The Flowers of Evil, also known as Aku no Hana, is a thirteen episode anime based on the manga. The first thing that you’d notice and this is something the anime received a lot of criticism for, is the animation. It uses a technique called rotoscoping and it is really noticeably bad. The issue is not the actual technique itself since the backgrounds are okay; it’s the lazy character animations. Not only do the characters lack detail, but their proportions and aesthetics are absolutely horrible, and this is extremely distracting even though it is tracing real life actors. You can slowly get used to it but the way the characters smile is still really uncanny.
The anime has a slow beginning, and it takes a while before the plot kind of falls into place. It follows Kasuga, a middle school student in a small town. He has a crush on Saeki, and due to his panic in a spur of the moment type of thing, he makes a terrible mistake. As a result, he needs to keep it a secret from everyone in the class but unfortunately for him, the class weirdo Nakamura witnessed it and blackmails him into spending time with her.
A lot of time is spent on Kasuga being tormented by his guilty conscience on what he has done, so the plot doesn’t seem to progress for a while. Through it all, he keeps referencing the book he is currently reading, “The Flowers of Evil”, which you can gather has a dark subject matter. The anime actually has a creepy atmosphere since in part it’s a psychological thriller. The “ending theme”, if it can be called that, can really get under your skin and is the stuff of nightmares.
Despite Kasuga trying to move on from his mistake, the key plot point is how Nakamura constantly blackmails him. The things that Nakamura does are extremely cruel and mentally damaging. We don’t know why Nakamura does this except that she has a vice grip on Kasuga, and just finds it fun to see him suffer. Until we under Nakamura more, and the reasons behind the things that she does, it is confusing and messy.
The plot is very dark and twisted, to the point of being demented. It’s like it is trying to warp Kasuga in a horrible way. Kasuga keeps finding himself in terrible situations that are forced upon him. However, you can’t help but think whether Kasuga is reacting to his predicament in the best way. This is because you might think up of several other ways he could have had approached things and maybe he wouldn’t be in the hole he dug himself in. He seems to be easily coerced by Nakamura, despite her reputation not being the best so maybe Kasuga could have had a chance to refute her if she really goes through with her threat to reveal what he did to everything.
The plot itself is slow paced, and it seems to fill in time by spending more time than expected lingering in scenes. For example, there is a static shot and the characters are slowly walking from one end to another, or it loops the same movements for a while. It tries to hide it via setting the style of the anime to be like this, but it’s still noticeable and not in a great way.
It’s not only Kasuga and Nakamura that’s weird, since Saeki is as well. It’s not apparent at first, but eventually, you’ll find her actions to be somewhat irrational at times. Despite all the red flags, she still yet seems to accept everything. Naturally, she ends up being involved in the mess. The anime centers on the trio, and this isn’t really a romance anime either, so all the characters’ actions can be twisted and foolish.
One thing you need to take into account is not to bother expecting the anime to get better. It’s pretty good at setting the tone and quality right from the beginning, so if you didn’t like it then, nothing later on will change your mind. The second half of the season has a heavy reliance on flashing back to scenes in earlier episodes. Therefore it can feel repetitive as if the anime is filling up time. The ending stops in the middle of the plot and so couldn’t wrap things up, worse is it felt as if it stopped just before some interesting events. This is unfortunately a side effect of adapting the manga before it had finished.
Overall, stripping away the controversial method of the animation, The Flowers of Evil had a dubious story in the first place. It sets out to tell a weird and perverse story, and it succeeded. However, in the process it can go too far and alienates certain viewers, leaving behind a confusing, messy and boring story. The end result is a rather bland and incomprehensible sequence of events, with characters that aren’t relatable or too likable.
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