Flowers of Evil Volume 11 Review: Goodbye Chaos
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“Long time no see.”
Well, what an unexpected climactic edition this turn out to be! Volume 10 of ‘Flowers of Evil’ by Shuzo Oshimi had ended with Kasuga and girlfriend Tokiwa successfully location the restaurant where Nakamura lives. Nakamura, in fact, turns out to be their server, and to Kasuga’s surprise, she makes no show of recognizing him, simply walking away from their table after placing the food.
Volume 11 of Flowers of Evil marks the end of the manga series and begins with the trio meeting at the beach. An emotional Kasuga finally confronts his former bully-turned-friend about why she pushed him off the stage when they had planned to self-immolate during the town festival. Nakamura’s response is cruelly casual, indicating that her core personality probably remains unchanged. Regardless, the two of them fight it out, letting simmering resentments and anger come to the surface.
After starting out as a twisted tale about desire, isolation, and human perversion, Flowers of Evil evolves into a story about redemption and second chances. The final chapters feel jarringly different from the earlier volumes, it’s ‘crazy’ versus ‘normal’, and I enjoyed Kasuga’s more mundane struggles at school over his ridiculous antics with Nakamura. What Oshimi ultimately presents is a story about redemption and moving forward. Kasuga could’ve gotten into serious trouble with the cops for the public suicidal stunt he pulled with Nakamura, but instead, he simply moves to another town and gets to start afresh. Despite a few hiccups, the teen protagonist is able to put his troubled past behind him and find stability – an underrated win.
Since Shuzo Oshimi never really gives us a backstory for Nakamura, I remain convinced she was nothing but a bored brat who acted out whenever the opportunity came her way. However, in a surprise extra flashback chapter, Oshimi hints that Nakamura may have had serious issues in comprehending the world like other kids her age. Frenzied panels, drawn as if in a murderous rage, depict Nakamura’s disturbed state of mind, and the final pages are left open to reader interpretation.
While the artwork wasn’t particularly impressive in the first few volumes, it kept getting progressively better as the series went on. At first, I thought Oshimi could’ve wrapped up Flowers of Evil in just four volumes, and the middle stretch really makes you wonder how he’d eventually close the Nakamura chapter in Kasuga’s life. Well, he does it realistically, even if it isn’t the kind of ending some might’ve hoped for. I think Oshimi delivers a pretty strong climax, one that’s filled with the promise of an optimistic future for Kasuga.
Rating: 4 on 5.
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