Flowers of Evil

“Flowers of Evil” is one of the most disturbing, disgusting, and severely messed-up anime I have ever watched. And I love it.

How does one describe “Aku no Hana,” or, by its English name, “Flowers of Evil?” Well, I’ll do my very best:

Kasuga Takao is a middle school boy who indulges in high-tier literature, his favorite among them being Charles Baudelaire’s “Flowers of Evil;” he thinks nothing of his classmates, and longs for something beyond the mountains surrounding his hometown. One day, when he decides to go back alone to his classroom to grab a book he had forgotten, his crush’s gym bag falls onto the floor, and, in a sporadic, regretful act of theft, steals her gym uniform; little to his knowledge, another classmate witnesses his act and blackmails him into a contract, of which she leads him down a dark, ever-more-disturbing path.

I was horrified with the characters of “Flowers of Evil.”

Don’t get me wrong: the characters are extremely well-written, but their outlooks on life are so… misguided. Nakamura, the witness to Takao’s theft, is the worst of the bunch. Once blackmailing the easily-manipulated Takao, she berates him, belittles him, and completely destroys him, piece by painful piece. Even as soon as things start to look up for the miserable middle-school boy, he is always brought down by the perturbed Nakamura.

But- there still is meaning to be had here. In fact, there’s quite a lot. Though I won’t spoil it in this article, the character behind Nakamura is incredibly well-founded; as the pieces build up in the amazing last episode, we finally get to see what lies beyond her nearly psychotic smile.

Above else, though, is the tone: the meticulously crafted, while simultaneously dreadful, tone. The original writer portrays such an understanding of what terrible things these children (and, yes, these are children) are going through, and what a misinterpretation of the world they have; it almost seems as if the writer could possibly have had these feelings at one point himself.

Is “Flowers of Evil” a testament to anime? Or is it a disgrace?

All I can tell you is this: this series is dark. Very, very, dark. How it makes everything else seem meaningless, worthless, and, overall, just makes life look (I don’t know how else to put it) bad.

Yet, somehow, it remains a beauty: it’s so, so wrong, but also very, very right.

I might revisit the characters one day in an in-depth analysis, but, for now, I never want to watch “Flowers of Evil” again.

10/10- I have no problem easily awarding “Flowers of Evil” a score of 10: it’s beautiful yet ugly, haunting yet resounding; simply put, “Flowers of Evil” is a work of art.