YMMV / The Flowers of Evil

aka: Aku No Hana

• Critical Dissonance: The anime has become this after its first episode aired. The consensus among many viewers is that it isn't good due to the controversial art direction, while reviewers generally have been quite positive about the series, including the art direction.
• Dancing Bear: The anime attracted viewers mainly because it was rotoscoped, and the quality and/or terribleness of this animation style was discussed far more than the show's actual content.
• Fan Nickname: Aku no Potato, based on the... controversial character designs and animation methods employed by the anime. Another favorite is Rotoscope no Hana.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Whatever you may think of him, there's no denying that Kasuga's life has become an utter hellhole and he deserves at least some pity.
  • Nakamura. It is very clear that she suffers from the isolation in town the most, having no friends and a father who, while he does care for her, doesn't understand her, and desperately wishes to leave to the other side of the mountain, even if it means using blackmail. The epilogue from her POV spells it out to us.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some readers simply stopped caring about the series after Nakamura was Put on a Bus.
• Moral Event Horizon: Saeki when she rapes Kasuga. She even tries to use it to make Nakamura think Kasuga cheated on her. The effect is really chilling because she had seemed like the nicest character in the series until then.
  • Many readers found Nakamura breaking Kasuga's father's kneecap with the bat to be this, stating that it felt needlessly cruel even after her other terrible acts.
• Narm: The anime adaptation provoked a fair amount of this reaction in some viewers due to its controversial rotoscoped style and its associated quirks, including very strange or occasionally non-existent facial expressions, actors who really didn't look like teenagers, certain directorial choices that created moments of weird pacing and other factors that made it difficult for them to treat the subject matter too seriously.
• No Yay: Some fans feel this way about the Ship Tease between Nakamura and Kasuga.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Kasuga's reception has gotten quite a bit better after the Time Skip, especially after he Took a Level in Badass out of the blue. Even people who hated him in the past and/or still hate him admitted that pouring his heart out to Tokiwa in front of her boyfriend was a pretty ballsy move. Other people have said that him finally having something go his way made him a more relatable character.
• The Scrappy: It's easy to get really tired of Kasuga falling into despair, only to dig himself even deeper.
  • He gets better in the manga after the Time Skip, though not quite enough for some people to call him a great protagonist. At least until he crushes the evil flower and takes a level in badass.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Very much the most vocal complaint of the anime. Some fans claimed the use of rotoscoping was ugly and ruined their enjoyment. In addition, claims of changing the mood of the show to a quieter tone and redesigning the characters were also detrimental. The manga's creator has since vocally supported the changes and states he oversaw many of them. He takes a jab at critics at the very end of episode 10, when he asks "Why don't I try rotoscoping you?" He also calls viewers "shit-faces" at the end of episode 12, but immediately apologizes for it in episode 13.
  • The Time Skip has drawn some complaints due to Nakamura being put on a bus as well as Kasuga starting to have an actual romance that has yet to be destroyed by either her influence or his stupidity.
• Wangst: 4chan likes to fight over whether this series is great drama or simply "Linkin Park: The Manga".
• The Woobie:
  • Saeki. That is, until she rapes Kasuga.
  • Kasuga's parents. They watched their son grow more and more distant only to discover the horrible acts he had committed. His mother eventually broke down and proclaimed herself to be a total failure as a parent.
  • Kinoshita. She was probably the character that hated Kasuga (and Nakamura) most, but she would soon have legitimate reasons why not to like him, especially considering what happens to Saeki later in the manga. Post Time Skip reveals that she feels immense guilt over what happened to Saeki despite the fact that there was really nothing more she could do. She breaks down crying when Kasuga tells her that Saeki's off living a normal life because she feels that Saeki abandoned her. Judging from how she worded it, Saeki's not the only person to do so.
    • It's also apparent that post-Time Skip she's started to feel the affects of being alone in an isolated town as well, with no way to escape.

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