The Flowers of Evil

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Synopsis

Takao Kasuga is a bookworm. And his favorite book right now is Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil. While the young man may often be seen lost in thought as he rabidly consumes page after page, Takao is not much of a student. Actually when we are first introduced to the middle school teen, we find him sneaking some reading as he receives and F on a recent language exam. Nakagawa is known as the class bully. When she is not receiving zeros she is usually muttering profanities to those around her. While she doesn't care for books or their readers, she does have a thing for troublemakers. Takao may not be one, but having read over his shoulder a few times, she knows he is not very innocent. If anything he is bored and aware of it. Together, by chance, they shake up their entire rural community as Takao tries to break out of his shell in a random moment of passion and affection...not directed towards Nakamura. And contrary to Takao's predictions, the girl he was falling for, Nanako Saeki, responds by eventually accepting the bibliophile for who he is. Or at least, who she thinks he is. And therein lies the conflict. Takao is not a hero. He is not troublemaker, either. He is a regular teen who through equal moments of cowardice and chivalry takes a long step towards adulthood as he desperately tries to cover up a dark secret. Takao Kusuga has stolen an item precious to someone he is attracted to, and if he doesn't form a "contract" with his new best friend, she is going to tell.

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Review

Jan 14, 2017

58 of 58 chapters read

Overall Rating: 9

LLG (All reviews)

272 people found this review helpful

I will mainly write about why I love the scenario and characters and why I preferred the second part, the one which has never been adapted into anime. For this purpose, I am going to spoil the whole story, so don't read this unless you have finished the manga.

I moderately liked the beginning of the manga because I did not really understand what the characters wanted (the MC in particular) and it seemed to me that they were acting irrationally. The escalation of catastrophic risk taking was fine but not enough to make me love the manga and I think I was right because the rest of the manga gives a new meaning to this part which is in fact a mere introduction.

To me, it tells the story of boy who is introvert/asocial but not deeply abnormal and who cultivates his uniqueness because he fails to fit in. He believes that if he can't be as good as a normie than the other normies, it means he has a different/superior fate and he convinces himself that his "thing" is poetry, something the others can't understand. He finds a place for the pretty girl he fancies in this thinking pattern, calling her his "muse" (which is quite ridiculous). The MC is therefore at first pretty unhappy and lonely but comfortably confined in his simplistic relation with the rest of the world and vaguely in love with some girl he doesn't really know. This distance between them, which should be a source of pain, actually comforts the idea he has made of himself and make the situation more coherent and convenient than if he tried to seduce her.

When he gets closer to her, it is in fact natural that it doesn't go too well: he is still asocial, he doesn’t know how to fit in by her side and he doesn't have much to say to her. I hadn't understood it, reading the first chapters (I couldn't tell if it is normal, if we are supposed to understand later, of if I am a bit dumb, but however I understood later). On the other side, Sawa gives him an opportunity to increase his uniqueness, to improve his pattern which keeps him away from the others. She is genuinely different, way more than him, and even offers some new categories to add to his pattern (the concept of perversion, the concept of "shit-eaters" (misanthropy in fact) and the concept of "other side") which he tries to match with his understanding of Baudelaire's poetry. When he rejects Saeki to turn to his tormentor WHOM HE DOESN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND, I thought it was dumb, but it's actually very coherent. To this selfish interest is apparently added the desire to help Sawa, to offer her the company of someone who is like her and who can understand her, in opposition to Saeki who is a normie et doesn't need him. However, we clearly feel that he never completely succeeds, that she remains more special than him, that he never understands her and can't really save her, which creates a malaise during this whole part of the story which I find retrospectively delicious.

Then comes the chapter of the summer festival: she betrays him, pushes him away and tries to die alone. He doesn't understand, neither did I at the moment, but it's actually simple: she's thanking him for all these efforts he made for her which have mitigate her misery for a little while but wishes that he keeps living because she understood that he was less abnormal than her and that he could find his place in the world with some efforts, unlike her. The MC only understands this in the end and I only completely understood it at the same time he did. But what makes her so different? Why would Sawa be so desperate while he wouldn't? Is she right to think this way? She's right, and the reason is simple: as seen in the last chapter (which, in my opinion, was not necessary to understand this, but it is an indisputable confirmation which puts an end to any hesitation), she is genuinely, clinically crazy. I don't know anything about psychiatry but it must be some form of schizophrenia. Her perception of the world is biased, everything she says or do in the whole manga is irrational. She's desperately crazy while the MC is merely a bit different from the normies.

For some years, he won't get out of the illusion that he was different like her, that he was able to do something for her, and he will live in the nostalgic remembrance of their relationship and the incomprehension of Sawa's final act. It all changes when he meets the third girl whom he will seduce without giving up his particularity but without persisting in withdrawal. He will understand that he can be normal too, even if he has a passion apparently rare in his environment (literature), and finally give up his dumb pattern which was his shell during adolescence. Then comes my favourite passage: he meets Sawa, who almost didn't evolve, unlike him, again and, after a night of horseplay, reminiscent of the horseplay of their adolescence, she tells him not to ever come again because he is not like her.

I should also write more about Saeki and her friend Kinoshita who suffer a lot because of the MC's mistakes, they are two very good characters, but the essential point is here: a MC who doesn't fins his place and cultivates his difference; he believes (wrongly) that he can help a truly different (crazy) girl and persists in this way despite his failure without ever finding any satisfaction; it takes a lot of time for him to get over it but finally becomes normal while she remains in her desperate situation from which no one can get her out, and anyway from which the MC won't ever try to get her out anymore.

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May 26, 2011

17 of 58 chapters read

Overall Rating: 7

Sanagami (All reviews)

148 people found this review helpful

Preliminary

This manga is crazy. I'm sorry, actually, allow me to correct myself, this manga is FUCKING crazy.

So you thought School Days was fucked up, you haven't even begun.

I'll start with the flaws, because they are apparent. First of all, the story isn't the most original thing you've ever heard of. You have a boy who has a crush on a girl and is forced to make a contract with another girl because he is caught stealing the first girl's underwear. It doesn't take a genius to realize where the romance is going to be placed. The characters aren't the most developed characters ever and they aren't actually very three dimensional. The art is average, which is not a bad thing but it isn't a strength. In fact, if treat the manga as a morally psychological manga, that is based on Les Fleurs du mal, it falls a bit short as the themes aren't expressed with enough emphasis.

Still, and I might be overstating this, but I believe this manga has dwelled itself in a specific sort of "art" that we rarely see in stories. Most stories try to use pleasure as the appeal to the audience. What I mean is that while we are experiencing the story, we gain a sense of pleasure through it, which attracts us to continue. Whether that attraction is through the thrill of action, the calm slice of life scenery or just plain hentai lust. On the other hand, this story has decided to use discomfort to attact us, and we keep reading because we are enjoying that feeling of that "discomfort". It's not the easiest emotion to explain, which is why I end up describing each chapter as "weird" or "Oh Shit!". This discomfort isn't the same as what the Romans got from Gladiator fights or what we feel when we watch SAW, as they produce a thrill which attracts us, instead we are enjoying the feeling of being "trapped" and "pressured", maybe even disturbed. Still, its great when we finish and we can sit back and realize, "Fuck yeah, that isn't me!" Unfortunately, the characters are relatable enough that when we sit back and think about it more, we realize that we see ourselves in them.

What I do praise is the way the story is so fast paced, that when we feel trapped because of the characters, we have no time to relieve ourselves before they get into an even deeper mess. Of course, its better to not have to wait for it monthly to fully experience this effect. Things happen in each page, and there are barely any pages wasted on metaphoric dialogue or drawings of the random scenery unless they somehow make a big impact. Big events happen in each chapter and the story moves at an extreme speed. Such pacing doesn't work for all mangas, but for this one, I can definitely say it does.

I'm not going to lie, some people are not going to enjoy this. It seems to try to become something deeply psychological, but falls short because of the rather unrealistic personalities of the characters. Still, let me ask you this, do you feel good when you read this? And if no, then why are you continuing?

Helpful

Overall	9
Story	10
Art	8
Character	10
Enjoyment	9

Overall	7
Story	7
Art	6
Character	7
Enjoyment	8

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The Flowers of Evil

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