Nov 19, 2020
Get ready for cocktease the manga... So, the reason I'm giving this a 4 instead of a 3 is that I genuinely really like some of the artwork and ghost/monster designs. The reason why I take such an issue with the story is first off, a collection of short stories in a manga CAN work. It's harder to make that work with just 2-5 pages per story, but it's still possible. This is not it. There's 0 tension building, just shock and not even that exciting of shock either.
It's safe to say that practically every short story within this collection follows a formula. That formula
...
goes "here's your setting and characters, which you'll know nothing about", "scary face or dead-all-along or Immaignorethebigbad", "end". There's few variation. There was one surprisingly wholesome short about a brother who used what seemed to be a harmless cursed bear to share the beauty of the outside world with his sister who couldn't go outside. I know the bear being "cursed" probably was meant to be creepy, but it didn't seem that way and was funny enough, the only short I felt had enough room to breathe.
Almost every other story feels like if it were given some time to immerse you and didn't just end abruptly that there'd be some genuinely interesting tales. Instead, we get the punchline and the height of the action but nothing else. This might have been intentional to constantly show you the "peak" while never coming down (thus lending another reason behind the name "Seeds of Anxiety"), but here, it doesn't work. It just makes you feel like you're missing larger chunks of the story, like fast forwarding a movie to only the best bits but ignoring all else.
All in all, I'd say that if you were just collecting some spooky manga panels, this might have some of what you're looking for. Don't come looking for some good 5-10 second stories or else you'll probably be disappointed
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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