Adabana is about the murder of Mako and starts off simply with Mizuki's confession. After that, we hear about the day that Mizuki did it and what led to her killing her "one and only friend". From that point on, we see in what relationship she stood to Mako, we see Mako and Mizuki's surroundings and the adults around them.
After a certain incident, Mizuki spends more time with Mako than before and has to find out all the horrible things Mako has been going through, despite her everyday smile. Mizuki decides to protect her friend and has to find out just how horrible Mako really had it. That's when things start to fall apart, until the moment of Mako's death. The lawyers begin to find more and more pieces and eventually find out what happened here and there, and manage to make Mizuki tell them more about things that were either related or unrelated to the case at hand.
The entire story is basically about the abuse that Mako has gone through and how easy it was for the adults around her to have as much power over her as they did. We see how hard it was for Mizuki to realize that Mako's stalker was indeed the horrible person that Mako had described (he was pretty good at hiding his true persona), we also see how Mako gets closer and closer to the edge of despair as she doesn't know who she can still trust and what she's supposed to do. All of that, retold by Mizuki, the girl who protected her but also killed her, makes for a great story, especially with the lawyers moving away from the "we need to protect our client" path an finally walking the "we have to find out what exactly happened" path. The lawyers become the responsible adults that everyone should be and do their job as they're supposed to do: in favor of the truth, not of whatever gives Mizuki the smallest sentence. I think some of the main lessons we can draw from this manga are the innocence and helplessness of kids and that when they do get out of control we should figure out how it came to this. Another point would be that it is not always obvious who a child can trust and who will bring nothing but trouble or worse to them and we shouldn't judge kids who make the wrong choice regarding that.
I don't know too much about crime mangas to tell you that this is one of the best, I don't know enough to draw parallels to other works. I just know that I enjoyed this work a lot and that it had some great panels and moments that will stick with me for a long time. I loved it, shout-out to the guy who translated the last 8 chapters all on his own, you're doing God's work. This was one of the most fun rides I had in a dark manga, I hope to find works that are similar to this one.
Thanks for reading my review.