Here is my take after reading all 58 chapters of Aku no Hana by Shuuzou Oshimi.
There are times when you accidentally stumble upon diamonds in this world, and I don’t believe in accidents.
It is difficult to put the experience of reading Aku no Hana in words but I would try my best to do so.
The story revolves around Takao Kasuga, a middle schooler, and his beliefs, principles, dreams, and aspirations; how they were formed through his love for Les Fleurs du mal by Charles Baudelaire, crushed by the perverted Sawa Nakamura and reassembled by Nanako Saeki just to be crushed once more and cycle full circle.
Every chapter of the story is poetry depicted in images and it is gripping, tense, and immersive to the emotions produced by the interaction of the characters.
I would say that I have never read not experienced something like this as far as I remember so the impact was so powerful to me almost mirroring the impact of Les Fleurs du Mal and the girls in Takao’s life.
The characters a so well written that they feel like jumping out of every panel of the pages. They were so fleshed out and you can relate to the emotions and motivation of the characters to a certain extent even once in your life.
From page 1 up to the last chapter, it kept me cheering and cursing the seemingly illogical decisions of each character. But in the end, they were poetically concluded so my heart was at ease and contented.
I would like to talk more about this, but I would just be spoiling the experience at this point so I will let you do the honors.
I would give Aku no Hana an amazing 10 Evil Petals out of 10!
