Aku no Hana

When it comes to the latest and greatest TV shows, sometimes I feel - as Nakamura would put it - like I'm "drowning in a sea of shit". My 10/10 rating is ultimately based on this show's potential. Ah, what could have been. It's obvious from the final episode that the creators had every intention to make a second season. Based on the manga, the second season would have been earth-shattering. This first season was just laying the foundation for all that excitement - and what a great job it did! Let me say, the flack this show gets totally goes over my head. Poor adaptation? Areyou kidding me? This anime is about a million times better than the manga. Where the manga feels half-baked, this season did not shy away from or sugar-coat it's themes of isolation and boredom. And where the manga art does zero justice to it's dark and "alternative" themes, the anime is art is edgy and, yes, very "alternative". Why do people hate the animation so much? It's not cute because it's not supposed to be. I don't believe it's supposed to feel overly polished, either. The realistic proportions and movements of all the characters makes scenes that felt camp in the manga feel believably tense in the anime. And Nakamura's actress is just brilliant. I do agree with other fans, though, that the single best part of this season was the soundtrack. The ending theme has to be my favorite anime ending to date. And the rotating opening themes are super cool for expanding on one character at a time. The quiet background noise for sure also adds an interesting layer to Kasuga's day-to-day boredoms and almost an outer-body attitude to the mess that he is creating. I have to say, this whole show is a brilliant character study. Kasuga, who prides himself on being "different" for reading classic poetry yet doesn't want to be called a deviant. Nakamura, who's sick of people like him wearing masks, yet deeply troubled and lonely because while she has a hunch that plenty of people share her views, none of them can admit to it. And even Saeki, who finally proves she's not just an angel or muse for Kasuga, but another lying "shit-face" tired of playing the part she's been assigned. I like the characters here much more than I EVER did in the manga. Interesting, since scene-by-scene it's very faithful to the manga. The animation, acting, and music really does make that big of a difference. It feels like a brand new story. Finally, poor pacing? Okay, this complaint drives me crazy. Because obviously you're crazy to say such a thing. The pacing in this show is so, so, so consistent. That's more than I can say about the pacing for most anime. Consistency is the single most important aspect of pacing, and it takes effort to achieve. Yeah, this show is slow. Maybe that's not your style. But at least it was intentional. Everything about this show is very intentional, if experimental, and done with care and purpose. This show has vision. It's okay if you don't like it's vision or angle, but don't dare put it in the ranks of other thoughtless, forgettable shows. The director did say he wanted this show to make a strong impression, even if that impression is a bad one. I guess I shouldn't be so upset this show gets so much hate, because as they say, the opposite of love is not hate - it's indifference. Bad publicity is good publicity? Still upset about this show's poor ratings. Forever pissed that we didn't get a second season. People who flame this anime without even giving it a try are the kind of people Kasuga and Nakamura hate - boring people glued inside a comfort zone. Such experimental and creative anime should be celebrated and encouraged. I'd much rather watch a show that takes risks, even if some of those risks fall flat, than one with a dime-a-dozen formulaic plot and style. Take Nakamura's advice and embrace the deviant inside of you. Embrace the risque, embrace the abnormal. Embrace this show. And shows like it. Hopefully, next time something this unique rolls out, people will give it a chance and give it a second season.

The psychological genre is my favorite genre in anime. I love the emotions characters show as they go through the ups and downs and trials and tribulations of the story. Unlike many people who hate the “real life” backgrounds and scenery or the fact that the characters are “ugly”, the thing I hate most about this show is the lack of emotion shown by the characters which I have come to love from similar psychological stories. I started Aku no Hana shortly after the season ended not knowing what to expect and with no idea whether I would hate it or love it. I had beenputting it off after seeing the art style and how it varied from the manga that I had greatly enjoyed. I also thought I knew exactly where this season would end but damn was I wrong. Instead of ending it at a place where the manga changes pace and I thought left a perfect spot for the season to end, they slowed down the pace and made it so that the climax of the story will probably come around the fourth or fifth episode of the second season. Story – 6/10 It kind of pains me to give this story such a low score. I would have dropped this show after the first episode or so had I not read the manga and known how much better the plot gets. However, the plot gets really good shortly after where this relatively uneventful season ends. The story of Aku no Hana begins with a bored-out-of-his-mind middle school boy named Kasuga Takao. The town he lives in is surrounded by mountains on all sides, and is cut off from the rest of the world. Kasuga loves reading books and his favorite is “Flowers of Evil” (Aku no Hana in Japanese) by Charles Baudelaire. He even has a picture of Baudelaire in his bedroom and carries a copy of the book with him everywhere he goes. One day, he forgets the book at school and goes back to get it. When he does, he finds the gym uniform of his crush, Saeki Nanako, lying next to the lockers at the back of their classroom. Kasuga picks up and the clothes and smells them, and, startled by a sound behind him, gets scared and takes the uniform home with him. Kasuga decides to just put the uniform back the next day and avoid any problems, but things become difficult once he finds out that the loner in his class, Nakamura Sawa, saw him steal Saeki’s uniform. In addition, Saeki and everyone else is freaking out over the event. From there, Nakamura uses the knowledge of what Kasuga has done to force him into a contract and use him to have some fun in this boring town town full of boring people. As much as I love the plot of the manga, the anime is just too slow paced. What could have had the climax of the manga (so far) at its end, instead decided to waste time on slow scenes and put off the real story for later. This show tries to build up tension too much, but fails in the end with a strange ending that forces a second season. Art – 3/10 As I mentioned, I do not dislike the backgrounds that use rotoscoping (tracing over real life images and making it look animated). The one place where there is an intersection and there is a mirror that they use to split up Kasuga and his friends I thought was a very nice touch that showed how distant he was from everyone else. While I don’t really like the designs that people consider “ugly,” it’s still not what ruined the show for me. What I dislike is the lack of emotion they portray. Despite sounding distraught or maniacal (for Nakamura) at times, the characters faces never show more blushing, tears, and sweat. Compared to something like “Higurashi” which shows emotions to the extreme, their faces are just boring. I just could not get attached to emotional scenes when I kept looking at the characters’ faces and seeing the same expression I had seen in regular scenes. Even real life people show more emotions than these characters, which is not something I can say for almost any other anime. Another thing I disliked was how characters only gained faces after they were large enough and how faces gradually appeared on them as they moved “towards the camera.” This also detracted from the emotions of characters showed. It wasn’t a problem for background characters, but it was for the main three and Kasuga’s parents. One time Kasuga’s mother is supposed to look distressed and crying but she (as well as Kasuga’s father) has no face and instead is just sitting there for about half a minute before it lets you see her do anything to show that she is feeling distressed. Sound – 4/10 There’s not much music in this show. While the piano tones do set up a good mood, there’s not much variety in the soundtrack. The one song that has one piano note every so often is about the only one I really noticed, and I’m not sure if there were any songs other than that and the ED. I don’t usually mention ending or opening songs, but this one starts prior to the end credits in every episode and is occasionally played during scenes. I really do not like the ending. It’s a creepy, computer generated voice that isn’t really even singing. I think it would work okay for a science fiction-horror but not for Aku no Hana. Character – 3/10 Well, I didn’t even like Kasuga in the manga until after where the anime ends (right after where I thought it was going to end actually). Still, between the strange character designs, the lack of emotion they show, Kasuga’s fairly annoying VA (who kind of had to be annoying to fit the role), and just the lack of anything that really happens to develop the characters during these 13 episodes, I do not like main character cast. The background characters all blend together and with their strange designs, all look kind of similar (except for one of Kasuga’s friends with curly hair). Since the real interesting character development happens later than where the anime stops, there’s really nothing much to say. Enjoyment 4/10 I kept hoping it would improve and become more like the manga I love, but it was just an uneventful, disappointing season in the end. I would recommend the manga over the anime if you want to experience the real emotion of the story and to not have the story cut off shortly before the climax. If you want something similar (but better) you could also try reading Chikan Otoko, Sundome, or Onani Master Kurosawa.

Teenage angst, love triangles, and melodrama are all really tacky aspects for a series to handle, but if there’s one series that does a near impeccable job handling these aspects, it’s Aku no Hana. The pacing is slow. It’s really, really, really slow, but it works. It works brilliantly. It was a little jarring at first with how slow events were taking place, but then it became clear that this show just would have never worked if it paced itself faster. Aku no Hana takes its time building up the atmosphere, beautifully fleshing out the characters and bringing them to life. Aku no Hana doesn’t liketo make scenes snappy, instead it takes as much time as it wants drawing them out. While watching Aku no Hana, I didn’t feel like I was watching ordinary anime anymore, but real life events unfolding right in front of my eyes. I felt like I was actually a passerby standing right in the scene, observing everything that was going on. I wasn’t in my room anymore, I was there. That’s how immersed I was with the whole experience. And an ugly experience it was. A beautifully ugly experience. Aku no Hana never once showcases the beauty of human nature, society or the world we live in. It doesn’t even end on a hopeful note. Aku no Hana throws you out of your comfort zone and blatantly tells you how cruel and cynical our world can really be at times, that sometimes there really is no hope. Aku no Hana achieves this bleak theme with the main cast who no longer feel merely as characters, but as actual human beings. They’re fantastically well-acted and far from likeable in a believable way. Kasuga isn’t a terrible person, but he makes rash decisions and digs himself deeper and deeper into a hole by running away from his problems. Nakamura is so insecure and broken down inside, that she instills this narrow mindset where people are either deviants or not. Saeki is foolish and completely driven by her infatuation for Kasuga. By the end, all three characters wore me down so much that I was yelling at their naivety and ultimately putting my face in the palms of my hands, but not because the decisions they made were poorly written and delivered, but quite the opposite. Every character mirrors reality perfectly, so much that’s it’s almost terrifying. Aku no Hana screwed with my perspective on life the same brilliant way Aoi Bungaku and Welcome to the NHK did as I watched it. But alas, there are just a few flaws with the series. Yes, it was a little uneventful at first, the series ends on a major cliffhanger, but more importantly the series just became so abrasively dark that I eventually grimaced through the final episodes. Do I recommend?: Aku no Hana is a rare anime that captures the atrocious side of life perfectly, but it’s hard for me to recommend a series like this. The fact that the show is so downright cynical will turn people away as well as the incredibly slow pacing. If you like dark psychological drama, give this one a chance and see for yourself.

Either the worst eyesore you have ever witnessed in your entire life, or your salvation from a miserable existence without ever having witnessed this gracious account of a teenage boy's descent into evil. In the "Reviews" section of this fairly revolutionary-wise visual presentation, those are the only two kinds of reviews you will ever find. In the "Ratings" section, however, you will find a wide range of different people, who have either enjoyed, endured, or dropped this newly classic saga of adolescence. Those traitors! How could they have rated Aku no Hana as anything BUT a 9.0 or higher?! How could they have not savoredthe decadent scenes of Kasuga-kun walking through grass for basically half of one entire episode?! How could they have not delighted in the cliffhanger at the end of the series?! All of these little nuisances serve only to truly please the true fans of Aku no Hana. Yes, I am referring to masochists such as myself, who were taken aback by the god-tier skill and passion that was put forth into making each episode painful, and were constantly asking for more by the end of each episode. Let us unite and spread the good word amongst the deviants! Anyways, on to the review. Please note that the actual novel, Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, does not play as big a role as you might have thought. Sorry for the disappointment, folks. STORY l 10 l In this particular anime, we start off by being introduced to Kasuga-kun, our beloved protagonist for this series, and the dull setting that he is immersed in. Basically, he lives in a tranquil, quiet town, where nothing commercial/big has reached. The buildings are soft and crumbling, and the shrubbery and trees softly melt into the clear, distant sky, setting the perfect mood for absolute chaos to bloom. Kasuga-kun is a junior high student, and is walking to school, when suddenly, BAM! nothing out of the ordinary happens at all. Anyways, in his class, Kasuga-kun is almost a complete loner, save for the geeks that he has attracted. Most of his classmates view him as weirdo, who is obsessed with books (Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, in particular); and it turns out that he is. It turns out that we get to listen in on almost every single thought that enters his mind, narrated in the voice of Morgan Free- Ueda, Shinichirou, I mean. Anyways, he's obsessed about this one girl named Saeki, Nanako, who just so happens to be one of his classmates. He literally acknowledges her as his reason to live, and seriously worships her accordingly. Despite this, he hesitates to check her out during P.E., as the other guys do (Good Guy Kasuga-kun). Too bad Saeki quite literally does not acknowledge him at all. Another important character to take note of here is Nakamura, Sawa. Alright; now, the actual story is set in motion when Kasuga forgets his copy of Les Fleurs du Mal at school. When he comes back to retrieve it, he is greeted by Saeki's bag of goodies (her bag of gym clothes), and upon an impulse, he grabs it, and runs like hell, the bag in one hand and his book in the other. Little does our Kasuga-kun know, though, that a certain girl (Nakamura) was loitering afterschool, and caught a glimpse of a certain someone stealing another certain someone's clothes. Oh, boy. ART l 9 l Now, despite how everyone was complaining about "rotoscoping", a technique of animation which they probably picked up from this anime page's forums, have no idea about the ethics of it, and have been tossing it around like monkeys with their own feces, I'd like to state otherwise. Although it's verily painful at first glimpse, it's simply beautiful once you get used to it, and it'll grow on you. Anyways, onto the concept of rotoscoping, and its ethics in being used in anime. Rotoscoping is basically an ancient form of art, with evidence of its use in any type of animation being as early as 1915. It is quite literally, the art of drawing over recorded material; just drawing anything at all is incredibly hard, so you should get off the animators' backs when you criticize any type of animation. Also, for those who have claimed that rotoscoping was used in this instance because there wasn't enough funding, let me tell you why that is bull feces. Instead of simply animating out of scratch and having voice actors create their magic, so much more was financed in renting a place to film, having a film crew, also having animators, and paying extra for actors who would fit the role, and work twice as hard as simple voice actors. If this was too long, and you didn't read it, then it can be summed up with: Anyone who criticizes animation should just go do it themselves. SOUND l 9 l Aku no Hana has one of the most beautiful original soundtracks my ears have ever been witness too; and I've even listened to Yoko Kanno's works. You have Uchujin's already well-established works with different vocalists doing the opening songs, and ASA-CHANG & JUNRAY's simply genius song, "Hana -a last flower-", fit one of the anime's most important themes about evil blooming like flowers. Aside from the OST, the background sounds to several settings within the anime are done masterfully, effectively simulating the exact same feel as though it were a picture. That is, assuming they didn't just use the clean-cut background sounds from the footage that they had recorded. If so, then anyone may correct me on that point. Also, the actors had done a wonderful job of voicing who they were meant to act as. CHARACTER l 8 l Character. The lowest point of 8 in my rating. I might be mistaken in judging these characters, but what the hell. Alright, first, we have our first main character, Kasuga-kun. At first, we are shown that he is a vigilant bookworm, with a passionate love/desire for Saeki. With time, his character quite literally withers into an emo teenager who actually does repeat "I'm empty!" several times in a certain episode. By the end, though, you become witness to the beautiful emergence of Kasuga-kun out of a symbolic cocoon; anything more would spoil the entire anime for you guys. Next up, we have Nakamura-san, who is, instead of Saeki, the next most important character in this anime. All throughout the anime, basically, you can sum up Nakamura-san as an absolute bad-ass angel of chaos, who seeks nothing but a companion for the end of the world (symbolically); or, if you're a normal person, then a crazy, red-haired demon. Also, by the end, you are shown more of what had motivated her to do the things that she had done. Next, is Saeki-san, the next important character within this story. She is basically an angel from heaven, a blessing for her friends and family, and a sight for sore eyes if you're an abstinent male. Kasuga-kun has completely fallen for her, and with this honest emotion, she can't help but feel it mutual. It's a relatively short relationship, though, so celebrate Kasuga-kun's luck with brevity! Anyways, later on, Kasuga-kun is put between a rock and a hard place, when he absolutely must decide between two of the lovely ladies. You must watch it in order to find out what happens next! ENJOYMENT l 10 l Every Saturday/Sunday/Monday (whenever it was available to me from ggsubs), I would sit dutifully in my chair and watch Aku no Hana in perfect silence, absorbing all that I could from it. I honestly enjoyed this anime a lot, because again, I am quite the masochist. This anime will fulfill anyone looking for chaotically pristine drama, and will destroy anyone who isn't looking for salvation within this anime. I very much recommend this anime to anyone who is looking for something to marathon when you have nothing else to do, because there literally is no other way to watch it but in a marathon (unless you were stuck in purgatory, waiting each week for the newest episode to be subbed, like I, and many of my brothers in the Spring of 2013 anime season). I might have enjoyed it quite a bit due to the fact that it sort-of mirrors my adolescence a bit. Oh well, whatever. OVERALL l 9 l Alright, I'm not gonna be a tyrant here and absolutely make everyone who bore through my review watch it, but just watch it, if you have even the slightest interest in it.

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