Well, after the Versus Show, how about some in-depth anime discussions this time? In this section I will talk in more details about anime/ manga that I’m passionate about. Please note that this is not an actual review. Honestly, I never truly agree with the concept of reviewing (and rating for that matters) at arts, at something we suppose to feel subjectively. If I want to review that much I’d rather be critic. But I’m not, at heart I’m an anime fan who love this medium just like you guys. This in-depth piece not only give me a deeper look at the works that cut me deeply, it’s also serve as a reminder of why I love anime in the first place.
Lately, the world of The Flowers of Evil just can’t seem to escape me, which is quite reasonable to be honest because psychological drama is always my thing. After all, one of my favourite director is Ingmar Bergman. For those who say this is a horror work: NO, it’s not. It feels more like TERROR for me, something that can happen in real life (while horror’s main intention is to scare you, period). I re-watched the anime again after its airing back in 2013, and this time I managed to read the manga to see how it all ends up. Thank god that the manga is finished so I don’t have to wait for months for the next chapters to come. Flowers of Evil is one of the best anime/manga out there to really understand the dark side of growing up, the detachment to the world they live in, the self-confusion, the teen-angst and the obsession and destructive relationships. I will discuss in details below, really whatever springs on my mind. As this is obvious a spoiler-heavy post, please read it at your own risk.
The Anime Adaptation
Shuzo Oshimi (the original manga creator) said in one of his interview that the anime adaptation, along with the manga, formed two versions of the story from his original idea. I think that’s the best way to sum up about the anime. For me, a great adaptation is the one that takes what is essential from the source; be it the theme or tone; and then makes it their own version. If the adaptation becomes too faithful with the source material, then I don’t see the reason why we don’t read/watch the source instead. In that sense Flowers of Evil anime really sets itself apart from other adaptations because it looks awfully unlike the manga, and even goes more extreme than the manga. Is it make it a better version? Let’s get down to it.
The live-action cast of Flowers of Evil. In case you don’t know, the prettiest girl who stands right in the middle is our main guy.
First, the one thing that the show does absolutely right is its decision to end where it ends. It’s easy to miss that crucial change in theme of the first and second part and I come to really respect the director’s decision to stop there. This conclusion marks the change in character’s act of Kasuga (he’ll be more aggressive rather than passive, more on that later) and covers the introduction of the story, because after that is things just get more intense by the minutes. The second best thing about the anime is its infamous moody, atmospheric tone, repeated scenarios and snail-walking pace. There is a lot of scenes where characters just walking and do nothing else. That 10-minutes of our two mains walking from one end to the other could easily put viewers off, even to the most patience ones. But reading the manga, especially the later college-part, it becomes more apparent that the manga is less about shocking and more about the wounds and how to deal with that scars left behind. The show nails that mood right off the bat, it’s even more amazing given that prior to the anime airing, the manga was just in its beginning of the college part.
Now, to the most controversial aspect of the show: the rotoscoping techniques. I’d say that while rotoscoping indeed makes the show looks unique, it has its fair share of problems as well. People often complains that because the rotoscoping is a cheap technique, it should not be recommended as a plausible technique. For that I say it really depends on how to use it. The rotoscoping in this series mainly conveys the uneasy, creepy sense and it intends to give that impact to the viewers. On that front they pretty much succeed on what they set out to do. There are two main advantages I find from this series’ rotoscoping that normal anime couldn’t deliver too well. Firstly, the rotoscoping allows more movements on character’s gestures and their body languages, the way each character moves, the way they tilt their heads. We also get to see the main casts’ reactions to these uncomfortable feeling and that tells a lot about their inner thought or their position towards the world around them. Secondly, the voice acting is phenomenal. It makes sense when you think about it because the cast have to act as well, so there is a chemistry in their interactions that easily surpassed an ordinary anime voice acting from the recorder room.
But being rotoscoping means that the character designs are vastly different from the manga, and that for me is the show’s biggest flaw. And I don’t mean to say that the cast is unattractive like most people tend to say because I find them charming the way they are. But character designs have always been a crucial part in Shuzo Oshimi’s world because it says a lot about the characters and the show just fails to capture it. Take Saeki for example, in the manga she has a thin, fragile figure because as she said herself she’s a weak person at heart. Her constant smile functions like a mask because that’s what she put upfront, but when it comes to issues revolving Kagusa she’s very determination. When she tells Kasuga she doesn’t want to break-up, it’s that determination that speaks a lot to her character. Saeki in the anime just doesn’t have that vibe, her softly spoken in that same scene doesn’t translate too well for me. Nakamura in the anime also just gives off a wrong impression as well. Nakamura always has that otherworldly aura, that cold grinning that the show just never managed to capture it. In addition, the facial expression isn’t the show’s strong suits, and that hurts because the eyes play such an important role in Oshimi’s style of conveying expression. Many character’s inner feelings and impressions are expressed through the eyes (even Nakamura sometimes would take her glasses down to do just that!) and the anime unfortunately don’t interpret it quite well.
Just looking at the eyes, you could gather whole range of expressions from Saeki and Kasuga. All of this was conveyed without any single dialogue. I wish many shows should be like this, it’s Show, Don’t Tell right there.
Ultimately, I consider Flowers of Evil anime a worthy adaptation to the manga, but not a superior one. The director Hiroshi Nagahama really understands what make the manga so appealing and he strengthens many strengths from the manga, on top of that make it unique to a fault (he after all directed Mushishi, Detroit Metal City- all good stuffs). I would love to see the second season of this anime, because simply it’s crime not to adapt the best part of Flowers of Evil. This is exactly how Oshimi put it: an alternate interpretation from the manga.
The Structure – The Coming-of-Age Story at heart
Readers of the manga tends to divide the story in 2 parts: the young and the college part of Kasuga, but as the anime suggests, I believe this is much clearer for Flowers of Evil to split in 3 parts. As much as my distaste with the 3 act structure, this is one of the strength of Flowers of Evil. Oshimi knows how to heighten the drama, escalating the stakes and making the conflicts more and more complex, and it fits pretty well with the 3-act. That 3-act also ties the character development of Kasuga.
Part 1: The Loss of Innocence
If I have to pick the image that best represents the 1st act, it’d be this: Kasuga standing there bare-naked, Nakamura holds him back and Saeki keeps reaching for him.
This is basically what the anime covers. This beginning arc at first paints a seemingly “normal” life of a teenage school boy, Kasuga; then slowly tears down all his “walls” – his social life and his identity so to speak. Kasuga in the beginning loves reading books, sees his crush Saeki as a “goddess”, and hates his boring town. His favorite book is Fleurs du Mal, and even he admits that he doesn’t really understand the meaning of the book, he likes it for being “different”. These are basically his identity up to that point. Nakamura succeeds in tearing down all of his identity to the point that by the end of this act he no longer the boy he was, with all of his previously self-identity now gone through the windows. The book at this point symbolises the last self-identity his old-self Kasuga has, as a result having him treading the Fleurs du Mal book is an ultimate action of him losing his innocent self. In addition, by having Saeki throws the book, Kasuga steps on it and finally Nakamura tears it apart; it reflects the rejection of the trio towards a bright, normal life, and foreshadows the next act where basically all hell breaks loose.
Kasuga in this stage is portrayed as passive, because frankly he doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t know who he is for that matters. His submissive when the two forces (Nakamura and Saeki) pulling him towards their sides are pretty reasonable and his indecision to choose between them is the main point of this arc. After all, growing up is never easy. At this stage we often put on many personalities because we’re not sure what we are. Oshimi would later revisits this same theme again in Inside Mari (Boku wa Mari no Naka) and I would argue this is an essential stage as part of growing up to really understand who you really are.
Part 2: The Other Side
The best moment of 2nd act: To jump or not to jump? That is a question.
This arc is the climax and the heart of Flowers of Evil. It’s the act where you could see our three main characters slowly descend to madness and this is the act where the relationships between the trio become twisted and destructive. Kasuga is much more energetic at this stage, having make up his mind to follow Nakamura and planning do to more deviant acts. This is a much more aggressive, destructive stage and that’s maybe one of the reason people takes the Flowers of Evil as a statement towards the meaning of freedom. They might have their points as the way Kasuga leans towards Nakamura can be seen as his detest towards what society has obstructed him to be. He doesn’t want to be a part of that society anymore and instead wants to do things beyond society comprehension just to express that freedom, that’s also where the very idea of “social norms” is challenged.
Oshimi has stated that in Flowers of Evil he really wants to tackle the very concept of “deviant”, which he felt was misunderstood. In our society, there are certain sets of rules and sets of characters conduct that everyone have to follow in order to be appropriate to others. Any actions outside of that sets of conduct therefore will be deemed “inappropriate”, thus people who violates all that will be classified as deviant people. Kasuga and Nakamura are by that very definition a deviant people, but they are different for the normal deviant people, they have purposes. For me, it’s more of a form of teen-angst where you’re dissatisfied with the world around you, and you want to do something “worthwhile”, even if it means to destroy everything you have.
Obsession plays as another important theme for this act. Not only in this part Kasuga becomes obsessed with making Nakamura happy, but even more so with Saeki keeps chasing down the shadow of Kasuga to the point of nearly break herself down. The main story might focus more between Nakahara – Kasuga relationship, but it’s Saeki’s blindly reach towards Kasuga that add much more context to the story. Their obsessions would eventually become harmful, both too the people around them, but worse to even themselves as well. This corruption is heightened really well by both on how far they gone to achieve what they desire; and on the real damage that they done. Well, there is criticism on the super Deus Ex Machina climax when Nakamura’s father comes out of nowhere to save the day. But really, I think it’s the most appropriate ending out there. After all, the only thing that could stop those 14-year-old kids from self-destruct is the role of the adults themselves. Remember many instances where our kids were disrupted by the adults (the mountain scene in the anime, the burning the sack incident and now this). It’s clear that this story is also about the isolation from kids towards their parents, but when their struggles end up in actual consequences, it’s adult’s roles to step in and prevent those damages as quick as possible.
Part 3: The Afterneath
The only time that Nakamura laughs her heart out, purely. I suspect she’d never laugh like that ever again in her life.
By this last arc, it’s clear that Flowers of Evil’s true intention isn’t meant to provoke and shock the audience. Well, it does, but it sets its sight way beyond that. This act might feel as a new story of sort because of the sudden time-jump and the tone is much slower and tender than the previous two acts, in addition the lack of appearance of two girls in the main cast, but for me this is still a very worthy act.
The main theme in this act revolves around consequences. Unlike most other story where the main characters usually can get away with whatever bad cause they have done, in Flowers of Evil there are real consequences and the trio all have to face with the mess that they made. Kasuga witnesses the resentment from people of his own towns, the broken down of his own parents and the hole inside his soul. Facing these scars is never easy and Kasuga wanders around like a ghost since the incident, feels nothing, never belong to the new environment and tends to run away from whatever make him hurt. Saeki then reappears and counters him and urges him to face with the consequences he left behind. To accept the mess he left with is to be able to move on with his life. In order to that he has to face Nakamura again to really put that painful experience to the past.
The notion of the other side is a recurring motif of the story. At first, it was mentioned by Nakamura as “the other side of the mountain”, where she imagines the world in that other side would be different than this world, the place where she can really escape from this dreadful world. It’s a wishful thinking, of course, since she knows that there is no other side for her, wherever she goes. Kasuga takes this idea further by saying that the other side is within her, wherever she feels happy that is her other side. As a result, he tries to do all the deviant works just to please her. When Saeki succeeds on preventing them, that’s when they choose to go the ultimate other side: the afterworld. After that, they would never find that other side. Well, technically they did, in the name of the town where Nakamura now lives, to signify that Nakamura herself is already in her own other side (in a not-belong-to-this-world-anymore sense– she’s now completely isolated)
The Characters and Their Poisonous Relationships that Know No Brake
Ahhh, those moments. My heart aches
The characters of Flowers of Evil is easily the strongest parts of the story. I really admire Oshimi of the way he keeps these relationships so ambiguous, but ultimately show how these relationships effect on the characters later on. Many people falsely assumed (heck, even many of my real-life friends) that when it comes to male-female relationship there will only be friendship or romantic relationship, and nothing in between (Even this classic rom-com argues that there will always be sex stands in the way of male-female friendships), but there is never a clear explanation on the relationship between Kasuga and Nakamura. Kasuga even said that to Nakamura’s father himself that he doesn’t really know what their relationship is, and that’s what he’s going to find out. If I could put it myself I think partner in crimes would be the best to describe it.
Nakamura, on the other hand, is a social outcast. She is the one who just doesn’t see the way the society sees. She just genuinely hates the society she lives in to the very core. She sees no point of achieving fame, wealth or career or even social standard because to her all of these are pointless. For her it’s a complete waste of time. Nakamura represents that part of social outcast thus she’s become more like a symbol for Kasuga to follow. The last chapter nicely portrays the world in her point of view. That is the very first time we can get into her mind and it’s rewarding. Her view world is of course flawed but she remains an interesting and quite mysterious character till the very end.
So why did she push him of the stage back then? That question lingers till the end for Kasuga and even then he doesn’t get the answer from Nakamura. Is it because Nakamura realizes that even with Kasuga chooses to stay with her, she will ultimately be isolated? Is it because she knows Kasuga is not a deviant person like she is so it’s better she’s doing it alone? Is it because Kasuga is the only person she loves so she doesn’t wish for him to die? It could be all those answers and I’m glad that the creator respects us enough to not spell out anything.
Saeki is my personal favorite characters out of Flowers of Evil and hell, what transformation that she had been through. Unlike Kasuga’s dating Saeki already came from a crumbling ground (he has been manipulated by Nakamura since then), her love for Kasuga was at first as pure as it gets. She recognises his passion for the book Fleurs Du Mal and comes to admire him for that. She’s the one who keep insisting Kasuga to be open with her, then to actually forgive him when she found out that he stole her gym clothes and accept him the way he is. It then becomes an obsession as she keeps pushing herself to follow him around, then taking action on what she believes to pull Kasuga out of his mess. That’s one hell of descending to madness and for me this is a textbook example of how to it right.
This is, in contrast, a textbook example of how Not to do when you write about a character losing his sanity. I just choose this example because this is the most recent example. For once, you show their insanity by the way they act, not on how they literally transform into evil; excerpt from Ranpo Kitan: Game of Laplace
But where do all of her actions come from? In the name of love? Her friend Ai at one time points out that her affection for Kasuga is just because someone actually asks her out for the first time, and this is nothing more than a crush, she’s just in love with “love”. What Ai said is right. Goddamn it, it’s totally right, but the whole affair is much more complex than that. We all know that love grows stronger when you can’t have it. In Kasuga, she feels like she can be her true self and not pretend to be composed or anything (the theme again would be resivited in Inside Mari); that is why her determination on spying on him and getting him back become much more heartbreaking. After all, the poor girl just wants to let out what was really in her heart. Why is it getting so wrong? She asked herself. Maybe it was wrong right from the start. She’s just fall for the wrong guy.
Lastly, Aya appears in the last arc only and she’sa representation of a healthy love relationship Kasuga has. Aya is the one who brings back his interest in books. For the first time since the incidents, he’s again passionate about something. I admit that I found the scene where he proposed to her sudden and a bit out of context, but other than that she fits nicely to the story. Aya, just like anyone around her, builds a wall in front of her so the others couldn’t reach to her. She couldn’t tell any of her friends that she loves books because she’s afraid it’s going to weird them out. When she learns about the past of Kasuga, she insists on facing it together with him and that’s for me how a healthy relationship should be. For all my heart to support Saeki – Kasuga relationship to happen, especially in the third arc, I know that relationship has become too poisonous for them to be together.
This image alone tells me a lot about how Aya’s love for Kasuga. Remember those 3 guys are Kasuga’s friends. She didn’t talk to them much because she’s in different class. Now, she’s just natural with those guys, even when Kasuga’s away. That’s the best kind of relationship if you ask me.
Last but not least, to the very central question, is Kasuga really a deviant person? I guess everyone have a deviant, dark side self of themselves. People argues that Nakamura is manipulating Kasuga to the point that he sometimes behaves out of himself. But really, how do you define “out of character”? Because he acts different than he normally would have done? Because he doesn’t act the way others expect him to do? If he doesn’t have that deviant side he’d never steal the gym clothes in a first place. Is it then make him a pervert person? No, unlike Nakamura who already seen the world as ugly and twisted, this dark self is a part of him, he will need to embrace that dark self in order to grow up and become a normal person. I know this might seem ignorance for me to say this, especially after this guy single-handed wreck his family, his life and the two girls that he loves the most, and the trio still pretty much struggles with their past; but I’m glad these things happened to them. Because otherwise, they would never become the person they are today, for better or for worse.
Of course, this piece won’t be completed without the mention of the ED. The most unsettling, haunting, creepy score you will ever listen in anime; in other words, just about perfect for Flowers of Evil*.
*Aku no Hana ED: Give it a listen here if you hadn’t already.
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