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This is an absolutely fun romance series with a pretty good story. Almost everything about this series is lovable and enjoyable. I say most things because there are some downside to this series which we will get to later. If you've watched the anime, then you'll absolutely love this because there are more story to tell than what you've seen in the anime. This review will have a tiny spoiler (though nothing major, its just some info anyone can find by searching a little bit more about the series) but don't worry I'll let you know when I'm gonna discuss it. Without further ado, ... let's just get right into it.

Characters, 7/10
Ok let's first discuss Nariyuki Yuiga, the main character.. Welp, there's not much to talk about here 'cause he's just your typical harem mc so.. NEXT!
This is what you're here for.. THOSE JUICY WAIFUS! Honestly, it's almost impossible to discuss them in full length here because holy fucking god, there are 5 main heroines. For this part, we won't talk about some of them because they're actually pretty well written for a harem series. This manga is actually surprising because there are 2 characters in particular who I ended up liking more than the other compared to when I first watched the anime. Those two are Rizu Ogata and Uruka Takemoto. For some reason, Rizu felt more like a side character in the later chapter which makes it hard to root for her. On the other side, Uruka is a much more noticeable character here. This is bad for Rizu because she's one of the fucking main cast who people possibly wanna root for. I honestly feel bad for her because the other heroines are actually pretty fucking dope. Let's look at Fumino Furuhashi for a second. With her character design and how we're first introduced to her in the series, I fully expected that I'll get tired of her after a little while. She was designed to be the main heroine out of the main heroines, but that's not what happened. She was treated equally like the other main heroines. It feels like everyone have a fair chance with Yuiga. But no.. no.. not Ogata apparently, because fuck her in particular. She had a fairly strong presence on the first 50 chapters but after that there wasn't anything interesting about her.
Before we move on, let's not forget about the side characters because god damnit they're so fucking good that it feels like a sin if I skipped them. Usually in a harem setting, the side character doesn't matter that much because fuck them, we only want to see the mc getting those fine shyts. However, this series went the full length of making the side characters really memorable. It's not exaggerating to say that all of the side characters are good. Each one of them have their own purpose in the story and not only there for the mc to be more lovey dovey with the heroines. Dare I fucking say, some of them are actually more memorable than Rizu.
Now you might think, "this guy praises the main heroines and the side cast but why is the rating only 7?"
The reason to that is really simple, this series don't understand how they want to treat their characters. They're able to give the other heroines an equally good writing for each of them but why not this one in particular? Not only that, there is one side character that will work really well as one of the main heroines. This is so fucking sad to see that one of the main cast is not treated as well as the others and there's a side character who is better written than that same main cast. Like for fuck sake, get your priority straight. Who's story are you trying to tell here?

Story, 8/10
The story is super enjoyable. It's not only "hey look at this stud getting all the anime women" all of the time. They have their own moments that can sometimes makes you feel sad or even fired up about something. Does it do anything different when compared to other series in the same genre? Nah, not really. However, it doesn't have to be a completely "game changing story for the genre" for it to be a good, enjoyable, and fun series.

Next I want to discuss about the ending, but I can't really discuss it without giving a little spoiler. It's not about how the ending goes, it's just about the ending in general. So close your eyes and skip this part if you're one of those "NO SPOILER" guy. So the spoiler is...... there are 5 separate endings to this series. Well, it should be 6 if you really want to be technical about it but the 6th ending doesn't really do anything. As you might've guessed, each heroine have their own ending. I'm going to rate each one of the ending. To show that I'm not biased about the rating, I will first give you my rankings of the main heroines.
1. Fumino Furuhashi
2. Asumi Kominami/Mafuyu Kirisu
3. Uruka Takemoto
4. Rizu Ogata
Alright, now let's start talking about it.
Ending, 8/10
Some of the ending are really good compared to the others. Two of them are super well written, another two is okay but it doesn't have anything special about it, while one of them is there just because the rest got their own ending so it's only fair to make one for her too (try to guess who). Let's talk about the good ones first, the 5 out of 5, which is Asumi's and Mafuyu's ending. I say these two are the best because they're entirely unique compared to the rest. For these two in particular, the ending takes place a little further after Yuiga's graduation. This allows them to be separated (while not entirely) from the main story and be their own thing. The ending is so unique that there's a set of side characters that is introduced just for the sake of that ending. This whole thing is important because if you want to make a multiple ending series to work, there has to be something that separates one ending from the other. Which brings us to the second one, the okay 3/5 ending. These are the Fumino's and Uruka's ending.
(Side note: Okay before we continue, I have to let you know that I fucking hate the Uruka ending with my whole fucking guts when I watched the anime. Please keep that in mind.)
There wasn't anything bad about these two ending, but there isn't anything good about it either at the same time. These two endings pales when compared to the first two ending we discussed. Last is the neglected child, the Rizu ending. If the okay ending got a rating of 3/5 then this ending must be a 0/5. However, there's something that I like about this ending so I'll be nice and give it a 1/5. The only good thing about Rizu's ending is it's giving us more content for one of the best side character, Sawako Sekijou. Now you might ask, why are we talking about this random side character? Well that's because MOST PART OF THE RIZU'S ENDING WASN'T EVEN ABOUT HER. Rizu's presence as a character is actually so weak that they have to bring a side character in order to make the ending doesn't feel as boring as it already is.
So yeah, overall most of the endings are good (but again, fuck that one girl in particular).

Art, 7/10
There are some moments where the art feels inconsistent but one thing I really appreciate is that every time there's a focused panel for one of the heroine, they really take care of the details that differentiate one character from the other. For example, Mafuyu is drawn more mature and lady-like because she's older than the other main heroines.

To wrap this up, this is one hell of an absolutely fun series to read. You won't regret picking this series up at all. Well... unless you're a Rizu fan. In that case, just don't read too far into it because there isn't anything much for you. It might seem like I'm just hating on Rizu for no particular reason but that's not the case at all. I'm really disappointed that her character amounts to nothing at all in the end even though the author was able to make the other main heroines equally interesting.

What made me want to read aku no hana is the psychological tag. If you're also a big fan of psychological story, this story won't let you down. However, we need to make one thing clear before we go ahead; the story is not that complex, stop reaching. So, if you're a big fan of complex story-telling, you'll have a bad fucking day after reading this. With that being said, let's start this shit.


Characters, 6/10
We need to focus on the 3 main characters of this story; Nakamura, Kasuga, and Saeki. We first will start with Nakamura. At first sight, she's a really interesting character ... and will make you instantly fall in love with her. However, as the story goes you'll start to see that she's completely irrational. There's really no real explanation on why she's like this. The only thing the story gave you is one line said by her father, "she's just like her mother". This is extremely sad because this just feels like her character is only a plot device to let the story continue. Because guess what, without her this whole "aku no hana" bullshit won't happen. It's really disappointing that there's no clear explanation for literally the whole reason why this story exist.
Next Kasuga, the character you're gonna follow for the whole ride in this shitty-coaster. I personally had no beef with Kasuga. However, one problem I had with him is the fact that he's very inconsistent. In the beginning, he appears as a regular guy who had a crush on the most beautiful girl in his school. He fucked up and got black-mailed by the girl who's hated by almost everyone in the school. This girl keep telling him that he's a pervert and he denied it every single time. It's even shown that he's genuinely just a regular dude who fucked up that one time. However as the story goes on, his character all of a sudden turned into this evil pervert. Unlike Nakamura, the reason behind his change actually made sense if you "don't" think about it. He changed because he wanted to be with the girl he liked (at this point it's Nakamura). The problem is that the story is trying to sell that his character has always been perverted since the beginning. If they give us some hints or moment that shows he's actually a pervert in the start, sure this make sense. But as I said before, he's only a regular dude who made a mistake. Sure you'll think that smelling someone's clothes is already perverted enough and I'll agree if you said that. But the meaning of "pervert" in this series is on another league from just your average panty-peeping perverts. The action of those who are called "perverts" in this series is actually more close to something like terrorism rather than having a wild sexual fantasy. So it's really not "he's always been a pervert" because his character did a complete 180° turn from how he started.
Saeki actually had a lot more potential as a character than Nakamura. However, because the author is too focused on writing a story with a message rather than writing a good story, her character in the end felt like she's just another plot device with no real characteristic to her name.
However, gotta admit that it's really fun seeing the characters in the story taking some god-awful decision in their life for no fucking reason at all.


Story, 7/10
Giving this a 7 is already very generous of me. And the only reason it got a 7 is because the later half of the story is pretty decent. To briefly explain, the first part of the story didn't accomplish anything in "forwarding the narrative". Even if the story began in the second chapter and the first part of the story is only told via some flashback with a little explanation, it still would be able to convey the message that the author is trying to tell very clearly. Bluntly speaking, the only important part is only the second one.


Art, 7/10
I'm no art connoisseur but the art is pretty good. At times it felt very real despite still having an anime-ish look. Sure, it's not the very best out of the other manga I've read but I can still appreciate this one.

Psychological, okay/10
The series will not fail to remind you that it is based on "Flower of Evil" by Baudelaire. I'm even intrigued to start reading this piece. And no, it's not because the series tell a beautiful story out of it. (There's actually more to this line but the file got corrupted and left me with some gibberish that I don't understand at all. So I'm just gonna leave it at that.)

So to conclude, is this series enjoyable? Absolutely, it's a fun series. Sadly, it stops there. It's simply just enjoyable and not that great overall. If you enjoy a fun out of pocket story, this manga won't let you down.

Note: This review was written around June 13th and I forgot to post it lmfao.
This is a spite-review (just read a review on onani master kurosawa that said it's just a dumbdown version of aku no hana. I couldn't let that shit pass.)

So, in the end, is this a "better" version of onani master kurosawa? No, that's insulting. The only way to actually describe this manga is that it's an over-exaggerated version of onani master kurosawa.