If this had been the only manga Shuzo Oshimi ever made, he would have earned his place among the most skilled mangaka of his generation. But no, he seems to be following it up with another masterpiece in Happiness. Time will tell on that one, anyway. But t back to Aku no Hana, or Flowers of Evil as it's called here. The story is titled after the Baudelaire collection, Flowers of Evil, which happens to be this middle school kid's favorite book. As you might expect, he's a bit of an oddball, but he has a crush on a popular girl in his class, Saeki. Things go wrong when, coming back after class, he sees that Saeki left her gym clothes behind. Being an adolescent boy and maybe a bit of a pervert, he steals them. The next day at class the teacher talks to them about the theft and he sees Saeki crying, making him feel terrible. He resolves to give them back, but before he can, another girl named Nakamura corners him and threatens to tell everyone what a pervert he is and how he was sniffing the clothes and rubbing himself with them. She forces him to agree to a contract and uses this information against him, forcing him to do some pretty terrible things. Nakamura is something of a sadist and a psychopath who abuses and takes advantage of Takao (the boy, don't think I've mentioned his name yet).
It's a very gripping psychological story that is wonderfully told. Is the art great? Maybe not- it's nowhere near as polished as anything you'll see in Jump, but it fits the story perfectly. Oshimi uses this neat use of heavily modified photographs as backgrounds a lot, and it goes a long way to creating the mood for his story.
This is one of the few manga I've read that I'd like a hardcover, a signed one no less.
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