If you know me, you know just how much I love psychological-horror and, if you knew that, you will also know just how much I'm loving this manga. Let me tell you about it.
The manga I'm reviewing today is called Sachi-Iro no One Room, or One Room of Happiness for the english speaking folks.
It's current year. The news on TV is talking about a girl that has been recently kidnapped. Our protagonist, Sachi, looks at the news and then turns at the Onii-san next to her: "Look, they're talking about us!"...
Yes, you heard that right. This is the story of a young girl that has been kidnapped and yet is fine with it, going along with her kidnapper's requests. Actually, not just that, Sachi even promises her kidnapper to marry him and treats him like her savior.
This premise by itself already makes for a great psychological-horror, but, as the story progresses, the sense of dread build up as this, to say the least, toxic relationship goes on.
The best part about this manga are, without any sort of doubt, the drawings, an most importantly the full-page panels, which I could only describe as concentrated terror.
The chapters are also really long, about 30 to 40 pages each, and each one is more raw than the other. Not in a gory sense, this manga doesn't have gore scenes, but in a psychological sense. Panels that make shiver are plentyful in this manga.
One thing I can't comment on is the length of the series, as it's been on hiatus for a good while now.
As of writing this, I'm currently on the last available chapter in the manga and eagerly waiting for new ones to come out.
Hakuri, the mangaka, has also made a bunch of other notable oneshots, like Nante Nasakenai Bokurada. I love his style: I find his drawings extremely realistic and powerful and his way of story telling really good at psychologically intense stories.
My favourite character is definetely the Onii-san that abducted Sachi, but my favourite scene has actually nothing to do with him. I'm now going to put a spoiler tag, because this is a mild, out of context spoiler, but still a spoiler nonetheless. My favourite scene is
This manga is also one of the very few ones that I've read that I started off as a digital read, only to then go ahead and buy the physical volumes after realizing just how much I really liked it.
If I had to choose a good manga to recommend to a horror/thriller lover, this is definetly one of the first I'd recommend. It's at the very least a 9 out of 10 for me.
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