Man, this manga is AMAZING. Simple as that. Thought-provoking, intense, realistic, meaningful, angsty, increasingly captivating.
I really hate to use this world freely but here i think i can say it with no regrets: in my opinion, this manga is a masterpiece. It‘s unbelievable, really, that i felt like dropping it back in the early chapters.

And boy, am i glad i decided back then to continue reading...! The truth is, Aku no Hana improved tremendously over the years. Both visually and plotwise. The gritty and sometimes painful-to-read start gave away to an insightful, intriguing coming-of-age story.

The characters also followed that evolution beautifully. Kasuga went from a spineless, angsty emo to a mature, coolheaded shit-eater (no irony or harm intended here). It‘s truly impressive how much this guy changed over the series. Ultimately, how much he grew up.

Because this is what Aku no Hana is all about: it‘s the journey of a 14 year old kid who likes to read and sees the world as his enemy. He then meets two other weird kids, some tragic stuff happens to them and thanks to that he enters a 3 year "void" where he feels lost and empty. After that, he finds once again a reason to live (Tokiwa) and realizes he finally needs to grow up and face the ghosts/scars from his past, to crush that "flower of evil" that once bloomed inside him and almost made him throw away his life.

Aku no Hana is all about trying to understand yourself before you try to understand the others. It‘s a journey of self discovery at its core and the acknowledgement that coming to terms with your own nature is the only means you have if you wanna find the "other side" of the mountain (like Nakamura used to say in a really fascinating way, if you ask me).


Other random notes:

- I love how easily the mangaka can convey his intentions and what he wants to say to us, readers, with his beautiful artwork. You can feel it, especially at the end, how meaningful each panel is and how clear it is for the reader to connect to the manga‘s atmosphere and its characters. I think the manga developed his drawing skills a lot along the years he spent drawing AnH.

- Chapters 33-34, 44-45 and 48-56 (especially chapters 52-56) were incredible! I had a blast reading them!

- Also, i find it important to note that i wouldn‘t enjoy this manga as much as i did if i haven‘t read it in one go. I don`t think i would be able to handle the monthly pacing, 35 pages a month. This is the kind of story that is better read when you have a clear notion of what happened in the early chapters and only then you can connect everything that happened to what`s happening now. Then again, it‘s just a personal preference of mine, so pay no mind.

All in all, Aku no Hana is a wonderful coming-of-age manga that is incredibly well-written and i can't help but be mesmerized by how beautifully (sometimes in a painfully disturbing and nerve wracking way) it portrayed its characters and what happened to them while they grew up and discovered their own self and what life is about. It‘s all about facing that heavy notion that whether you like it or not, you‘re a shit-eater and you will always be one.
Nevertheless, it‘s not your condition as a shit-eater that matters but what you do with your life now that you have recognized how insignificant is your existence and how blunt and disconcerting reality can be.In other words, denying your nature would be the same as denying yourself and ruining the chances you have at being happy.

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And just one more thing i would like to point out:

Someone wrote this in some website regarding Baudelaire‘s original work, and having read all the poems from Les Fleurs du Mal, i must say that it synthesizes really well what Baudelaire‘s work is all about. And now that i have read Aku no Hana, i still find it impressive how much of the original work ties in with Oshimi Shuzo‘s manga:

"Baudelaire emphasized above all the disassociated character of modern experience: the sense that alienation is an inevitable part of our modern world. In his prose, this complexity is expressed via harshness and shifts of mood. The constant emphasis on beauty and innocence, even alongside the seamier aspects of humanity, reinforce an existentialist ideal that rejects morality and embraces transgression. Objects, sensations, and experiences often clash, implicitly rejecting personal experiences and memories; only operations of consciousness (e.g., revulsion and self-criticism) are valued and even exalted.
Indeed, for Baudelaire, the shock of experiencing is the act of living."