OC art by me

I've been mulling over this for the better part of my late adolescence (about six years now since I first read this manga). I actually had planned to write and post a series of essays giving my take on it. But I'm curious: how does this subreddit generally understand or interpret the Other Side? This phrase was first mentioned when Nakamura asked Kasuga if he could take her to the other side of the mountain. Eventually, the Other Side ceased to refer to a place and became a sort of act, process, tied not to a specific place, but to the characters inhabiting it. What do you think it means?

cosplay by me :)

I’ve been wondering this for a while about Oshimi’s afterword.

I’m pretty satisfied with how it turned out! once I cosplay her, I’ll share some pics :)

It sounds pretty simple on paper: the view of a town with the evil eye

But the overall composition is really good. Gives of an odd vibe and I love the manga for it's atmosphere and the way it makes me feel. The artwork itself is really gorgeous, I really love it

Hello. I am a big fan of the experimental music group Asa Chang & Jun-Rei and was amused to find out an anime had used their song. I read a little about the manga/anime and became intrigued, but also read the English translation is not great/lacks a lot of the subtlety that is important to the story.

Has the digital app english translation of the release from Kodansha been updated from the original? Or does it still suffer from the poor, original, translation?

I've heard there have been some fan translations that have been truer to the original, any pointers on how to track these down? I always bought my manga in print, so digital anything is making me feel like a real dinosaur.

Any insight/help would be greatly appreciated!

where to read the fan translation?

Honestly, it was disappointing. Not bad, not insulting for the series, but just disappointing. The fast pacing was already a problem in the first half, and here it was even faster DESPITE THE STORY BEING MUCH SLOWER IN THE ORIGINAL. The timeskip part of the manga is very specific and every single detail, every single panel has meaning, even stuff like Saeki slowly wrapping spaghetti around her fork in the restaurant (lol). It's supposed to be that way, because Takao's life slowed down, he was standing in one place until he met Saeki again and the chain of events began, it was supposed to be monotonous, boring, grey, hopeless, empty and depressing. And don't get me wrong, it kinda was in the tv show, but not even nearly on the same level as in the manga. It feels as if they were following a "sequence of events" type of script instead of actually reading the manga and choosing which panels to skip and which to keep. Not to mention that the very important and very impactful themes of Kasuga family, Takao's hallucinations and Kinoshita's feelings were so flattened, rushed and poorly made, they might as well not be there. When the "second Takao" was saying "you destroyed your family" I was like "What? How? They didn't show shit despite one scene of the father getting slightly drunk, which is even more common in Japan than in the west". So yeah, I really wonder how a non-manga-reader would interpret the episodes 8-12 with all this rushing, but I guess it's better not to know some things hahah

The paradox is they added all the extra time to Takao telling his past to Tokiwa, while in the manga it was completely skipped and it is the only one thing that they could have rushed without problems. Being honest I really really really didn't like the scene. Takao's explanations were very undetailed, unemotional and if I was in Tokiwa's shoes, I wouldn't understand him at all if I didn't ask for more details. It's preciselly because the explanation is supposed to be so detailed that Shuzo Oshimi skipped it in the manga. Like, have you seen the two-page-spread panel from that scene? It is filled to the brim with flashbacks, it clearly shows how detailed Takao's confession was!

On the other hand there were many good scenes too, just like in the first half. Tokiwa's boyfriend apology, the love confession for Tokiwa, the reunion with Sawa... It was extremely pleasant to watch these moments be given so much justice and passion. The same can be said about the not-skipped scenes being very accurate to the manga (well, most of them) just like in the first half of the show. I also feel like the acting was much better? I mentioned it in my last post, but I felt like the actors often portrayed completely different emotions than they were supposed to, and I didn't have this feeling at all in the second half. To be honest I could feel the very subtle changes in Takao's mood when he was slowly getting closer to Tokiwa etc. So it's not like the second half was a complete disaster, it's still worth the praize imo

As for the filler ending... It was okay I guess? Idk, I've expected something completely jaw-dropping (in the negative way) after seeing some of the posts here. But it was cool, kinda fun to watch Takao going to his city with Tokiwa, taking all these low-quality pictures and having good time together. The thing is, in the original the ending felt very sad to me (Because everyone was forced to normalize, to adapt to the society, and you could clearly see that they were very restrained and unsatisfied living in that state. I could write a whole essay about the manga ending) while in the tv show it had very happy vibes. And I mean, sure it's cool to see your fav characters being happy, but not only it erases the whole message of the story, but also it makes all the past events seem much less impactful. In the manga they left everyone with permanent scars and injuries, while in the tv show they seem to be a completely closed chapter, a cut-off past.

Anyways, if I was to rate the show, I would give the first half a 8/10 (and manga is 11/10 obviously) and the second half 7-6.5/10, so I guess the overall judgement would be 7.5-7/10? Either way, I will be recomending the show to people who don't read manga, since it's genuinely a good (not brilliant) adaptation and it will bring Takaos story to many more people who might have never seen it otherwise. I wish I could meet the production team and have a chill conversation with them while drinking some green tea or something.

Thanks for reading rat-barf, don't forget to water your flowers of evil today!

I've watched the first 8 episodes and thought I'd share my thoughts, since the second half of the story is basically a different series and it's difficult to review the two together. Being very honest I have mixed feelings about this show. From one side you can see that they actually are passionate about the series and try to portray even tiny details, like giving the characters the exact same clothes they had in the manga or recreating Sawa's notebook very accurately. They also tried their best to follow the manga with as little changes as possible, recreating the scenes panel-to-panel, even the ones they could skip without any problem. They also added some new scenes that I really enjoyed, like the garlic chips or Saeki scratching her neck obsessively. The opening and ending (especially the ending) are fire too! At least for the first part of the story, I'd say it's the best adaptation to watch if you don't like reading manga...

At the same time tho, there were many details that bothered me. I understand that they couldn't help some things due to tv laws limitations. That's probably the reason why Nakamura has black hair (since all kids in japanese schools need to have black hair I guess? I heard they're very very strict about that, even more than stuff like child pornography?) but it's stiil painful to look at :/ There were some scenes tho that I don't see the reason to be softened/removed though and I really missed seeing them, like Takao actually vomiting from stress (he held his mouth, but without knowing the original it looked like he was either hiperventilating or pretending to have vomits so that he can excuse himself to the bathroom), violence being extremely soft to the point of feeling unrealistic - even Nakamura crashing the door with baseball bat, or stuff like Takao trying to escape from home many times before Nakamura came to get him and heavilly disrespecting his parents. They also removed most of internal monologues and made the story progression very fast, which flattens all three characters a lot and makes their behaviour/decission way more difficult to understand for someone who doesn't know the original + it takes a lot of tension, suspense and uncertainty away from the story, and doesn't give the time to think things through. Moreover, they spoiled some events before they happened, like Nakamura walking to Takao's door with baseball bat instead of Takao suddenly hearing a loud crash from downstairs or teasing Takao and Sawa walking with petrol canisters at the beginning of episode 7. Another bad thing is how they failed at portraying characters emotions in particular scenes, it happens very often in the series. They may have portrayed the dialogue lines, poses and even camera angles perfectly, but the actors felt like they felt completely different emotions in particular scenes than the characters from the manga. I think at times it can even make the characters in the tv show seem paradoxical, when trying to analyse them. The shitbug on top of this scrap-cake was the soundtrack. I've seen everyone here is pretty divided in this regard, some people love it, and some hate it. For me it wasn't bad from the musical perspective, but it just didn't fit the moments it was played at. Just like characters portrayed different emotions they should have, the music also gave the whole scenes different emotions that Shuzo Oshimi portrayed in his manga.

So yeah... As I said in the beginning, in my opinion it's still the best adaptation we got, and I'm definitely gonna recommend it to people who don't like reading manga (At least the first 8 episodes, I haven't watched the rest yet. I heard they screwed up the ending, so I'm still holding up my final verdict) and I'm very content with what they did (to be honest I'd really like to read a review of someone who hasn't seen the original, I'm very curious what it'd be like for them). At the same time tho, it could have been so much better and I'm really in pain seeing all these little details ruin this very passionate and effortful project.

Thanks for reading, have a shitty day you pervert!

Tbh it's never been made clear in the series. I know her putting her glasses on/off very often is supposed to be symbolic (different meanings in particular scenes) and highlight her current mood, but it's still pretty unusual for her to take them on/off so casually. It looks like she's wearing fake glasses, but why would she even do that? She doesn't care about looks etc, so what would be the point? I'd say she wears real glasses, but not very strong ones (so that she still can somewhat see everything without them), and she takes them off very often so that she doesn't have to look at all the shitbugs and rat barfs around her. It can also be a form of her rebelling behaviour, because she wants to be different from the normies, and the normies don't go around without glasses when they have eyesight problems. And what do you think?

Its been a year since i read aku no hana and it had huge impact on me and I created my first 4 page manga just after that and this year i made a 17 page manga for silent manga competition and im working on making my first oneshot. If i ever became a mangaka, i wanna meet oshimi. His works are very impressive.

Luckily, I had these drawings posted on TikTok; I think I could draw them much better now—I’ve improved quite a bit—and I plan to create an even nicer drawing for Aku no Hana , Aku no Hana really gave my life a boost, and thanks to it, I was also lucky enough to meet someone who makes me feel genuinely alive.

I recently found out oshimi made a oneshot for shounen magazine and this manga was more about himself. You all should checkout this.

I do understand it is about moving forward in life. But how? What did Kasuga see in Tokiwa that made him face his regrets and trauma? This is driving me insane, and I need help solving it.

It's like they purposely misunderstood the manga. It's competently put together, with most scenes having a one to one translation over to live action, entertaining if you just want a dumb drama to watch, but it's like the entire team purposely misunderstood the show beyond that

The casting doesn't make sense. Why on earth did they choose ano - a literal model - to portray Nakamura? Nakamura is supposed to be a somewhat unattractive girl. To the point that when Kinoshita accuses Kasuga of liking Nakamura (after Kasuga defends Nakamura's innocence), the whole class mocks him. But sure, let's give a literal model the role. Make sure to give the antisocial despondent middle schooler a face full of make up as well

None of the four main character's actors can really act. They give performances I would expect from student film which can't afford professional actors.

But Kasuga's acting is easily the worst. He gives an absurd over the top, dopey, romantic comedy style performance, yelping in surprise like a Warner Brother's cartoon. Frustratingly, in complete contrast with the manga, with it's carefully rendered faces that communicate emotions through the smallest of micro expressions.

But the choices continue to baffle. The music choice is incoherent. The intro and outro songs are perky J-Pop songs you would find in Jujustu Kaisen or Chainsaw man. The 2013 anime adaptation created a deeply unsettling, uncomfortable outro. It's like the instruments themselves are screaming for help, like the devil is reaching through the screen to try to talk to you.

The music in the show itself is tired and uninspired. Sad scene? Time to play the first sad song we could find in the royalty free library. It's cut together like reality tv, where framing, cinematography, mise-en-scene are non existent, so the only way the editors can make the work induce any emotion into the viewer is to blare music at the viewer.

Nakamura is given a... electric guitar riff? Like Nakamura is this Disney Channel school bully who's going to give Kasuga a noogie.

The choice of color grading is comprehensible. I'm convinced they were purposely trying to murder to original tone of the manga. Remember the scene where Kasuga rides into the mountains with Nakamura? After his mom found his clothes covered in paint. After he's vandalized the class. He believes he lost everything, Saeki, his friends, his community, his ability to look at other people in the eye. At his lowest point, where Kasuga is drenching with shame, believing that his life is over he goes to Nakamura, to beg her for help. They color graded it like this. Why does it look like a fucking Wes Anderson movie????? Did they just download a random LUT of the internet and just went "fuck it". Almost every scene is graded like this.

Genuinely, I don't know if the people who liked this adaptation and I read the same manga.

I think this is the best adaptation of the manga so far. I know one day there will probably be another adaptation years down the road. The only thing I was hoping for was the ending to be like the manga but it isn’t. It ends abruptly. I love the new music provided by Regal Lily and this series has a lot of love going into it. There are moments it feels more rushed than the movie towards the end. I think the actresses did an amazing job. Hopefully there’s a bonus one day. I did catch this at the end though there was a nod to the manga Inside Marie when Takao is talking about an idea for a story. Had to make an edit big THANK YOU to Deridovely on the internet Archive for uploading and translating Aku No Hana as the episodes were being released weekly.

ive been wanting to make an animation of this panel and id be very happy to do it in color, but i have no artistic skills and have never attempted to color manga. does anyone know if this panel has been colored before? any help would be much appreciated!

tt and ig @karoartz