!! MANGA CORNER !!

I was the number 1 manga hater. I was also the number 1 anime hater. I always had a picture of what the average manga/anime viewer looked like, some fat greasy gimp.

However, I really enjoyed One Punch Man, to the point of watching it 4 times. After several years of waiting for season 3, (dear god what have they done) I decided to read the manga. And oh my, it was better than I thought it would be.

Long story short, I started to really like reading pictures from a book. Thus began my romance manga addiction. I never pictured myself as a romantical person, but there's something about romances that can't stop me from reading them. I'm a sucker for seeing two people slowly develop a relationship, that be a friendship or an intimate one.

Perhaps I like romance because I dont have any in my life. Or maybe I'm escaping reality. Whatever the reason is, it doesn't matter. It makes me all giddy and kick my feet up n shit.

My favourite mangas (so far)

• The Flowers of Evil

• Fuuka

• Goodnight Punpun

• The Climber

• GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka

• Chikan Otoko

The Flowers of Evil

My favourite manga of all time.

Kasuga, a middle school student, is an introverted and unsociable boy who likes reading books. His favourite book, Les Fleurs du mal, is about a human's violent and degenerate base desires and the self-loathing that one feels from having them.

One day, he impulsively steals his crush's gym clothes, but unbeknownst to him, another girl, Nakamura, saw him take them. She blackmails Kasuga into forming a "contract" where he must obey her and do her transgressive tasks.

Nakamura is an isolated girl with no friends. Her classmates see her as a troublemaker, and she openly shows contempt for the people and the small town around her.

The major theme of the manga is being young and dealing with puberty and sexual desire before you are really ready for it. Kasuga wants to be seen as a "normal" person, but we the readers and Nakamura already know he's not as normal as he pretends to be, she even calls him a pervert repeatedly over the span of the story.

Despite having a one-sided relationship with unclear motives, Kasuga and Nakamura grow closer and begin to enjoy their time together, as both of them are outsiders who recognise the same ugly side in each other.

For the first time in her life, Nakamura meets someone she can connect with. It's the first time she doesn't feel alone in being who she is.

Nakamura is a pervert, much like Kasuga. She tells him they’re the same, that they’re both perverts who don’t fit in with the “normal” people around them. She treats the label as something that sets them apart from everyone else, rather than something to be ashamed of.

After a traumatic event forces them apart, they both leave the small town they felt trapped in and try to rebuild their lives separately. Kasuga meets new people, a new love, and slowly moves away from his obsession with Nakamura. But he never fully leaves her behind, and eventually he goes looking for her.

They finally meet again, and share a short but bittersweet moment together, before eventually, Kasuga leaves to return to his new life.

As he leaves, Nakamura tells him to never come back. It's her way of saying goodbye, and her way of caring without admitting it. They have both developed their own separate lives and want to protect what they have. Being around each other is simply going to re-open old wounds that are better off staying closed.

Kasuga’s “flower of evil” (his dark desires and inner conflict) withers away as he grows up and experiences life. He learns to accept that side of himself rather than letting it define or control him. By the end, he's grown immensely as a person, showing just how much he's changed since the beginning.

As a reader, you are naturally going to root for the first characters you see and hope for them to end up happy together. However, this is one of those stories where no matter how much you want them to be together, you know they're better off being apart.

spoileeeer

This part covers the ending

It will forever stick with me as the manga that made me feel things I've never felt before ;)

Phew, that was a lot of words. Sorry. I read from lots of sources to help myself formulate this, as I've never written a manga summary/review before. Even after writing it, I can't really explain why I like The Flowers of Evil so much. If someone asked me for a manga recommendation, this would be my first choice!