Aku no hana

On the surface people will look at the story and think they've seen it before; a coming of age drama set in school. A boy dealing with his emotions and puberty. This isn't about maturing or growing up. It's a striking and disturbing look into the mundanity of life. The visuals hint at this. The beauty of the art style is how it contrasts the plain looking characters with the incredibly detailed backgrounds, showing how people go on with their lives, eventually fading away, yet the buildings and mountains persist. Many shots linger on the backgrounds and the ambiance fills the dead air. People you see on the street, each and every one feeling like the world has eyes on them and when the day is over, no one really noticed. The show feels real. It's raw and hard to watch. It attacks your psyche and doesn't care how you feel. The show lets you decide, it lets you perceive and give meaning. The main character goes throughout his days ready to burst with anxiety. In the big picture however, no one notices his plight. The story is claustrophobic, yet open ended. The atmosphere is immense and uncompromising, making the viewer uneasy. When the show is over, it plants a seed in your head, your days drift by and a flower blooms. You wonder if life and everything that has happened so far is actually significant.

This show is a masterpiece. Intimate, thoughtful and thought-provoking. It expresses the struggles and reality of an entire generation in a series of achingly beautiful scenes.

It's the story of a teenage boy caught in a perverted situation (the kind of perversion that every teenager goes through as a course of growing up) by a classmate and then becomes beholden to her because of shame. Afraid she'll reveal what a pervert he is. More than that though it's a show designed to make the viewer question the nature of reality and their own psyche, by inevitably identifying with the lead character it raises questions about whether current notions of "perversion" or even relevant. I believe the conclusion is that our cultural view of morality, perversion and deviance is hopelessly out of touch with modern living and causing harm on a wide scale.

If I had to recommend any two shows of my generation it would be The Wire and Aku No Hana.

This series comes under heavy criticism from BOTH the anime community and the rest "mundane" group of people who don't like anime. Unlike the rest of thee animes, this one unfortunately has nobody baking it up.

This show is the most realistic anime I've ever seen especially because the animation that the studio decided to use is called rotoscoping, a style of animation where people are filmed in live-action and animators draw over the film frame-by-frame. This same style of animation is also the reason it gets more hate than it should. It isn't that spectacular initially but you'd get used to the animation which infact truly suits the storytelling. Conveying a more realistic perspective, the characters in this show aren't exactly what you'd call "anime" attractive but this same fact also makes them seem like your next door neighbors.

The story revolves around our protagonist "Kasuga Takao" a young boy in middle school who loves books especially Baudelaire's "Aku no Hana/ Les fleurs du mal/ Flowers of evil". One day, he forgets his copy of Les Fleurs du Mal in the classroom and runs back alone to pick it up. In the classroom, he finds not only his book, but Saeki's gym uniform, a girl who he has had a major crush. On a mad impulse, he steals it.

His life after that turns into a huge rollercoaster since Nakamura, a weird girl from his class, sees him steal. Now everyone knows that some "pervert/ deviant" stole them and he's filled with guilt, terror and the feeling that he's committed a sin and hurt the one girl who he loves and who's his "Femme Fatale". Further, Nakamura forces him to do certain "things" which are not exactly normal and makes him undergo a huge character inspection of some kind.

The entire story has been amazingly written and the music is also one of the major factors which keeps you hooked throughout. The slight discomfort with the animation could well as be borne until you get used to which doesn't take a lot to be honest. The manga version is superior but that doesn't mean that the anime has let it down in any way. It's truly one of a kind and one of those rare series that you watch that just changes how you see people.

It is a thought provoking series that leaves you shocked after every episode. Because of the unique artstyle and no usual anime cheesyness it feels almost like you're watching a live action show rather than an animated one, each character has a uniqueness to them which makes you get attached to them no matter how the characted behaves. The ending left me questioning what happened so I will deffinely have to watch the series again.

I'll start this review off by saying that I think this show is criminally underrated. Got it? Okay? Okay.

To keep things concise, the plot revolves around teenager Kasuga who has a crush on class idol Saeki. Much to his detriment, he's very shy and his interactions with her is limited to him staring at her until she notices his gaze whereupon he quickly begins acting as if he was looking at the very interesting wallpaper behind her....quite hopeless, really. So far, this sounds like your average romance anime. Luckily for us, the plot takes a unique turn when Kasuga impulsively steals his crush's gym-wear after school and is subsequently seen in the act by class outcast Nakamura who blackmails him into forming a "contract" with her which involves.....details you will have to watch the anime to see! This begins the chain of events that is the story in a nutshell.

The first thing you'll likely notice about this show is the animation style it uses. If you aren't familiar, this show utilizes rotoscoping, which means manually animating over live action footage shot beforehand in contrast to simply animating the show. This aspect of the show has garnered it a lot of unearned hate. Admittedly, the animation had me a bit concerned at the beginning but it really grew on me by the end and helped give the show a strong sense of identity and unique nature. Due to the very serious and dark nature of the show, the unnervingly realistic character designs helped paint the mood very well. If anything, it is very much a strong point of the show rather than a weak one. I don't think the show would have been nearly as enjoyable for me had the characters been animated in a generic manner with gravity-defying hair and massive eyeballs.

The show itself is quite dark thematically, as it deals with topics such as bullying, depression and resentment. Interestingly enough, this show was heavily inspired by a book of the same name, The Flowers of Evil by a French poet, Charles Baudelaire and the book itself is featured in the show and used as a major plot point. So, you know....a little something-something for fans of poetry or philosophy. The imagery the show presents is gorgeous and beautifully embellishes the themes it presents. A rusty stop sign overlooking cracked cement on a cloudy day, a small book shop overshadowed by buildings surrounding it; the distant cracking of sunlight atop a purple morning sky overlooking a vast field, its grass swaying softly with the wind...various scenes of this show really do make for some pleasant wallpapers.

Voice actors/actresses do their job very well. Conversation doesn't sound overacted, and feels very genuine, tying into the very taut and real nature of the show. The music of the show is amazing as well, boasting a grand four individual opening songs in a thirteen episode season as well as one very unique ending song. The soundtrack itself is absolutely gorgeous in what it is trying to do; present a melancholic nature in the story. Having listened to the soundtrack myself, it makes for pleasant listening even outside the viewing of the anime. Several tracks were downright mesmerizing.

Without delving into spoiler territory, the ending of the show initially feels quite empty and leaves you with a metaphorical gaping jaw and almost left me feeling with a dreary sense of anticlimax in my mouth as it fails to resolve much. However, after a second viewing, I would say it ends on a rather interestingly good note. It's implied there will be a second season to this, something I would genuinely love to see, and would make the ending to this season appear that much better. The ending overall wasn't great, but it was by no means bad. I've seen my fair share of bad endings and that wasn't one of them. A second viewing experience and perhaps some speculation on the viewer's part will clear up any issue....at least, that was the case for me.

When all is said and done, I HIGHLY recommend this show. I absolutely adored it, and has earned one of the top spots on my list as far as anime goes. That being said however, it certainly is not for everyone. I can definitely see heaps of people dropping this show on the basis of the animation style alone, and even more so with the omnipresent dark themes but you would be stupid to do so as you would be missing out on one of the most unique and investing anime out there right now. If you're a fan of dark themes, complex romance and feel that the anime medium at the present is rather stale and needs some individuality struck back into it again, this is the show for you. Please support the fine chaps who made this by buying it and spread the word about it to encourage the production of a second season.

For anime similar to this when done watching, see: ~Monster ~Another ~Serial Experiments Lain