Children
a review by TheGruesomeGoblin
a review by TheGruesomeGoblin
Children is a horror manga by Yuu Ichiura. This is... a horror manga... titled... Children. So... you know.
If you are squeamish about gore and/or you aren’t looking to be disturbed, this manga is absolutely not for you. Whether or not this series is actually genuinely disturbing and not just being edgy for the sake of edginess is a debate we can ~~(and I will)~~ have all day, but no matter what, I would not classify this as a light read.
Also, I recommend if you are resistant to gore and are considering on reading this, to read it right away without experiencing the spoilers that will most undoubtedly be present within this review. Cause iunno if that impact of reading this for the first time would have been the same had I been warned beforehand. Although, that being said, I suppose I basically was warned...
“...What could possibly go wrong?!?!”
Maybe you thought I was going to segue into actually introducing this manga and maybe I will in a minute, but first, I just have to say this series has some of the fucking most gruesome gore I’ve seen in a manga. Now, I know what you’re probably thinking.
“TGG, you’re exaggerating. You probably think that because it’s usually either kids getting killed or kids doing the killing.”
I can’t possibly deny that isn’t a part of it. But that’s not solely why the gore of this series hit me quite as hard as it did. People think putting gore in stuff is just… I don’t know, just throw a bunch of blood everywhere. Some severed limbs, maybe a bit of entrails here and there. But there’s a multitude of degrees and ways to handle gore. And I honestly think the challenge is finding the correct balance.
Is there too much blood? Is there too little blood? Should I go absolutely over the top and just do ridiculous shit? Or should I make it more realistic? What should the blood actually look like? Should characters basically be walking bags of blood just waiting to burst at the right moment?
And while I risk coming across as some sort of psychopath the more and more I focus specifically on the gore of this series, I think the key component is honestly the characters’ reaction to the gore itself.
Like it doesn’t matter one iota of how disgusting or shocking your gore is if the characters don’t sell it. Whether it's the characters creating the gore, the ones witnessing it, or the poor victims themselves.
But that's no problem with this series because the greatest strength is without a doubt the facial expressions of the characters. The big eyed creepy ass stare of the poster character of the series, the absolute horrified look that's frozen on the main character's face for a lot of the series, and there's just a whole bunch of empty dead-eyed stares throughout the whole series...
It's so good. I genuinely hope Yuu Ichiura does more stuff because while the rest of the stuff of this series is hit or miss, I want to see more of these expressions and gore. It's so rare at this point of desensitization for gore in a manga to get a reaction from me that goes beyond "that's dumb" or "that's gross."
I was horrified yet wanted to see more.
#Now, to the plot, where it falls apart a little bit…#
To play a hypocritical devil's advocate a little bit, as far as horror is concerned, plot... isn't a necessity.
Let's walk that one back a little bit. If a horror series has a well-written and interesting plot, that's great. That's the unicorn I'm hunting down in the dark woods desperately trying to catch. ~~And then brutally murder and harvest every single section of its carcass for the sweet nourishment it would provide.~~ That's not the expectation.
Much more often, horror series have nonsensical and awful plots usually riddled with holes. But just because a horror manga’s plot is absolute garbage or complete and utter nonsense, doesn’t mean it’s automatically a full loss. After all, the other components could potentially carry it if they’re solid enough to bear the weight.
Children actually had… something with its plot. For a good while, it had me hook, line, and sinker. I genuinely wanted to see what this was building up to and not purely out of morbid curiosity. Of course, while it held out a surprising amount of time, disappointment did eventually begin to creep in.
What started with a simple enough premise, soon began to tear itself off the tracks just as it was approaching the climax. The premise is as follows. Igarashi Tohru is off to start his new job, taking care a bunch of children in basically an orphanage located deep in the mountains. Only… the job isn’t all it seems. Or rather, the job is exactly as described. His job really is to watch over a bunch of children in the mountains.
...Except, the children themselves have a job. Garbage disposal.
Some of the kids aren’t quite as adjusted to this life as the others are. And I was just absolutely riveted to see where this went. Would the protagonist try and escape? Or would he be broken? Whatever the outcome, I was actually fully on board which is such a goddamned rare feeling to experience anymore when reading horror manga.
Rather than being broken as I expected him to be, the protagonist actually begins to bond with several of the children. Who, for the most part, aren’t exactly all bloodthirsty monsters who enjoy killing and dissecting people. ~~Though, more than a few of them are.~~ This is the only place pretty much all of them have and even if they left it, they’re isolated in the mountains. And of course, none of them want to risk becoming a star.
While obviously the spotlight is mostly on the protagonist and the head teacher, I actually did like the kid characters.
But I won't lie, my prime interest was definitely on what the protagonist was going to do. And that's when the disappointment sank in. There were great moments where he was really beginning to fit in and even several of the kids were starting to like him. But then a certain moment happened which I was pretty sure finally broke him ~~because it certainly broke me~~ yet he turned silent and simply accepted the grim nature of the place he found himself trapped in.
Yet... in truth...
WARNING, massive series-ruining spoilers:
So... he was a fucked up a kid that was incapable of empathy who became "normal" because his dad told him "holy shit you're fucked up please stop being fucked up I've tried my best as a dad why did you set your mom's pillow on fire while she slept" and then child protagonist was "like alright fine, I'll force myself to get amnesia so I can be normal" but...
That sucks?
That just completely sucks? Like... no, why? Why pull the amnesia card on me so late in the series? YOU WERE DOING SO WELL. AND THEN HE JUST DROPS THE HEAD TEACHER OFF A CLIFF??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
She was the best/most fucked up character, and I wanted to see like... I don't know, the children to throw a revolt and literally tear her from limb to limb. Yet she just gets dropped off of a cliff. All the gore in the series and that's the death you're gonna give...ugh... like her first thought when the main protagonist started to dissect the girl he became friends with who got decapitated was "oh hey we should probably take her clothes off before we start to cut her body into little pieces"
AND THE DEATH THIS CHARACTER RECEIVED WAS MERELY GETTING DROPPED OFF A CLIFF.
Like okay yes, the reason she fell to her death was the guy she loved explicitly caused her to fall and there was that cool moment when she looked up and saw all the children standing behind him, but I still wanted… more.
Because again, it’s not like he killed her because he overcame his fear of her or anything like that.
He just instantly morphed into a completely different character than the one he’s been the rest of the manga as a result of self-induced amnesia. WHICH SUCKS
The main plot really should have remained centered on the protagonist and head teacher. Because this is a completely different issue I’m not even gonna go into, but the way the orphanage finally meets its downfall also sucks.
If the plot had just… remained intact just a bit longer… I could have maybe even seen myself throwing this among my favorite horror manga.
Because there were numerous points where I found myself genuinely experiencing horror at what I was looking at.
#Conclusion#
I can imagine a lot of people reading this and just dismissing it. It’s just edgy for the sake of being edgy and/or it’s not hard to incorporate children into horror. Especially if they’re getting killed because 99.999999999999999% of people typically have an immediate negative reaction to seeing children die (and if you’re among the .000000000000001% that don't please stay as far away from me as possible) but…
I mean, while that was exactly what I thought it was going to be when I started reading this series… there’s something more to it. Like I never expected I was going to like any of the kid characters. I just assumed all of them were going to be like the sister that immediately starts laugh screaming and demanding her brother to give her the eyeball of someone he just shot dead.
...I’m still just mystified. This was just supposed to be nothing but stupid and obnoxious gore. Why wasn’t this just stupid and obnoxious gore???
“Oh no, I’m a bland generic male main character and I’m off to start my new job in the mountains! Sure hope nothing goes wrong! Or there’s some dark secret to this job I wasn’t told about!”
But it was actually interesting for a while. Horror manga aren’t supposed to be interesting!
I give Children by Yuu Ichiura a 6 out of 10. That might be seen as a bit of an anticlimactic score. Letting it land somewhere in the middle rather than going for either one of the extreme ends, but… I mean that score fits my opinion of this series perfectly. I’m so fucking split on it.
I love parts of it.
Hell, parts of it genuinely horrified me and in the good way. But simultaneously, it was also really fucking disappointing. I would still say though it’s definitely worth reading if you’re into horror and also you’re very resistant to gore. I mean even if your opinion actually is that this series is entirely just for the sake of gore or even just being edgy…
I would argue that this would still be one of the best of that sort of series. ~~Considering you know, a lot of the series in that category is mostly just straight bottom of the barrel trash.~~
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