STORY: 8

Meet Seiichi Osabe, a boy on the path to teenage-hood: new experiences, more freedom, new feelings, independence! Except that.. Seiichi has a mother, Seiko, who is taking a place that is too large in his life. Way too large.
The story deals with psychological horror in a family context, and, the delivery is very powerful. The mundane, slice-of-life setting brings some realism that is able to land its latent violence deep into the heart of the reader. Tension and pain are accumulating through simple dialogues and body attitudes. The author didn’t go for any spectacular or unrealistic twist that would have made the story easier and more straightforward. Instead, we are witnessing the build-up of horrible situations that are difficult to escape. And those scenes are all the more terrifying because they are plausible: they could or have happened around you.

ART: 8

Most of the manga consists of the faces of the son and his mother. While that sounds boring, the author is actually doing a very good job at conveying emotions, tension, and trauma.. Those faces are crucially supporting the story. It’s easy to imagine that such simple art could have failed in the hands of many other artists, but here, each panel is ready to inject its poison in your mind.

POLITICAL POTENTIAL: 6

Seventeen volumes of trauma and madness, and these subjects are treated with subtlety despite serving the purpose of delivering horror.
Still, we are within the trope where most manga show their ‘crazy’ characters as dangerous (whereas they would be victims in the absence of prejudice in society):
many media depict madness as something threatening, but in reality, statistics show that being ‘crazy’ is a threat from others to yourself. I invite you to check the numbers in your country, but just being neurodivergent (having a brain that’s ‘different’) means you are often much more likely to be victim of violence, bullying or sexual abuse than regular folks.

In manga, at best, mentally sick characters have a backstory to explain their madness (hello Gaara from Naruto, Tomura from My Hero Academia, Johan from Monster). At worst, they are just shown as crazy and evil, and too often, that seems to be enough reason for the hero to destroy them.

In Chi no Wadachi, we have indeed a mum who is crazy, and, because of that, is dangerous. But the story still hints (moderately) at the failings of the environment: the toxic upbringing, the weight of patriarchy, the husband who turns a blind eye to the suffering. That mother even gets (a bit) more sympathy and humanization than characters who would commit equivalent abuse in other manga.
There is one other crazy character in the story, a boy, and he gets more empathy as he is shown as both a victim and dangerous.
Let’s give this tittle a good point, the threat that is shown from the mental sickness is realistic (instead of having an outrageous villain), and the abuser is not punished in a Manichean way.

FEMINISM: 7

Welcome to the niche world of manga that have a female character that is not something to protect or desire! Here, we have a focus on the relation between a mum and son.
As I searched for other examples of such relations, I realized the vast majority of works having this feature as the central plot are.. pornographic. If you are lucky enough to not know, ‘Incest’ is a popular category of porno manga, with long and poetic titles that can translate, for example, as ‘I fucked my mum last night because I got tired of doing it relentlessly with my sister this whole spring’.

Besides porno, the mother and son relation is rarely the focus. Judging only from my readings, it’s even possible that, when it comes to depicting an intense and positive filial relationship, there’s more titles that use a grandmother and kid story.
Talking about occurrences, I also have a feeling that, if the parent-kid relation is toxic, there’s a different treatment depending on the gender of the parent.
It seems that, when the abuser is a dad, difficult bonds are something that can be overcome for the character to develop (see for example Berserk, Baki, or Evangelion). Meanwhile, difficult mom-kid bonds are more often something that traumatizes or is an obstacle to growth . Quite a few horror manga have a male murderer whose insanity is explained by a tyrannical mum. For example, Rouba Shoujo, reviewed on the blog, has one story with a teacher who was raised by his mum inside a pet cage and ends up eating his students.

It’s easy to see the sexism when bad fathers are more likely forgiven than bad mothers. In the manga Baki, the dad is a serial killer who raped and murdered the hero’s mum. Baki, the hero, is upset but still doing ok, and the manga is simply fascinated by the dad because he is so strong. Titles with evil moms are less forgiving .

CONCLUSION: 8

Brutally efficient, ‘A Trail of Blood’ is a great read. Make sure you can handle the subject first because you will be shaken.