Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Jhintelman
We usually watch anime under the assumption that a story can't exist for no reason, right? Well come Aku no Hana, and as intriguing as the visuals of the flower of evil, the trailer and the first episode were, it just goes nowhere, it doesn't pick up up, the ratio of psychological tension to the events happening is unbalanced, so you have a bombshell moment that leads nowhere, it defeats the point of watching a show when there is no pay off.
So enduring 12 episodes of a wimpy male lead, the same bit over and over, a ditzy love interest, a sadistic purposeless bully was all for nothing, and if you're thinking well maybe the source material has the answers, nope, it only gets more underwhelming after the show is over.
The art isn't worth it, I don't mind the style as much but it definitely…
Read at the sourceliteraturenerd
Overview:
Flowers of Evil is a coming of age story that borrows its title from the very famous volume of poems by Charles Baudelaire. This was based on a successful manga and directed by the same guy that did Mushishi. These elements seem like they would combine to make an absolute masterpiece of universal acclaim...unfortunately that isn't quite what happened.
Production:
When the original mangaka, Shuzo Oshimi, talked to director Hiroshi Nagahama, they had some creative differences that in my opinion adversely affected the anime. Nagahama felt that the story was very personal and realistic, so it would lend itself more towards a stage production or perhaps a TV miniseries. However, Oshimi was insistent that it be turned into a successful anime, so Nagahama decided to compromise by usi…
Read at the sourcemilkvamp
The Aku no Hana anime is an acquired taste. It doesn't get enough recognition even though it could easily be called a masterpiece. It's definitely not an anime for all audiences, if you're a happy-go-lucky person who has never really experienced mental illness or turmoil, I can almost guarantee you will not understand it. But if you have struggled with depression, insecurities, dysphoria, etc. chances are you will relate heavily to the main character and perhaps the other characters in the anime.
Aku no Hana is one of those anime I can confidently say changed the way I see the world. It was an emotional roller coaster and I could identify with many of the characters. Basically, it's is a slice of life anime, if you will, but with a psychological twist. Manipulation, depression, insecurity…
Read at the sourceandrogyny
When it comes to the latest and greatest TV shows, sometimes I feel - as Nakamura would put it - like I'm "drowning in a sea of shit".
My 10/10 rating is ultimately based on this show's potential. Ah, what could have been. It's obvious from the final episode that the creators had every intention to make a second season. Based on the manga, the second season would have been earth-shattering. This first season was just laying the foundation for all that excitement - and what a great job it did!
Let me say, the flack this show gets totally goes over my head. Poor adaptation? Are you kidding me? This anime is about a million times better than the manga. Where the manga feels half-baked, this season did not shy away from or sugar-coat it's themes of isolation and boredom. And where the manga…
Read at the sourcecrawforda7x
I normally don't write reviews, but because this series got so much hate, I felt obligated to say something. I thoroughly enjoyed this series for many reasons. First I'll address the elephant in the room that got this series so much hate: the art style. At first I couldn't stand the art style myself. I thought it was going to ruin the series the minute I saw it, but to my own surprise I was completely wrong. After getting into the story, I felt the art style fir the show perfectly. By not having cartoon-looking characters, it made the show much more believable that these characters could possibly exist, which only makes the show even more troubling.
Next thing I want to address is the story. Right after the first episode, this show had me hooked. I found myself eager to watch the next epis…
Read at the sourceVanillaWeiss
I can easily say that this is one of the worst, if not the worst, things that good ole' Nippon has ever delivered to anyone ever. Ever.
It was clear from the start that this show didn't have anything resembling a budget as proven as the terrible decision to rotoscope the entire show. It looks bad. It might have been "done on purpose" to add more "depth" to the show, but it still looks terrible. Then there's the pacing. Or lack there of. Most of the show is just nothing. Literally, nothing. There was an episode where about half of it was just walking. No dialogue, no inner-monologue, nothing. It just felt like a waste of time.
Then there's the characters. Ho man, the characters. I didn't like any of them. Not one. Was that the point? Probably, but it doesn't change the fact that none of…
Read at the sourcePessoa
Aku no Hana is an attack on our comfort zone, everyday life at its most mechanical dullness. The anime quests to find something new, something different that can set us apart from the oppression of the mundane life. The dread of seeing time pass without offering any excitement is a familiar feeling for everyone. Therefore this is an anime we can all relate at some point in our lives.
The main character Takao Kasuga starts with a desire to be different. He reads books not because he finds them interesting, but to fantasize that he is someone others cannot understand. He is pathetic. He also has a crush on his classmate Nanako Saeki. He embarrassingly calls her his muse, his angel, his goddess. If the anime just ended with the first episode, he would forever stay a whiny, delusional idiot b…
Read at the sourceUnbold
Aku no Hana is by far the most controversial Anime of the Spring Season 2013, receiving by far the most hate and still having quite a big fan base that does like it. Which one of the two sides arguing against each other is right?
Story: The story of Aku no Hana takes place in Japan and revolves around Kasuga Takao, a quite normal boy, who goes to school, loves books (especially Baudelaire's "Aku no Hana") and has a crush on what is supposed to be the beauty of the class. One day he finds her sport clothes as he wants to get the book he accidentally forgot in the classroom. He takes them out and hears a sound. In the hurry he just takes them and leaves quickly. Later on the psycho child of the class, being Nakamura Sawa tells him she saw him stealing the clothes. From then on she makes him…
Read at the sourceFujaku
A large amount of anime fans seem to complain a whole lot about how every single anime has moe in it. So what happens when the most anti-moe anime ever comes up? People complain about it. Sigh.
Aku no Hana tells the tale of an ordinary high school student named Kasuga, who likes to read this book by some French poet called the Flowers of Evil. (Aku no Hana means the Flowers of Evil, by the way) He has a crush on his fellow student, Saeki. One day, while going to his school after class to pick up something he forgot, he sees Saeki's gym clothes and decides to take them home. The next day at school, everyone is gossiping about how a pervert stole Saeki's gym clothes. No one should know it's Kasuga, however, a girl called Nakamura happened to see it. Nakamura happens to be a very twisted gi…
Read at the sourceKjeldoran109
"You piece of shit!" " Eat shit and die!" Nakamura constantly screams these words, or some variation of it. To whom, you ask? Mostly to Kasuga, the ever spineless and submissive male protagonist in the midst of awkward, budding puberty, who struggles to see into Nakamura's soul and innermost desires. To the audience as well, who judge and silently watch Nakamura wither away in a boring, stagnant town, in which she chooses to embrace all that is depraved and immoral. Twisted, perverted, unnatural, yet oddly beautiful. Loathed by all who know her; loved by those who think they understand her. These are feelings towards Nakamura, or perhaps befitting of the anime itself. It's awkward. It's dark. Frustrating and cringe-worthy at times. But more than anything, there is beauty beneath the decaye…
Read at the sourceVivaLambda
Well, frankly best psychological anime I have seen in years, though I am not a big watcher of the kind. I am out of words really, because anime tells so much I feel like telling any feeling, any detail would be a spoiler. I will attempt to summarize what I have seen in this anime that makes it different from the other stuff out there. Then I will try to touch more specific issuses like story, art etc.
What makes it different overall?
First things first, this anime is NOT for enjoying your leisure time; because they use visual imagery both as the narrator of the story and as the element that establishes the overall atmosphere, meaning you need to effectively concentrate on what the visuals tell you. For example, lighting of a room will tell about the character much more than his/her conve…
Read at the sourceDeadlightanime
Teenage angst, love triangles, and melodrama are all really tacky aspects for a series to handle, but if there’s one series that does a near impeccable job handling these aspects, it’s Aku no Hana.
The pacing is slow. It’s really, really, really slow, but it works. It works brilliantly. It was a little jarring at first with how slow events were taking place, but then it became clear that this show just would have never worked if it paced itself faster. Aku no Hana takes its time building up the atmosphere, beautifully fleshing out the characters and bringing them to life. Aku no Hana doesn’t like to make scenes snappy, instead it takes as much time as it wants drawing them out.
While watching Aku no Hana, I didn’t feel like I was watching ordinary anime anymore, but real life events unfo…
Read at the sourcektulu007
Aku no Hana was originally a manga written by Oshimi Shuzo, named for a collection of poems from the French poet, Charles Baudelaire. The anime adaptation was written by Itami Aki. It's a psychological drama, which is a genre I like when handled well. Of course, it's usually not. The adaptation was handled by Zexcs. The only anime I've seen that they were involved in have been Mushi-shi and My-Hime. Which is somewhat encouraging, but there were other studios responsible for the major aspects of those anime. So I have no conception as to what a work they're primarily working on might be like. I won't lie, it's a bit refreshing to go into something with no idea what to expect. Let's look at Aku no Hana.
We start Aku no Hana with our protagonist, Kasuga, stealing the gym clothes of the girl…
Read at the source5camp
I appreciate anime trying something a little different when it's appropriate. Flowers of Evil is a pretty good example of the kind of manga you should be doing this with. A teenage boy idolises a pretty girl in his class but then gets roped into stealing her gym clothes by nothing more than his own secret desire to defile her. It's a reactionary piece to trends in popular culture that references a 19th century poem which was also a reactionary piece to trends in poetry and art at the time. The mangaka didn't want a straight adaptation of his work, and only accepted when the director of Mushishi Hiroshi Nagahama came along with his radical idea. His adaptation was a reactionary piece to the response people who saw Flowers of Evil as, to put it in the words of the original author, "Nakamura…
Read at the sourceGonzyChan
Whenever people watch a film or show, regardless of whether it’s anime or not, they want to be enticed into a deep and complex world full of mystery and wonder that they can solve for the benefit of their humanity. It seems as though Aku no Hana was meant to be something that was going to be the “change” some people were looking for in the wake of entertainment controlling the masses. But boy, did it fail at doing that on almost all accounts.
Let's reveal the elephant in the room, the animation. It is flawed, but not to the extent where it should be castrated out of someone’s psyche after viewing the first episode. For starters, 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 f…
Read at the sourceAsfaria
The psychological genre is my favorite genre in anime. I love the emotions characters show as they go through the ups and downs and trials and tribulations of the story. Unlike many people who hate the “real life” backgrounds and scenery or the fact that the characters are “ugly”, the thing I hate most about this show is the lack of emotion shown by the characters which I have come to love from similar psychological stories.
I started Aku no Hana shortly after the season ended not knowing what to expect and with no idea whether I would hate it or love it. I had been putting it off after seeing the art style and how it varied from the manga that I had greatly enjoyed. I also thought I knew exactly where this season would end but damn was I wrong. Instead of ending it at a place where the m…
Read at the sourceOrsonius
Zexcs has probably done the most bold thing of the season by animating Shuuzou Oshimis manga, Aku no Hana.
Apparently the manga was quite popular in advance and many people were looking forward to the adaptation. Yet after the first episode an uproar of many angry fans has shaken the industry. People were pissed and the show suddenly went to the lowest rated TV series on MAL.
I on the other hand finished the episode and it left quite a good impression on me. After I went to the forums I saw the gigantic flame war and was confused. Why are people so mad?
The answer lies in rotoscoping. A technique, were you take live action footage and draw over it so it looks like an animated show. Shows like Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, or Mind Game all use this Technique, as well as many other shows…
Read at the sourcePolyphemus
DISCLAIMER: FOR THE SAKE OF THIS REVIEW I WILL BE OPERATING UNDER THE ASSUMTION THAT THERE IS AN UPCOMING SECOND SEASON. The anime said there would be a part two and I’ll trust that for now. If there is no season two then I'd have problems with the conclusion and the score would have to be lowered. But the anime created interest in the manga, they haven't exhausted the budget, they previewed pt. 2 scenes that they've supposedly finished, some of the most powerful scenes have yet to come, etc. At this point, it seems very safe to assume there will be a second season even if the anime sales haven't been great.
Ah, adaptions. The bane of all manga readers. Understandably, this is simultaneously claimed to be one of the best and worst anime adaptions there is. It has attracted much criticism…
Read at the sourceTrustyFryingPan
Either the worst eyesore you have ever witnessed in your entire life, or your salvation from a miserable existence without ever having witnessed this gracious account of a teenage boy's descent into evil. In the "Reviews" section of this fairly revolutionary-wise visual presentation, those are the only two kinds of reviews you will ever find. In the "Ratings" section, however, you will find a wide range of different people, who have either enjoyed, endured, or dropped this newly classic saga of adolescence. Those traitors! How could they have rated Aku no Hana as anything BUT a 9.0 or higher?! How could they have not savored the decadent scenes of Kasuga-kun walking through grass for basically half of one entire episode?! How could they have not delighted in the cliffhanger at the end of t…
Read at the sourceggultra2764
Aku no Hana's been the Spring season's most controversial title among anime fans and a great deal of that has to do with the anime's choice of animation style coming in the form of rotoscoping. I might as well address this issue before remarking on other aspects of the anime. Rotoscoping's been a controversial style of animation for years. While the style allows for one to animate more lifelike characters and movements, there are acclaimed animators that don't consider it a legitimate form of animation since live-action shots are animated over in order to accomplish the style and such animators think it kills creativity in the medium. Personally, I think rotoscoping made for an excellent fit for Aku no Hana considering the mundane story it depicts with Kasuga's ordeals with Nakamura and Sa…
Read at the source