Aku no Hana (may contain manga spoilers under tags)

I think it also has to do Kasuga's lack of will and courage. He's really educated and likes to ruminate on existence, which makes him think he's superior to others. But because of his spinelessness and myopia he's controlled by either social mores or his own irrational desires, and cannot recognize them for what they are. Like he puts Saeki on a pedestal, but there's nothing particularly interesting about her beyond her aesthetic beauty, and Kasuga won't admit that he lusts after her as an object.

Alright les mangeurs de merde, here's what I think.....

One of the mangas main themes is the ugliness of humanity, and the anime is rotoscoped, which makes it uglier looking than if it was done in a conventional anime style, which reinforces this theme in my view.

I hope that's intentional.

If there is one thing this manga excels at, it's at portraying some of the worst aspects of humanity. I'm not even talking about evil or anything of the sort, morality is unrelated to this.

What this manga represents is, in a sense, depravity. Desecration, Destruction, Scorn, these are all said to be horrible things. There's nothing to like in any of them, except destruction, and only then if we see it as a natural cycle of change, not in an 'absolute destruction' sense. There's nothing to admire in scorn, or desecration.

Nakamura is pretty much the most disturbing character ever. Let's agree on this. She does not appear to have any real motivation or ambition for her life. All she has done in this series is be a depraved, corrupting influence on Kasuga. Pretty much all her actions in the manga are linked to those three concepts I earlier mentioned.

She scorns the world around her so much it loops around to amusement and mockery. She hates her father, her classmates, teachers, she hates it all with such an evident passion that it's funny to see people suffer, or struggle. She laughs at Kasuga because she knows exactly how much he will suffer for her actions, and because she knows how terrible people are. She probably hates herself most of all.

She desecrates everything around her. She desecrates language by swearing like a sailor, she desecrates other's perceptions of certain ideas - for instance, telling Kasuga that he doesn't really like Saeki, he just lusts after her - after all, he stole her gym clothes all on his own. Most of all, her very existence and actions are a threat to the concept of human decency and beauty; after all, she's not some demon from hell or an eldritch horror from beyond the stars. To our knowledge, she doesn't do what she does out of a Freudian Excuse, she's not a Child Soldier, suffers Cloning Blues or has any particular reason for doing what she does. In the end, she's just human, and that simply feels wrong.

To finish it off, she destroys. Whether it is Kasuga's self-esteem, dignity or anything of the sort, she takes away from the world things that others might appreciate or come to like. Actual physical abuse and forcing Kasuga to do things against his will also counts. But most of all, and most telling, the attempted double-suicide. Destruction of the self is perhaps the greatest there is. Without an observer of the world, there might not be a world at all.

But there's one more thing which I'm not completely sure about, which gnaws away at me. Pushing Kasuga away... why? If it was to screw him over one last time by making sure he couldn't even pull off suicide, then I might just be willing to call her a Complete Monster. But if not, if she simply didn't want him to die, what does that tell us about her? What does it say about this completely depraved person that she might have cared for somebody else? I mean, if this is so, then I don't know what to think about it.

In a way, her existence is a taint in the world around her. She serves to make people uncomfortable, in and out of the story. In-story, people shun her, of course they would. She goes against the established status quo of things, is rude, hates you and, all in all, is someone you don't want near you or that you'd want to be. She's an ugly human being. She's not a super-villain. She has no superpower. She doesn't aspire to anything. She's not the result of any particularly bad factors. She's ordinary, in a sense.

It's the complete opposite of common themes in anime. Whereas they might say "Humans are amazing!" and laud humanity for their greatness and desire to live, Aku no Hana says the complete opposite: "Humans are disgusting creatures!", to the point that they might not even deserve to live.

I'd like to rant about Kasuga too, but my rant about Nakamura has gone on too long.

Yeah, I can pretty much see all that.

What I can't see is this: Does this series have a point?

Do I need to see the interplay of all everyone's described? Because the picture has already been painted pretty clearly.

The ending could go in numerous directions, but if anything I see it being kind of true to life, which is a terrible thing to tack onto a narrative.

Two questions

1: Why does Kasuga start to have feelings for Nakamura? is it Stockholm Syndrome or something else?

2: Does Nakamura show to have any feelings for Kasuga?

Isn't it the case though that Kasuga's attraction to Saeki was entirely superficial? That's the sense I've been getting so far. Like, there's nothing particularly interesting about her beyond being aesthetically pretty and 'nice', though given how much she laid into Nakamura for being a weirdo that's somewhat suspect to me.

edited 24th Apr '13 9:35:55 PM by Scherzo09

Of course it's completely superficial! How can you say that you love someone if you don't actually know them? It'd be better to say that he merely likes her, but even then, he went ahead and did the worst possible thing to get the series jump-started.

Actually, how far into the series are you, Scherzo? Manga or anime?

Edit: It's alright to superficially like someone so long as you actually ask them out and you get a chance to actually know them, otherwise nothing would happen and people would be unable to express their true feelings.

It's just that Kasuga was an idiot about it.

Ultimately Subjective: I kinda get the feeling that the ending will be something along the lines of "Even if humans are terrible and to live is to suffer, it's still possible to be happy and satisfied with your existence". It'd make for one hell of a message, albeit one that Evangelion has already done.

truteal: 1. I'm not 100% certain, but it's at least partly out of empathy (like him, she also hates being in that small town they live in), at least partly out of fascination, a lot of it is in my opinion out of idiocy... But I think, above all, that it's simply because he got to know her better than anyone. But if anyone were able to say what exactly made him like her, then it'd be possible for others to like her, and I'm afraid to consider that. It's either a mercy that even people like her can recieve love or a tragedy that people fall for them.

2. After Kasuga expresses this bizarre love for her by doing very morally questionable things and planning even worse things, she shows a lot of interest and excitement, and she even holds him at one point, but it's still debatable whether it was an act, or if she later lost interest due to reasons. And of course, we have to consider the attempted double-suicide, which I mentioned before.

edited 24th Apr '13 10:20:33 PM by Crinias

Just episode three of the animu. The way Saeki was giving Nakamura shit, even if she is a creeper, made feel she isn't as nice as she seemed. I take it more is revealed about her?

But I mean Kasuga had put her up on this insanely high pedestal, when she really has nothing except her prettiness going for her.

edited 24th Apr '13 10:12:38 PM by Scherzo09

I haven't seen the anime, but at least in the manga she scored really high in exams and was very popular. As for the rest, hmm... Nakamura pretty much is a really creepy person, if I met someone like her in real life I'd be terrified.

As for Saeki herself, yeah, some things are revealed, although probably not in the way you're expecting.

I wouldn't say that he puts her in that high a pedestal. If you like someone, even superficially, you wouldn't want anyone to taint that image you made up in your head of them, right?

On the whole I suggest you bite the bullet and read through the manga, it's very interesting how you can't look away even if you try. It's just so... uncomfortable to read. Kasuga is the weakest link of the story, particularly how he's such an idiot ALL THE TIME, but I'd still suggest reading it.

edited 24th Apr '13 10:33:29 PM by Crinias

The latest chapters feel "weird" though, no other way to explain it.

I got the feeling from the anime that Kasuga put Saeki up on an absurdly high pedestal; it also comes from my experiencing knowing a guy that had a crush on a girl for several years who eventually got over her when he realized he had an image of her in his head that was completely different from how she actually was. That isn't to say she wasn't a good person, but I see what Kasuga did as being the same thing.

Also the show seems to be about the banality of evil; that evil happens a lot of the time not from an active choice to do evil, but from the passive choice of not doing good.

That certainly applies to Kasuga, but you really can't say the same about Nakamura. She does what she does because it amuses her, or perhaps it's the only thing she can derive satisfaction from. It's more than choosing not to do good.

Say, I wonder if the opposite applies? Does good occur when you make a passive choice not to do evil?

What I can't see is this: Does this series have a point?

Hard to say, it's not done yet.

The latest chapters feel "weird" though, no other way to explain it.

Of course they are, pretty much everything After the timeskip has been weird. It's interesting to see in what direction it goes.

I especially liked The meeting with Saeki. That was absolutely chilling. In her own way she turned into Nakamura...

I do think that one of the things that Kasuga is looking for is... Something special? Something unusual? And he's willing to go to quite extremes to find this sense of... Excitement? Unusualness? He's looking for meaning and isn't finding it.

edited 25th Apr '13 6:38:00 AM by Arilou

You know I went into this anime not knowing much about it. I honestly thought it was going to be a supernatural horror but this is good to I think. The anime world is certainly starved for really good horror anime and I do love a good psychological-horror. Also, you get used to the rotoscoping after an episode or so and after that I think it actually adds to the experience. It just works here for some reason.

I think these characters actually seem more like actual Japanese people than anime characters.

The manga has more normal art though right? I do wonder if reading it would make them seem more like manga archetypes.

A gathering of Actual Japanese People™◊

Wow... So right off the bat in episode-4 I have to say the new version of the theme song is MUCH more threatening than the old version. I think the feel of it actually fits the show a bit more. The old theme sort of bugged me with the way it was so upbeat for such an obviously dark show. I wonder if the theme song will keep evolving/degrading as the show keeps spiraling deeper into chaos. That would be neat.

Okay, this dude seriously needs to lift some weights or something. I mean he got smacked right down to the ground. I mean is he really weak or is she just super strong?

heh◊.

Oh my God.

Rainbow-skipping Nakamura :rofl

I was lurking Sankaku Complex (Go ahead and judge me, you probably already do) I saw this quote about the latest ep

“Nakamura was super-cute when she did that stuff in the original, but now she’s just creepy…”

I think this proves my first post in this thread

Nakamura was super-cute in the manga?

Nakamura? Super-cute?

Nakamura?

I... I need to lie down for a bit.

New chapter out in a few days along with Attack on Titan. They're being translated.

Nakamura, cute...?

I. I can get that she's an unflappable, attractive teen and doesn't take shit from anyone (I've already stated my opinions on what she is and represents here, so that's the closest I'll come to compliment her)...

But, cute???

...

Leave a space for me, fillerdude.