Name: A sort of a review by a "pervert"
Item: The Flowers of Evil
Rating: 100
Author: AleD

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The Flowers of Evil

a review by AleD

AleD

7 months ago·Oct 13, 2025

100

/ 100

Initial Consideration

I feel almost obligated to write this review because since I've finished the manga I can't think about anything else but Aku no Hana.
I will divide this review in 3 parts:
- First narrative arc
- Second narrative arc
- How I feel after the reading of Aku no Hana

This review will contain spoilers.

This won't be a real review, I'll talk about how I felt through the various phases.

Before the review I wanna say how it all started:
One day I was organizing my library and found the first volume (variant) of Aku no Hana which I probably bought in a bundle with the first volume of Okaeri Alice but that was some years ago and I didn't remember to have it in my library.
From then I started thinking about the manga I have in planning list from years and never started so I made a list of manga with "high priority", put them in a wheel and spinned it, and I said to myself that I'll read that first manga that will roll 3 times, no matter the number of the chapters. And so that's how I started reading Aku no Hana.

1. First Narrative Arc

At first I wasn't really taking this manga seriously, I didn't think this would've change me in this way, I didn't even think it was possible for a manga or a media in general for the way I am, in fact in the first chapter when Nakamura insulted the professor, saying him "shitbug", I was laughing out loud.
And as I continued the read I never took it seriously yet but as the chapters continued I was feeling like I needed more and more of that even though I wasn't understanding the characters, what was going on or why the were acting like that.

At the end of the first narrative arc I thought this manga was a 7, max 7.5, because I thought the characters were so stupid and specifically didn't understand why Nakamura would call Kasuga a "pervert" just for accidentally robbing a sweatsuit. But especially I didn't understand why would Saeki ever follow a guy that was himself following another girl so passionately.
So basically in the first arc I thought it was a manga with so much problems that I'd have forgotten soon.

2. Second Narrative Arc

I was happy that Nakamura wasn't in this arc, so she couldn't "ruin" Kasuga anymore and he could live a normal life, even though I was always scared that his other side would've come out at any time, especially with Aya.
But it didn't happen and in this arc I found myself intrigued to it because they've explored some themes I felt related to, like the shyness of showing your biggest passion or the social awkwardness, that eventually brought the vote up to 8.
The scene I liked the most was the one on the shore of the beach with Nakamura, Kasuga and Aya where my heart was bumping really hard because I was scared what Nakamura or Kasuga would've done but at the end I was more relaxed than ever.
But the turning point arrived through last chapters/when the manga ended.

3. How I feel now

In a few words, I feel empty, really empty. At the first I thought it was because I finished Aku no Hana and I needed more, but in these days I was thinking and thinking and thinking, I did nothing but thinking, even now I'm thinking and I'll think until I can talk freely with the person I confided the most in my life, my best friend.
I thought about my life, my friends, my family, my career, my future, my crush, my passions, I thought about everything I could think about but I keep thinking and now I don't know how to feel, Am I sad? Am I happy? Am I depressed? Am I sick?
I re-evaluated so many aspects of my life and started disliking those normal people, I always did to be honest, but not my friends or my crush.
Right now I feel like a "pervert" in a shitbug sea, but will this ever change?
Probably not until I find another "pervert" like me to pass my life with and living maybe a normal life but I'm not even sure this will ever happen. At the moment the only "pervert" I know is my best friend, in fact is the only person I know to whom I'll confide all of this.
And I know what this manga means, why the characters did what they did and all that stuff, but some personal experiences and problems I've been through my life brought me to find a new meaning for this manga that I and only I can see and understand.
At the moment I feel like the first Kasuga of the second narrative arc, a "lobotomized" guy that need to find the right person to grow and to get over my difficulties.
I feel like this because I've read this manga at 20 in a specific moment of my life, but I wonder how I'll feel at, I don't know, 30, maybe with another "pervert", re-reading this.
I'm sure of only one thing right now, and that is that I'll read this manga over and over again, always with different feelings.