TITLE: The Flowers of Evil Complete Manga Omnibus Volume 1
YEAR: October 2017 (US Release Date)
COMPANY: Vertical Comics
Story & Art by Shuzo Oshimi
In 2009, Shuzo Oshimi wrote and illustrated the manga series “Aku no Hana” (The Flowers of Evil).
The manga was nominated at the fifth Manga Taisho and received an anime adaptation courtesy of Zexcs back in 2013.
With a total of 11 graphic novels published and having been released in America previously, Vertical Comics is re-releasing the manga series as an omnibus (three manga graphic novels in one thick book).
The story begins with an introduction to a middle school student named Takao Kasuga. He is a guy who loves reading books, especially Charles Baudelaire’s “The Flowers of Evil” (Les Fleurs du Mal) and he is attracted to his classmate Nanako Saeki. Meanwhile in class, there is a student who tends to get in trouble and her name is Sawa Nakamura. She shocks her class by calling her teacher a “shit-bug” in front of everyone after the teacher outs her for getting a zero on her homework.
One day, Takao realizes that he left his book in class and when he goes to retrieve it, he sees Nanako’s gym shirt and bloomer shorts. Because it belongs to Nanako, he takes it and brings it home.
Meanwhile, the following morning, Nanako is in tears because someone stole her gym shirt/shorts out of her gym bag. As her classmates feel bad for her, Takao can’t help but feel bad that Nanako is distressed by what happened but keeps it to himself that he is responsible.
When Takao rides his bike back home after school, Sawa calls him and she tells him that she saw him steal Nanako Saeki’s gym clothes.
And from then on, she makes Takao take part in a contract. She won’t tell anyone what he did, but she must do everything she says.
And the things she will make Takao as part of this contract, how far will Tako go through with it? And how far will his feeling of guilt change him?
After reading “The Flowers of Evil Complete Manga Omnibus” vol. 1, I couldn’t help but feel that not only have I read something original, dark and shocking, but how refreshing to find a story that is unlike anything that has been released in Japan.
The story is a bit wicked, a boy who liked a girl and finds the opportunity to steal her gym shirt and bloomer shorts, at first I thought it would be the fall from grace of this book-loving intellect.
But in someways, it’s of how far this dark, intense girl named Sawa go to break him or to mold him to a person unlike others. A person that is more or less broken from the inside.
Sawa has this control over Takao in a way that I find shocking. When Takao gets the guts to ask Nanako Saeki out for a date, when he sees Sawa watch the two of them together, he begins to sense intense fear. And he should because immediately, Sawa makes him wear Nanako’s clothes while he’s out on a date, goes as far to get him wet to reveal that he’s wearing her clothes and Sawa is like a twisted individual who thinks she can have his way towards Takao. May it be hitting him, calling him degrading things and making him do the most messed up things, he does it.
At first you wonder why he does it. At first, you can understand that it may be fear but somehow over the course of various chapters, you start to realize that Sawa has changed him for the worse. And there is something twisted in the fact that perhaps Takao is getting a kick from the fact that she is bringing him out of his shell and having him discover his true self, or perhaps he is being broken to the point of being brainwashed.
It’s a bit shocking, unnerving and fascinating because we see how these three individuals transition after Takao’s misdeed.
But for those familiar with Baudelaire’s work, his poetry was a rebel. He wrote criticisms of 19th century French modernism during a time when Emperor Napoleon III directed his prefect of the Seine, Georges-Eugene Haussmann to plan for the demolition of medieval neighborhoods that were overcrowded and unhealthy and bring France into modernism. Baudelaire was against this and felt estranged from the city he lived in and his poets were inspired by the beggars, the blind, the gamblers, the prostitute, the elderly and those who were victimized by imperialism. He was anti-bourgeois.
In connection with this series, Takao is a huge fan of Baudelaire’s work, which is a major hint to those familiar with Baudelaire’s work that within Takao, there is a rebel. An anti-conformist, who but to weak to speak for himself. But Sawa is the true anti-conformist. She doesn’t want to be like everyone else, so she speaks her mind and is blunt about not wanting to be like everyone else.
So, it’s a very interesting dynamic and a fascinating story. Shuzo Oshimi in someways, because of his inspirations and thought process as featured in throughout the omnibus, makes me realize he is of the creative type as well.
Overall, I absolutely enjoyed “The Flowers of Evil” but I know it’s not going to be for everyone. It’s a bit dark, twisted, audacious but it’s also original and captivating. And I highly recommend “The Flowers of Evil Complete”!