the last episode... and then...
.......
..........
............
..............
................

Exactly.
LOL Get it?


In short, this anime was a huge waste of time. For those interested about a more "in-depth" review, here it is:

ART: The art wasn't as bad as they say, it was alright. Also, they could have cut down the pointless walking scenes. Therefore, 6/10.

SOUND: The sound was... wait there was sound? Exactly. There were many empty moments with no sound at all to make a "eery" feeling to "engulf the viewer" as some say. However, I did enjoy two of the opening songs of the four and I still hum them to myself sometimes. The ending theme was... strange. Therefore, 6/10.

CHARACTERS: The characters... really, need I say anything? Just refer to my 3 spoiler points if you don't care about spoilers. Therefore, 3/10.

ENJOYMENT:... eh... probably a 5/10.

OVERALL: The overall story, a 4/10.

So now it's time to end this wonderful review:
Basically, I only kept watching Aku no Hana to find out the answers to my 3 questions. But, some of you might still be wondering (if you didn't get it), did you ever find out the answers to your questions? Well if that's the case, please refer back to the last sentence before a few dots up and think it over.

Aku no Hana was introduced to me by a friend who's seen far more anime than I have. We were talking about the worst anime we've ever seen, and on the list he produced, Aku no Hana was at the top. Why I decided to watch any anime on a list titled, "Worst Anime Ever", is a very good question. I could be a masochist. Point is, I didn't expect very much going into Aku no Hana, and I got, well, something. Here are my thoughts:

Story:7
The story for Aku no Hana, is, in a word, ... abrasive. It revolves around a cringe worthy main character that does perverse things that get progressively worse to impress someone he hates. Why he does these things is because our main protagonist is so desperate for acceptance that he makes many obvious bad choices. I used the word abrasive because this story is rough and will wear you down over time, to where you think things can't possibly get any worse, and you don't give a damn about what happens to this guy anymore. If you're like me, you'll spend an inordinate amount of time between pausing to brace yourself and recover from the awkward, cringe, moments, and yelling "What the hell are you thinking" at your monitors. Kinda like the "No, don't do that" when watching a scary movie. I still give it a 7 though, because despite all that, the ending ties everything together well enough that it's almost worth all the discomfort of getting there. Almost.

Art:6
This anime receives a lot of hate for its art style, so much so that if you watched it on Crunchyroll like I did, the comments for the first episode were disabled from all the flaming. It uses Rotoscoping, which aesthetically, doesn't please my eyes. To be honest, when I started to watch Aku no Hana, I hated it. I thought it looked really dated. But as I progressed through the series, It bothered me less and less, probably because I was more focused on what I was watching, and less on how it was drawn. Overall, it's a bit annoying, but definitely bearable.

Sound:8
This is another anime that relies heavily on sound, and fortunately, the sound is great. The music throughout is best described as eerie, and unsettling, but it definitely fits the overall mood. It's probably because throughout this anime, there will be plenty of moments where you, as the viewer, will feel uncomfortable, unsure if you want to continue watching. The music personifies that discomfort beautifully. On its own, it's definitely creepy though(in a good way), so if you try to play a song from the anime to a friend, expect them to take two steps back and possibly avoid you indefinitely. Just a word of warning.

Character:7
I feel like a seven is too high here, because out main character Takao takes second place in my "Worst Protagonists Ever" list( behind Makoto from "School Days", who will forever be reigning champ. What a Douche). I don't even like using the word protagonist, because to me, a protagonist is the lead person who does good things(as opposed to an antagonist who is the lead who does bad things). Takao does not do good things. He does things that are obviously bad for him, that he knows are bad, and then complains about how screwed up his life is. But surely given the chance to fix it, to put himself back on the morally right track with zero(yes ZERO) repercussions, he would right? No, he doesn't. As a main character he is terribly flawed, and yet I still don't think he deserves a lower score. Why? Because the fact that he can bother me this much, even after I watched this a couple months ago, tells me that he is a good character. If the creators can make a character that sticks with you this long, and still elicits the same emotional response(in this case, disdain), then it's a well written character in my book, even if he is an annoying little shit. Also, the antagonist Nakamura is brilliantly written, so bonus points for that.

Enjoyment:5
This is where I think this anime suffers, because it can be absolutely painful to watch. Using my "How many episodes can I watch in a row" enjoyment scale, Aku no Hana scores a 1-2, with me usually regretting the second episode. Aside from the fact that I was cringing through most episodes, this anime likes to trick you into thinking things will get better, that Takao will fix things. So many times I watched that second episode because the preview at the end of the first one made me think things were about to resolve for the better, only to be slapped across the face my the creators with an even worse situation. Not only is that lack of resolution irritating, but I don't think that anyone likes to get their hopes up, only to be disappointed. Again, the ending does do a nice job of making it seem almost worthwhile, but a nice lesson learned in episode 13 doesn't really equal 12 episodes of discomfort.

Overall:6(Fair)
Aku no Hana isn't a bad anime if you look at it as a whole. By the end, you tend to forget how much you dreaded watching the episodes leading up to it. But just like a bad movie can't be redeemed by a great ending, if you didn't really enjoy the first 12 episodes, the ending in episode 13 can only do so much to make the series enjoyable. I'm hoping that this was just the necessary evil in order to set up a second season(which seems likely), because a second season would probably score higher now that I know what to expect. Aku no Hana is worth a watch if you like anime that makes you uncomfortable(looking at you "Watamote" fans), or even if you can stand the uncomfortableness if you like anime that make you think. Otherwise, I would avoid it, because if you're like me, curled up in a, cringing, ball of regret is not how you like to spend your free time.

Overall, this anime was decent. I completed the manga not too long ago and enjoyed it, however this anime kind of had the feeling I was completing a task rather than enjoying it.

The first downside to this anime is the art and animation. The method they used is rotoscoping. It felt like a lagging video game. The options available for animation are far and wide it is beyond why they used this method. I don't know if this was a purposeful decision to be more artistic and the such, but it came off as a little pretentious. It's a shame because the art ... aspect of environmental drawings looked really good and very detailed. If there is a second season I hope they improve on this by using a different method.

I liked the story overall, but at times it came off as trying a little too hard. I understand this anime was going to be slow paced but not this slow paced. There was basically one half an episode of two characters walking through the town with no talking. The manga version of this Anime presented the story in a much better way. A person who never read the manga and ended up watching this show would probably find it confusing as to why characters did what they did.

The sound in this anime pretty good. Opening and ending themes were fitting of this sort of anime genre, as well as the voice actors portraying their characters.

The characters were all pretty melodramatic. If you like that sort of thing good for you, but I don't. Lets start off with the main character Takao Kasuga. Kasuga is a half-wit for lack of better words. He has no mind or will of his own. Then we have Sawa Nakamura who is clearly certifiable. I guess that is part of her appeal. Finally, we have Nanako Saeki who is in my opinion is the most well-rounded character. She is the girl that is smart, athletic, and good looking. Basically every guy in the class wants to be with her. She spends a lot of time crying. Throughout the series the characters deteriorate instead of progress forward. Maybe in the second season we'll see more character development. The characters reactions overall were unrealistic. This is the kind of anime that aims to be realistic but instead comes off as extremely exaggerated. I feel like you can enjoy the show more when you have a character in it that you can personally relate to, but that was missing here for me. I find Yamada to be the most entertaining character even though his part is small. At least he is the comedic relief in an otherwise dull anime.

Honestly, I'm not sure what I expected from Aku no Hana's anime adaptation. (While I haven't read the manga, I hear significantly better reviews about it compared to the anime). The plot seemed quite interesting, but the animation style was what attracted me the most.

I feel like rotoscopy was a good way to go for the plot it has, and it does set the work apart from others with similar themes. It seems like the art style was generally underappreciated by viewers, but it definitely added to the plausibility of the story. The anime generally lacks a soundtrack, but the silence throughout the episodes, ... as well as the ending theme, add to the strangeness factor.

My real problem with Aku no Hana lies with the characters themselves and their portrayal and development. The three protagonists are incredibly unlikable even after 13 episodes, and there's no real effort shown to convince the viewer to change his/her view on these characters.

The anime is a lot darker than MAL's synopsis makes it seem, and the story is interesting to say the least but it is excruciatingly slow. While I personally hope a second season isn't released due to the lackluster storytelling of the first, the first season doesn't seem to have much of a direction alone. If a second season is released, hopefully it will show some redeeming qualities. After all, the flashforward shown in the last episode alone was more interesting than the entire first season.

In essence, Aku no Hana wasn't awful, but it did fall short on various aspects.

I'm going to try to keep this review as brief and spoiler free as possible. If you're a fan of the psychological/drama genre then this anime is for you, however if you're easily deterred by unconventional art - skip this one.

Story 5/10
While the story revolves mainly around three characters it's not too difficult to follow, however along the line it gets highly philosophical and even bizarre in a kind of positive way that is usually common for the psychological genre, it enveloped me completely and even made me feel uneasy about some of the events. Sadly from the 13-th episode the anime turns into a ... full recap of the events and a teaser for a season two that isn't going to be made.

Art 7/10
For most people the art either makes it or brakes it. In this case the art is unconventional to say the least, and reminds more of a live action movie than an anime. While the art may seem terrible to most people, I got used to it around episode three and later found that it fits perfectly with the main theme the anime is trying to portray. (character design and animation is what I had in mind.) Backgrounds on the other hand were done exceptionally well, adding swiftly to the story.

Sound 10/10
It's been quite some time since I've seen soundtrack and sound effects that match so perfectly with the anime, zero complaints there.

Character development 6/10
Kasuga - Main character your typical cliche anime portagonist, that has difficulty normally communicating with other people except for his friends.
Nanako - The girl in class that Kasuga admires from a distance, later she turns out to be more in arms reach than MC originally thought.
Nakamura - Another girl from Kasuga's class, the only words I can use to describe her - relentless psychopath, that tries to "destroy the walls that Kasuga has built around himself."
Other than these three, the supporting characters were completely shallow and unmemorable.

Intro 1/10
I don't know if the intro should be addressed, but it felt like it was completely out of place regarding the dark and sinister theme the anime was portraying.

Outro 10/10
Gave me the creeps every time.

Overall 6/10
While "Flowers of evil" isn't an anime for an ordinary viewer, fans of this genre might find it quite enjoyable. While coming to a climax that never takes place, it falls completely under it's own shadow. It's creepy, it's strange, but for some reason I couldn't stop watching. However the dullness of the main character and the love triangle sort of ruined it for me, aswell as the ending definitely isn't something you'd hope for. All in all it's worth a watch with low expectations.

Aku no Hana to me is the poster child of being TOO true to the original art. It for all intents and purposes is a mirror of the source material the good and the bad. This included things involved in the manga that would, and usually didn't work well in the new medium.
One of the most obvious of all is the pacing, its abysmal to be frank, the anime went for the same cliffs pauses and stops of the manga, wasting minuets an episode to dead drab silence. Episode 13 should have been episode 7 or 8 ideally. Another major problem with the ... story comes forth from the pacing major events and what should have been the major hooks don't come in at all during the story to justify the ending point, which felt superficial at best.
Art while hard to get used to, is perfect for the mood it was trying to convey. Working with a simplistic/minimalist art-style over rotor-scoped actors. (Using real actors as models for the animation). Colors fit well with the mood again.

Sound is veeery preference based specifically when it comes to the actors. Its comes to the decision of whether you prefer voice actors who fit the character(hard when you see the character archetypes) or well, good voice actors, and really it is hard to complain about it when they were using rotor-scoping. Ambiance varies and when it doesn't drag on is used well. The ed was fantastic op was only slightly worse.

Character is one of the real kickers. Without the development or the full development arc of the characters they were either unfathomable or cliche.
Creepy delinquent girl, class idol, awkward teenager, pervert friend, unlikable teacher, gossiping girls.

It is hard to enjoy it at all as the pauses were numerous the dialogue was frankly embarrassing and the story was rarely at the right pace almost always going too slow, with some of the more pivotal events going by to fast.

Overall it was hard to enjoy at the best of times bad at most of the times and horrible at the other times. There are so many better ones out there and well the ending WAIT FOR PART 2 and well I don't think there is going to be a part two at this rate.

Flowers of Evil is a series I really liked the basic premise of. Takao Kasuga is caught impulsively stealing the gym clothes of his middle school crush, Nanako Saeki. After threatening to reveal his secret to everyone, unpopular “creepy” girl Sawa Nakamura makes Kasuga obey her every order. Nakamura manipulates Kasuga’s feelings for Saeki, trying to convince him through forced perverted actions that he’s a deviant just like her and that his self-image is a lie. It’s a very thematically demonstrative series, but despite the anime ending before finishing adapting the manga it tells a single complete story arc with a satisfying enough conclusion spot. ... There’s some themes here I was highly interested in, mainly those related to the conflict of puberty: sexual repression and virginal guilt. Repression becomes a theme in general, as both Kasuga and Nakamura are angst-budding precocious pre-teens who find the town’s milieu to be unintellectual or dishonest, respectively. Nakamura tries to tear down the Kasuga’s pretentious inhibitions as he puts up the air of being a literate intellectual.

Flowers of Evil’s production values are generally quite impressive. The series’ use of rotoscoping in its animation has been highly controversial, but it’s very misunderstood. Too much attention has been given to the basic act of deviating from the manga’s art style, and not enough people have questioned the effect the new art style has on the narrative. It actually brings together a highly effective chemistry. Yes, the frame-skipping animation of the slow-moving rotoscoped facial features looks creepy, but “creepy” is what defines all aspects of the show. The “uncanny valley” look of the characters is appropriate for Nakamura’s imagined society where people are just pretending to be human, and as their facial features disappear the further they get away from the camera the world begins to look emotionally distant and impossible to empathize with. This is intentional, as Kasuga and Nakamura’s difficulty to relate to other people is their defining link. My only complaint about the character designs is that they look far too old to be middle schoolers, and this more mature impression diminishes the plausibility of the story due to Kasuga and Nakamura’s frustrated, juvenile reactions to things.

Their city is portrayed as deserted and devoid of life, with plenty of slow shots of the cinematography showing numerous empty streets and buildings that have no activity inside of them. A muted color palette drapes everything in depressing, lonely greys. Emphasizing the lifelessness of the town is a soft musical score that often utilizes low keyboard drones under greatly spaced apart single piano keys. A mix of the light nature of middle school life and the perceived shallowness that comes with it, and at times, Kasuga’s fears. The four opening songs each play from the perspective of one of the three main characters, with the final song addressing the general themes of repression. Each episode’s transition into the ending song is also among the most memorable in an anime, concluding a series that thoroughly uses music in conjunction with its narrative. The painted backgrounds are gracefully done yet always sullen, and the distinct direction utilizes other surrealist tricks such as dream-like symbolic sequences and live action footage to further create a world of uncertainty. Flower of Evil’s very slow, deliberate atmosphere is both mysterious and unnerving like puberty itself and possibly the best thing about the series. The metaphorically orgasmic finale scene to one of the middle episodes is a particularly well-done scene.

The first episode has Kasuga’s friends arguing whether a movie is in the horror genre or romance genre, foreshadowing the blurry line in Flowers of Evil itself. There’s a light horror aspect as Kasuga is trapped in his situation and forced to risk embarrassing himself by the demands of the seemingly sadistic Nakamura who stalks him daily, and these scenes can be tense and difficult to watch. It displays some of the shame of adolescent bullying, but I wish it went further with its themes of sexuality and its psychological impact on those discovering sex for the first time. It was twisting these themes and progressing to more severe places until the final five or so episodes. At this point the series becomes less about taking its themes to new places and demonstrating them in other ways and more about the teen melodrama of its three leads. This strikes me as a mistake that makes the show far less interesting, as it gives some immediate semi-closure of the main characters before it’s given us enough of a metric of their true selves for these revelations to feel meaningful and deserved. The motivations and true feelings of Kasuga and Nakamura are so vaguely defined at this point that the weight behind their emotional drama feels hyper exaggerated compared to what we’ve seen of them so far. This turns their teenage angst into something more slight, like how a teenager overreacts to a breakup rather than the more drastic, darker social commentary that made the series initially gripping. It was too much too soon to turn this psychological drama into a relationship drama. To make matters worse, the already slow series seems to grind its progress to a halt. The cinematography shots and slow walking scenes now become a chore when the introspection behind them is now that same slight teen melodrama rather than alienation and anxiety.

After the series uses all of this remaining time just to resolve its plot conflicts, the themes it explored prior to this have ended before they were able to make a powerful statement on adolescence or society. This promising series ends its evolution too soon and slowly declines into a drawn-out, melodramatic conclusion. The end result is something that will probably only stick with me on a conceptual level, thanks to its strong atmospheric direction and ideas of concepts that could’ve been much more than they were. My curiosity was piqued, but it wasn’t followed up with questions or stimulation. Flowers of Evil’s story itself meant very little to me, and there probably wasn’t much meaning to it in the first place.

This is just one of those anime that are I dunno how do I put this, bluntly its boring, way too slow paced.

Basically it is about this guy called Kasuga who steals his crush's gym clothes gets spotted and is forced to form a contract with Nakamura to make sure his secret is not revealed.

Honestly it was so illogical it was weird who just grabs someones gym clothes and runs? Who would actually care about the contract, the girl who fored it with you is doing horrible things to you, like stripping you in a library?

I quite liked the art it really made the ... characters look Japanese unlike other anime such as Infinite Stratos were different nationalities look the same

Overall this anime was way too slow paced for my liking, I read the manga in high hopes the manga would be just as thrilling and exciting but nope. It sucked. Go read the manga intstead of watching ths trust me you will have a much more enjoyable time

If you are a normal to jolly person this is too bad for you. Seriously, art was too awful. Had to stress out my eyes to really see what was going on. For those people who likes deep mystry and do not care about art might like it unlike me. Everyone does sacrifice while in relationship but it was too awful watching how he treated his girlfriend. Although the sound really gave vibes but cum on, 2013 anime and those graphics!! I dont think season 2 will do any help regarding that quality of art. Think properly how a person really behaves, i dont think ... even a shut in person really behaves like that.

Aku no Hana is unique and very well executed. Now the uniqueness in style and topic is what puts off some people. This is why we get a score that looks like middle of the road, which is actually a result of the viewers being really split about it in ones who really hate it and others who absolutely love it. While, ironically, the one thing that everyone probably could agree on would be that Aku no Hana is anything but average. This is why it also makes sense to tag this as 'mixed feelings', because even though it's one of my all time favorites, ... it's just fair to accept that not everyone will enjoy this show.

If you're ready to explore a lesser trodden path and see things that are oddly ugly and beautiful at the same time, go ahead. The experience you'll get is definitely one that you can't get from your next isekai of the season kind of show.

The anime is firmly anchored in realism and all dreamy elements are clearly in the characters' imagination or poetic enhancement of the atmosphere. This is why rotoscoping, sitting between traditional animation and real life acting is a fitting choice. Sadly it's an instant hard pass for some viewers. Don't forget though that this means we're also looking at actors and acting skill and boy do they do a good job! Especially Mariya Ise (Nakamura) is incredible and not holding back a bit. Her presence dominates every scene she is in. As it should be.

Our main character (Kasuge) is undecided, wallowing in self-pity and arrogant with his feeling of intellectual superiority, so a type that makes it difficult to side with and feel compassion for. However his inner turmoil is so well explained and explored with the right amount of sympathy, that the viewer can relate.

Due to this anime having been planned as a two season run, the ending comes sudden and not very conclusive. But good thinking of the producers to actually at least include a kind of ending, because it's not looking as we'll be getting a second season any time soon.

To round up the review, the music needs to be mentioned. It's just as unique and beautifully weird as the rest of the show and therefore and amazingly good fit, but not playlist material.

This show is a fine example of what is wrong with the anime industry. It just uses reverse psychology and makes most to react in the exact opposite way than they usually do but it shares the same problem most shows do when it comes to evaluation. As it usually goes, most judge if a show is good solely on how it looks or feels instead of how good its material is or if its themes are presented properly. This is why we get embarrassing situations such as most anime fans yelling how shows like Code Geass are the most amazing things ever made and ... completely disregard how terrible their plots and presentation were. Aku no Hana is sharing the same problem but from the opposite side of the same coin.

IT IS UGLY!

Really, that is what 99% of everybody speaks of when they refer to it. Screw context, just look at the exterior. As far as this issue goes you can easily divide said impressions into two major groups. There are those who call it lazily made, low budget, completely different to the manga artwork, or simply not good fap material. Then there is the other side which calls it unorthodox, experimental, different, and fitting to its disturbed themes. From where I am standing, I say they are both right. The animation is done with the old technique of rotoscoping; that is to first film live actors doing the motions and then drawing over them to produce the final animation. This method was used for several decades since it was making the motions of the characters to feel very natural. Disney’s Snow White is the oldest good example of that. Eventually, this method was dropped by most after computers came along to do most of the work. Plus, it was a very complicating and time consuming process, so many didn’t bother to use it after awhile and preferred to have cartoony characters that didn’t require realistic motions.

From what I wrote someone would assume that since the show is made with rotoscoping it must have very detailed and fluent motions. Yet here is the nasty part; it doesn’t. You see, the technique requires a high amount of frames per second, as well as detailed consistency between them; without that it looks weird. Aku no Hana has very jerky motions and the characters lack very basic details, such as having no faces or lightening when they are a few meters away from the camera. This makes them look bizarre, especially next to the backgrounds which retain a detailed and full of textures look. I wouldn’t say that makes them unappealing to the eye but it sure makes them un-anime-like. It is hard for most fans to like a different style and even harder if they were accustomed to the pretty typical style of the manga version.

At the same time it is true what others say about it; it stands out. If you are fed up with all those overused anime-style characters and their copy-pasted into infinity school grounds, then chances are you are going to embrace this artwork as a breath of fresh air. I sure didn’t mind it much since not only I am fed up with Kyoani’s and Shonen Jump styles, but also because I grew up watching animations from various countries. I am much more tolerant to bizarre styles and most of the times I even like them just for being bizarre. But that doesn’t mean I liked it much either. The problems of low frame rate and minimalism make it indeed hard to get into even for me. And for Pete’s sakes; it still is yet another school-themed show, a typical artwork fits it just fine. This is not some bizarre setting like in the cases of Kaiba where it would be excused. I still like how the director is using camera angles and cinematics but that is all; visual effects aside it is indeed low budget and not very appealing. Which is sort of like the trademark of all studio Zexcs works; those guys never made an above average show in their whole lives.

Ok, enough with the animation; let’s try to say a few things about the stuff almost nobody wants to talk about. You know, the plot? And perhaps the characters? Because there are more things in a show besides how pretty or ugly it is. You didn’t know that; did you?

Anyways, as far as plot and characters goes, the anime belongs to after-Bakemonogatari era of ecchiness. Meaning, it is about deviant fetishes and very little about anything else. Ok, they try to make it seem more than that by having the character reading books and using poems but in practice that offers absolutely nothing in terms of depth. It is about a bunch of teenagers with problems doing deviant stuff out of sexual frustration; the end. There is literally nothing else to talk about them; they are pretty bland and the show craves on them remaining deviant and not on trying to slowly mature or at least make them normal. Meaning, this is no Onani Master Kurosawa or Welcome to the NHK. It is beneath them but still a step above a mediocre ecchi comedy.

BUT WAIT! The show also tries to be some sort of psychological thriller at points by having the main characters losing themselves to some bizarre hallucinations that are sex-related and are fuelled by the poems this show is named after. Doesn’t that make it far better than a typical ecchi school comedy or something? Doesn’t the fact that the girls don’t look like overused fap material like in the manga but rather something bizarre or ugly make them more memorable? Well... it would if the show wasn’t a low budget Zexcs production. It feels ugly to the aesthetic part of your brain and not so much because the animation is weird. And it doesn’t have anything past the one-trick pony of deviance in it, such as giant robots ala Neon Genesis or weird VR worlds like Ressentiment. Do you know how easy it is to be bored of it because of that? Especially if it’s meant to be depressing and not some escapism BS.

Anyways, despite whatever good ideas it has, Aku no Hana will be remembered as an infamous anime of the likes of School Days. Which is still far more than being simply forgotten like most shows do; a thing that would definitely had happened if it was made with the overused style of the manga. Take that as you like but that is how your typical otaku thinks these days.

IT IS UGLY!

Seriously now,i went all aboard with this anime having the best hopes and expectations but it was far from what I imagined.

First of all lets set aside all the "genius psychology" aspects of it that people mention most of the time and lets see things how they actually are, from a real life perspective since the anime itself is supposed to be set in such manner.

An introvert guy with alot of insecurities just having a hard time at school and his social surrounding. After some series of events, the actions he has taken during his Life led him to become a messed up personality eventually.. ...

I personally can't find anything scary or "interesting" rather the unsettling feeling that i get when i put myself in the protagonists place. The unsettling feeling i get is only because i see the protagonist taking actions and making choices I would've never done and managing situations the way that doesn't even make sense to me, most of the time getting on my nerves. I wanna relate but I can't. I wanna feel but i can't.
I just can't stand seeing a deaydreaming wimpy little teenager get manipulated, laughed at, despised, getting depression by his own thoughts.
It almost feels like the protagonist has no choice in life and is being put to the trials just for the sake of it (kinda unrealistic if you ask me) without being able to change a thing, while in reality it's the other way around, you make your choices in life and you stand for yourself in times of need.
My recommendation for this anime to my friends will be "watch it if you want to see a miserable life of a guy-gone-mad"

Soundtracks are amazing nonetheless, especially the creepy ending. The only creepy thing about this series if you ask me. The soundtracks work Great with the anime and plays a huge role giving character to the series fitting great in many scenes.

The animation feels Whacky but it actually is the chosen art style they went with, so it feels natural in a way once you get used to it. The surroundings were the best part for me with much more detail and a great world building giving you the complete feeling of getting to know the town they live in ,with great sense of direction.

Overall it definately feels like a weird trip through someone else's life.
It sure feels different from your usual anime used to be. it definately isn't for everyone,but it's sure worth checking out and figuring it out by ourself.

Never heard of this anime before but after reading the synopsis, its look kind of a dark anime so i watched it and i must have it very dark and its kind of good actually despite seeing some hate towards this anime.

Story: 7/10 Kasuga Takao is a quiet boy who loves reading books till one day he went to his classroom as he lost his book at his classroom then he saw Saeki Nanako's gym clothes and steal it cause he heard sound coming outside of his classroom and went home. Then Nakamura Sawa saw him stealing Nanako's clothes and make him from a contract ... with her if not she will tells the class that Kasuga steals saeki's clothes. As this anime goes on, its get darker and will make you feel uncomfortable as Nakamura making Kasuga do some weird things. Later part of this anime, the story feels kind of out of place but overall its quite good as a psychology anime.

Art: 7/10 The art style of anime is not your normal animation but more like some kind of cartoon looking. Its feel oddly weird at first and as time goes on you may gets used to the aimation. Its either a hit or miss type.

Sound: 8/10 They used some creepy sound some part of the anime to make feel you scare or creep out but overall it match up well.

Character: 8/10 Nakamura is the most complex character i had ever seen, you can't really understand her yet her character stand out the most throughout the series to me. Most of the time she gives me a dark aura feeling. Kasuga is timid and he spend most of his time, lying about himself. He not smart and the choice he makes is questionable from time to time.

Enjoyment: 4/10 It took me four days to finish this anime as i just feel uncomfortable to watch. You have to take a deep breathe and carry on the next episodes as each episodes feels horrific. NOt all episodes feel the same but from beginning to the mid point of this anime it makes me feel horrific.

I'll start out by saying that I feel that I could write a term paper on the philosophy and the themes within this series. It is rich with thought-provoking subjects.

• I read some of Shuuzou Oshimi's other works, such as Avant-Garde Yumeko, Devil Ecstasy, Drifting Net Café, Sweet Poolside, Shino Can't Say Her Own Name, Inside Mari, Happiness, and A Trail of Blood.

• And let's just say that most of Oshimi's works are usually just plain smut.

○ Happiness is the only work of his that can even come close to Flowers of Evil in maturity, and I couldn't value it on its own merit ... based on the glaring similarities to the Swedish novel, Let The Right One In. Inside Mari is touted as one of his best works, but the twist was predictable and the ending was unsatisfying and left the 2deep4you factor too wide open.

○ Flowers of Evil itself is commentary on adolescence, perversion, anarchy, and the true meaning of evil that mirrors the type of sadistic themes of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's grand opus Venus in Furs. Though many thought of it as an unnecessarily edgy and sick take on the coming-of-age story genre, the perspective of the main character seemed realistic and relatable to me.

○ The manga and anime series take as the voyeuristic approach as mentally unstable, mysterious, and ever fascinating, Sawa Nakamura, that leads the protagonist into the depths of madness. As you consume the spiraling narrative, you are taken captive by Sawa, wondering, is she good or is she evil, or is she just a human being?

○ She definitely partakes in socially unacceptable behavior and is menacing, but is seen through a sympathetic lens when Kasuga gradually begins to fall in love with her and sees that those who wear the pretty masks are actually the evil ones. There is something definitely pure about Sawa, in her hatred of falsity and childish desire to escape from their town that's "(quote/unquote) drowning in shitheads."

○ I may have more of a bias towards this series, because I was in a similar relationship and felt for Kasuga. I guess, this story just happened to find me at the right time. I've heard other anime fans call this show "the next School Days" and say that it's easily forgettable, or by 4chan's standards, it's "Linkin Park: The Manga." Despite all of the cutting remarks, Flowers of Evil strongly resonated with me.

○ Flowers of Evil, the manga and anime, have nothing to do with the original Le Fleurs du Mal, which is Kasuga's favorite book in the series. I read Charles Bauldlaire's poetry tome shortly after obsessing over Aku no Hana, and much to my dismay, the poetry had little to nothing to do with the themes of the Japanese comic version. The poems were very avant-garde and perverse with strong necrophiliac undertones.

○ Reading the book didn't do much for me, but it did give me more clarity on Kasuga. A teenager who loves a book and pretentiously pretends to know the meaning, while looking down at his classmates, all the while, hiding his own perversions. As I mentioned earlier, the characters are very well-written. I won't spoil what happens later, but all of the main cast are unraveled in beautiful and disgusting ways. Much like the title of this series suggests: Flowers of Evil

○ I recommend the manga over the anime, but I experienced the show while it was airing and was simultaneously reading the manga that was publishing, side-by-side. In my opinion, engaging in both forms of the medium was the best way to take in Aku no Hana. Many people are not fond of the rotoscoping in the anime, which I don't blame them for. It looks weird, but there are some really well-directed scenes in the TV show and I loved the soundtrack, especially the ending theme.

○ Overall, Flowers of Evil is very psychological and wrought with the angst of a teenager unable to have true liberation in the constraints of society, as well as sexually. If you're a fan of deeply psychological and surreal experiences, this is exactly the series you've been anticipating, but warning: it is very divisive and will push ones’ buttons. It’s up to youーwhether they are buttons you want to be pressed. I give the anime a 6/10 and the manga a 9/10, as well as a home in my list of favorites.

There are hundreds of anime that come out flawed, not cause people who made it are bad at their job (though that certainly necessary helps) but because of unfortunate realities of anime industry. I feel like that's what Aku no Hana suffered the most from.

Art and animation: Polarizing to say the least. Do you think anime should be constricted to cartoony, big eyed aliens with bizarre hairdos? No? Then you might enjoy this art style. Aku no Hana uses stylized rotoscoped actors and in my opinion uses it well. Sure not everybody looks like a pop idol but the style fits the story. What ... rotoscope brought to the table is a degree of realism, variety and subtlety in facial expressions and gestures as well as smoother animation. Even if outside of that Aku no Hana rather rarely uses benefits of animation I think everything mentioned above is enough. There are some surreal special effects sprinkled throughout and some really cool camera work but it's too few and far between to become anything really special.
When it comes to backgrounds it's more or less standard affair. It's mostly just painted over photos but they are painted over really well, I'd even say it looks superior to a lot of digitally drawn backgrounds in recent anime.

Sound: music in this show is rare and mostly consists of ambient tracks used during some contemplative scenes. There's also the really interesting ED song with weird, chopped up and digitized vocals and off-tune but strangely melodic wind instruments that create the feeling of someone losing a grip on reality. It appropriately plays during important moments when something genuinely messed up happens.
Not sure if OP reaches the same amount of harmony with the show but upbeat jazzy tracks reminded me a bit of Shiina Ringo and Mayumi Kojima which is never a bad thing.

Story and characters: these two are inseparable for AnH as it is very much a story about characters. AnH seemingly sets out to explore what it's like to be a misfit in a society that rejects any deviation from normalcy by colliding a small main cast of atypical and eccentric characters against their more ordinary peers and family members. It was almost painful at times to see just how hopelessly absolute the disconnect between a child and parent can be which I think is a testament to how believable the characters were though unfortunately few of them are even close to being as fleshed out as Kasuga who still could have some blank spaces filled.
It also seems to delve into what matters more in a relationship or what makes us love since Kasuga is torn between kind and beautiful Saeki and rough, unhinged Nakamura who however might be the only person to understand him on a personal level.
I'm not and won't say any of this with certainty though, because as of now the story is not even close to being finished, and with how much time has passed since release I'd doubt that sequel is coming any time soon. Manga might offer a more complete story but I'm not reviewing the manga here.

Directing: Aku no Hana is brimming with shots that are just nice to look at when not straight up impressive. Everything is tied together together nicely into easy to follow, coherent narrative and it makes sure to throw in a short flashback or two to make sure the viewer is following along. However pacing is atrocious and AnH loves a bit too much to throw in long, silent, contemplative scenes when it's not warranted. One example is particularly bad, in episode 8 I think there's about 5 minutes of just walking silently. There are ways to depict characters silently walking around town for a long period of time without boring the viewer with overly long, boring scenes.

Fun factor: despite everything I mentioned, AnH is still a very unique experience and in my tiny onion it's worth giving a try if you're a fan of the media. Otherwise you might be better off reading the manga.

Dropped this show like a bad habbit, never seen a main character. Scratch that in c haracter, as pathetic as the guy in this show. 50% of the time while watching this you will be wondering "why doesn't this guy just do X". The show tries to convey the lost of innocence and the darkness of the human soul, but fails miserably in the fact that it tries to do this through completely trivial bullshit.

1. Why doesn't main character just deny he stole the uniform, the girl accusing him is hated by everyone especially the teacher and no one would believe her.

2. Why is ... a girl bursting in tears over someone stealing her gym uniform, it's not like she had nothing to change into. And then the entire school is taking it like someone just got kidnapped. Impossible to take this show seriously when every single thing is blown out of proportion.

3. Main character is impossible pathetic, so pathetic that he makes you want to slam your head into your keyboard. He ruins the entire show by himself.