STORY: [Full Spoilers; it's just 200 something pages so go read it and come back]
I'm going to be breaking this up into 3 Parts: The innocent stage, clueless stage, and the desperate stage.
INNOCENT STAGE (Experimenting and falling to social pressure; also the longest)
Metamorphosis follows the tale of Saki Yoshida, a social outcast in middle school. She's envious of all the attention her other peers get, and decides to finally make a change in her life. She decides to begin putting on makeup and changing her hair style (she also removes her glasses), with the help of her mother. To her surprise, this actually works. She goes from being rock bottom on the social hierarchy to hanging out with the popular girls. One day, while out at a bookstore, she meets a man named Hayato.
Haytato, is for all intensive purposes, a scumbag (Practically all of the characters in this story are). He finds her in the bookstore, and invites her to out with him. In just one date, he pressures her to have sex with him at a love hotel. Not to mention, he also starts her long-addiction to several forms of drugs throughout the doujin (Upon a closer read, they seem to be Ecstasy pills). As a reader, it's pretty clear what is going on at this point. She's getting roofied and taking advantage of. Regardless, after they have sex for the first time, she starts to see him as a reliable person in her life (This should go without saying, but if someone takes you somewhere private and tries to have sex with you on the first date; you shouldn't oblige). Unfortunately for Saki though, she's only 13 (I'm assuming since she's in middle school) at the start of this story; meaning she is still quite young and impressionable. She doesn't realize that Hayato is a bad influence in her life until long after her entrance into adulthood. She ends up ONLY having sex with him EVERY time they meet (Again, I don't blame her for not realizing the issue here, due to her age).
Back at school, she overhears of a "job" from her "friends" which can make some quick cash. All she has to do is talk to some geezers and turn them on (Can't see this going wrong, right?). She meets with one of these clients (Who actually turns out to be one of the best Ugly Bastards in Hentai period, more on that later), and he tricks her to have sex with her. Garden variety stuff. When she returns at school, she is taken aback. Why? Turns out someone took a picture of her leaving the love hotel with the Ugly Bastard. This is when a group of male students decide to blackmail her and force her to have sex with them (Once again, this is pretty tame so far). After countless occasions of just flat sex with her classmates, she begins to develop a slut reputation around the school. This immediately causes her "friends" to get jealous, send her death threats, and make her life much more harder at school.
When she comes home, is when the plot thickens. I unfortunately saw the twist coming, like the degenerate I am, but it still hit hard to home. Over a dinner discussion with her parents, her dad starts to realize how much she's GROWN UP. All of you reading this, should be having all sorts of red flags going off in your head. After dinner, her dad breaks into her room and rapes her. It was at this point that I realized this wasn't just the garden variety rape hentai, that I had taken it for.
At this point in the story, Saki is completely unable to avoid being raped. She goes to school, her classmates fuck her; if she goes home, her dad fucks her. It gets much worse for her though, once she lets out a loud moan in school, causing everyone to know that she has become a slut (Even though it's really not her fault, yet). Her "FRIENDS" (I hope you are recognizing a theme by now) write all sorts of *great* death threats all over her desk. This prompts her to run home for emotional support.
When she goes home, she is abruptly greeted with a bitch slap from her mother. Turns out, she knows she's been having sex with her father. Now, this is the only part of the story that I thought made no sense AT ALL. Upon crying for her mother to believe her that he raped her, SHE SIDES WITH HER HUSBAND. What the actual fuck?! Her mom calls her a whore, bitch, and a slew of names before kicking her out of the house. With nowhere to turn, she remembers Hayato and goes to him for advice.
CLUELESS STAGE (Entering the *Adult* world)
Saki ends up moving in with Hayato and continues her fervent sex streak with him. She considers herself to be an adult now, and capable of making her own decisions (At best, she's probably 14 here; in other words, way too young to go out on her own with her "reliable judgement"). Hayato introduces her to an underground drug ring (Great boyfriend material there) and proceeds to get her hooked into cocaine (This being the 2nd drug that she had experienced by now). She foolishly believes that Hayato took her in out of the kindness out of her heart, and says that she'll pay Hayato's 1 Million Yen debt. Only one issue: She doesn't have a job. This is when she begins to actively whore herself out to others.
Right there in the club, she is raped by Hayato's buddies. Again, I don't blame her for not realzing this isn't acceptable for several reasons (I. She had shitty parents who didn't tell her how the real world works, II. She's still a minor, III. She's under the influence of cocaine in this scene, IV. She trusts Hayato and relies on him for things she, herself, does not undestand). Honestly, calling this whole doujin "unrealistic," for these reasons is missing the mark. After being raped by all the guys, she develops an obsession for cocaine, since it makes her orgasm significantly more intensely.
After some time, she begins her life as a prostitute. Dressing up, dying her hair blonde; she's living that *extravagant* adult life. Hayato shows his bad boyfriend skills off by gaming on the couch while telling Saki to get an abortion, since it's bad for business. Saki reluctantly goes through with it, and meets up with the Ugly Bastard who took advantage of her earlier on in the story. When he meets her, he's a bit surprised. He notices how she has no idea what she is getting herself into, and ACTUALLY GIVES HER ADVICE. Finally one Ugly Bastard that isn't a complete shmuck! It still doesn't help him by much, since you know he did force himself onto Saki earlier, but compared to the other encounters she goes through; he could have been much worse. Anyway, he tells her that Hayato is using her, but she doesn't believe him. This is when Saki starts to become desperate: She begs him to let her have sex with him, in order to pay off Hayato's debt (This is because our Ugly Bastard over here, declined the proposition to have sex; this was mainly due to her innocence being tainted.
She returns to her joint, and raped again upon asking for Hayato's whereabouts. This is when she encounters her third new drug: this time being Heroin most likely (Notice how it's injected into her, and also the most powerful of the drugs she's experienced; just a guess, but still). After becoming a literal cumdumpster, she's thrown into the alleyway. This is when she enters her desperate stage.
DESPERATE STAGE
After being raped and thrown into the alley, she realizes all her money was stolen; as well as her drugs. When she goes back to Obata (Forgot to mention, but he basically owns this joint; also the guy who injected her with Heroin), he gives her a choice: She can either take the money or the cocaine. She chooses the cocaine. When she tells Hayato about this, he beats her up and evicts her (Take notes guys, this is a real gentlemen).
She's left homeless, jobless, and all the while; she's still in her prostitute apparel. At a playground, she sniffs a bit of cocaine and instantly gets high. She starts masturbating right there on the slide, when two homeless guys approach her. She gets raped by them, yada yada, and then she wakes up somewhere else. The homeless guys give her what looks like puke in a bowl, and she vomits after inhaling the aroma. This is when she realizes she's pregnant again. She chooses not to get an abortion this time though, and opts to change her life for the better.
This when we enter the final Chapter (7), which is by far one of the more disturbing ones. It begins with her being fucked in an alleyway, but it becomes gradually more upsetting as we realize that she's still pregnant. Some close up shots of the fetus, that would make anyone limp after viewing it, and we end the rape scene. Post-rape, she starts to crave Heroin, and despite harboring her child inside of her, she injects herself with it.
The following scene is when we see her at her lowest; outfitted with the hobo garb and all, she re-visits Obata's joint, only to find he isn't there. She instead begs the guys outside the joint for money, and she actually receives some before promptly being mocked. She moves on to take her saved money out of a locker (presumably at the bank), when she's stopped by a familiar group: her "friends" from middle school.
They don't recognize her, but she immediately identifies them. They accuse her of stealing, call her a hobo, and openly mock her. They physically abuse her, and stop her when she tries to run away with her money. When she trips over, he pregnant belly is revealed and her lack of panties as well. This is when one of her old "FRIENDS" notices her subtly. What follows is some of the cruelest scenes, I've ever seen from a Hentai/Doujin (And I've seen and read plenty). The bullies, now adults, stomp on her pregnant stomach in an attempt to kill her unborn child. Just wow...Then her friend strips her down, and they proceed to rape her. Almost the whole time, they are kicking her clit too. They then proceed to take a Coke bottle and shove it up her vagina, quite forcibly. They steal her money and leave.
With her water broken, being mixed with the blood from the pain she endured; she gives birth to her child in the bank bathroom. The final shot we see her like this is a haunting one: She stares into a mirror, before properly returning her hair to its original state and then puts on her glasses, before crying immensely. She breaks the mirror, crawls on the floor, and apologizes for being such a bad mother. Believing she'll die, she inserts all the drugs she still has on her. She faints before saying she's glad.
The scene then transitions to an much older Saki, presumably in her 20s-30s considering her child (Hana) seems to be around 8 years old. She tells Saki to snap out of her daydream. Saki then tells Hana that her past was miserable, and she didn't know how to take care of herself. She then tells Hana that due to her presence, she could start fresh in life. The Doujin ends on the bathroom floor with her broken glasses, cocaine, and blood on the floor. Combining this scene with the flash-forward, it's highly probably that Saki gave birth to Hana in that bathroom.
Final Thoughts
That's about all I have to say about this review. I will say his though, I rarely get immersed into Anime, and even rarer for Hentai. By the flash-forward, around when Saki was telling Hana that she didn't know how to take care of herself, I was bawling my eyes out crying. The only other Hentai to do that for me was Tiny Evil Episode 2, and even that wasn't as strong as this. Definite 10, and it's going on my favorites list.
