The Flowers of Evil Review

The Flowers of Evil is incredibly beautiful stuff. I was floored by how much this manga resonated with me, and I hadn’t encountered anything like it before. A coming-of-age sexual psychodrama meant for a newer generation, about dissatisfaction with ego and image, and trying to find an identity for yourself in such a suffocating world while retaining your honesty and instinct.

Learning to battle with angst and your ever-changing set of ideals composes the core of this work, and it’s a heavy concept in life that persists far beyond the growth phases of the main characters. Even at the age of 25, I found a lot of where myself was and where I might be going, and resurfacing old wounds and covering them with optimism is a wonderful thing you’d be very fortunate to obtain from any work of art. This story is likely to remain timeless for a long while.

You may also want to read my review of the anime adaptation. I watched it long before reading the manga, which is superior, but the anime does add flavor to the brief sections it adapts.