Flowers of Evil Volume 5 Review: Michief and Despair
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Last volume wasn’t my favourite, but I was hoping for a new character to step in and bring some new twists in the tale. That doesn’t exactly happen, but Ai, Saeki’s close friend does become a more prominent character in “Flowers of Evil” volume 5, unlike a forgettable supporting face.
Volume 4 of Flowers of Evil ends with Kasuga clearly picking Nakamura over his crush Saeki, while the latter surprisingly continues to be mad about the boy, even after finding out he had stolen her gym clothes. Volume 5 shows Kasuga in a new light; he is no longer as shy and quiet as he was before. Instead, he is up to new mischief with encouragement from Nakamura. Some of their nonsensical antics include hanging underwear on a statue at school.
The primary focus of this volume is Saeki’s attempts to bring Kasuga back to her side through desperate measures. Saeki is determined to tear up the new pair, while her best friend Ai wants to report Kasuga and Nakamura to the cops. Kasuga and Nakamura, however, are busy living in their own twisted bubble, constantly plotting new ways to shake up their sleepy town, which now includes doing something on a much larger scale at the upcoming summer festival. Their dynamic is clearly a lot more sadomasochistic now, with Nakamura treating Kasuga like her slave dog, and the latter more than happy to comply.
Again, I have mixed feelings about this volume and feel that Saeki’s obsession with Kasuga doesn’t make a lot of sense. The love triangle is being dragged out by the creator for the sake of adding sexual tension to the story. And, as I also wrote previously, the actions/pranks by Kasuga and Nakamura have lost their shock value and feel repetitive now. The last few pages do have a lot of tension, mild violence, and a twist that lands all three protagonists in a lot of trouble. If nothing else, Shuzo Oshimi really manages to make the reader wonder how the tale is going to continue.
Rating: 2.5 on 5.
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