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Insanity. A very curious and dangerous tool when trying to create a world similar to that we inhabit. Curious, because when done correctly, the results can be mind-blowingly amazing. Just look at Perfect Blue, perhaps the best example to a show based around insanity who has done his homework and got an A+. And dangerous for the exact opposite scenario, for when a story tries to implement elements of a conflicted mind and doesn’t deliver it in a suitable way, the results are confusion, disgust and low rating from the viewers. Just look at the infamous “Mad Queen” arc from Game of Thrones and tell ... me that longtime fans didn’t have these sorts of reactions while seeing how Daenerys became crazy in a span of approximately 60 minutes of screentime. But back to our topic, Aku no Hana is best described as something in between these two poles.

A short summary of the plot: AnH is about a middle schooler named Takao Kasuga, who is your typical unsociable guy with an obsession for something, in this case a book called “Les Fleurs du Mal” by Charles Baudelaire. He once gets caught while trying to steal the underwear of a girl in his class, and thus begins his adventure with the said catcher of his, Nakamura Sawa.
The story consists of 3 major arcs, namely the “Pervert”, “Madness” and “Epilogue”, which now I’ll call accordingly. If you want a very short version of the review, then I’ll say that arc 1 is bad, arc 2 is amazing and arc 3 is terrible. But details will only be clear if you read the whole review, so if you have questions, please read the paragraphs below.

Now, let’s get started with the first arc, the “Pervert” arc. This arc is supposed to be an introduction to the whole world of AnH, where one can get labelled a pervert incredibly fast and those who get are hated by society forever. A bit drastic way to make us get a feeling for this world, but since real life is frighteningly similar, I’ll let this slide. One of the things I really won’t though, is the protagonist, who is so unbelievably annoying that I seriously considered dropping the manga for this sole reason. His insecurity is overused, the motivations for his actions are often confusing or nonsensical, his cowardice is boring & frustrating and his personality is a complete mess, frequently shifting every couple of pages/chapters. And this is only the boy Takao. The girl Sawa is in a sense better, as her personality has a clear direction and at least understandable inner struggles. Though her character is defined by one sole trait and her dialogue usually consists of either saying degrading things to Takao, complaining about society or simply trying to sound wise by quoting random people. This kind of conflict goes on through the entire arc, but changes in the second one. The side characters are basically nonexistent and add almost nothing to the main story, with the exception of Saeki, the girl whose underwear Takao stole, but even her role is very minor.

Now, as someone who has also read “Les fleurs du mal”, my disappointment was immense. Charles Baudelaire was a satirical and cynical critic of humanity. He only saw the worst of mankind and clearly emphasized the mad side of everyone in his book, often resulting in disturbing and perverse situations. But where is this part of the story? Why choose a critic about society as the main topic for this work and then entirely neglecting its single most important aspect? At this point, I considered dropping the manga, but I clung onto the last bits of hope…

…and then, suddenly, the story became amazing. Finally, insanity struck and overwhelmed almost everyone. Finally, every character embraced his darker side and they’ve abandoned their conflicted traits. Even Takao had become a lunatic, completely abandoning his pathetic side, which was a pleasant surprise for me. The story had become what it should have been from the very beginning. Even the art had evolved and became much, much better, highlighting important aspects of Baudelaire’s work., emphasizing one of his messages to the reader in his book:

"If rape or arson, poison or the knife
Has wove no pleasing patterns in the stuff
Of this drab canvas we accept as life—
It is because we are not bold enough!"

And yes, they became bold enough. The suspense curve was magnificent, making the tension more and more intense, making the last chapters the absolute climax. Yes. YES! Make the ending perfect! Commit the perfect suicide! But alas, *Insert sad trombone effect*, they didn’t die, because them dying would have upsetted many people and the authors clearly didn't want to risk that. Their dream was destroyed, their personalities reverted to their roots, and from this point on, Baudelaire and everything that made this manga extraordinarily vanished into oblivion.

The last arc of the story was simply put awful. So insultingly bad that I won’t really waste time describing it. It is riddled with clichés, and the characters once again become total morons. Takao moves into another city, trying to start a new life, and of course he finds a new girl, and of course the girl is a tsundere, and of course the girl is also interested in literature, and of course the girl has a boyfriend, and of course she falls in love with Takao for no reason, and of course they and up together, and of course they visit Sawa, and of course they all end up as buddies. Yeeeeey! Such a powerful friendship, such emotions and such magnificent writing! Applause, a perfect example of how to ruin a great manga.

Long story short, Aku no Hana is not a great manga. Two of the three arcs are bullshit, while the second is amazing. It could have been awesome. But being awesome would have required a dark and daring ending, for which the writers didn’t have the guts.. Baudelaire fans, skim arc one, read the second and imagine your preferred ending. Then you will have read an amazing adaptation worthy of being called “The Flower of Evil”

Somewhere in 2013 an anthology show called Yami Shibai was released. Nobody knew who made it or why, thus it went by completely unnoticed. In 2016 however, when season 3 was released, the show suddenly gained in popularity and became a bit more known than before.

For anyone who doesn’t know: Yami Shibai, the theatre of darkness, consists of very short stories (between 4 and 5 minutes) that adapt japanese urban legends and myths with the sole goal of being scary. And that is why seasons 1 and 2 are awesome. Every episode begins with a creepy playground and an even creepier narrator telling a ... short story, which all have two things in common: A huge plot twist and a jumpscare in the end. And oh boy, some episodes genuinely scared the shit out of me. But I liked them, because Yami Shibai was the only show that could stay scary by using the same concept over and over again.

In 2016, when season 3 came out, the setting changed a bit. The stories were still creepy, though it began to focus on a more sad and depressing side rather than just scaring the watcher. I personally didn’t like the change, but I saw the point of it. After 2 whole seasons of only jumpscares, many watchers would find it a bit repetitive and even boring. I tried to stay positive, enjoy the show and embrace the new setting. The beginning wasn’t hard.

But then season 4 came, and I gave up the little hope I had.

The before mentioned switch from scary to sad took a way too rapid turn and the overall quality decrease was so ridiculously obvious that season 4 almost became the downfall of the theatre of darkness. The creators had no clue on how to continue this franchise. Make longer episodes? Nah. Make shorter episodes? Nah. Make scary stories? Nah. Make stories with moral lessons? Nah. Make shitty 4 min episodes with no plot, relevant themes or overall horror substance? Yes, yes and yes.

With every hope lost, I had absolutely no expectation for seasons 5-7. Well, at least they returned to focusing on horror and fear rather than depression. They are nothing special, just completely average.

Seasons 8 and 9 were in one word shitty. The authors clearly ran out of ideas, because almost every story has been mentioned in a previous season. Hell, urban legends about depressed workers were shown at least 14 times. At this point I seriously asked myself why these seasons even exist. Yami Shibai isn’t very popular, thus money grab is out of the question. Fans demand more seasons? Nah, they’ve left this show for good. I still haven’t found anything close to being plausible or at least rational.

And now here we are in 2022 with season 10.

I don’t know what sort of intoxicants the producers consumed, but this is not Yami Shibai. This hideous, boring, cringe and pathetic piece of crap can’t be considered a part of this once amazing franchise. The stories somehow became worse than in every previous season combined. Voice acting was below awful, combined with atrocious endings and a completely ludicrous way of telling the one iconic quote at the beginning.

Minimalistic artstyle has always been a trademark of this show and seasons 1-5 made actually pretty decent use of it, creating an overall weird and chilling ambience. Especially if you watched the show late at night was it a magnificent experience. Unfortunately, this aspect was discarded as well. The animation team became lazier and lazier during the seasons, but this was the peak of neglection. I didn't expect it to be Mappa level, though such abominable designs surprised even me. It was however, without a doubt, one of the most unique Power Point Presentations to sit through.

It’s simply put impossible to find any redeeming quality in this franchise anymore. The desperation we all experienced after season 4 just increased and increased, until we were completely sapped of everything scarcely similar to what can be called “expectations”. There is a quote that says: “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” Yami Shibai outlived its era of glory and fell to the depths of mediocrity and finally became a thing that isn’t even an anime, but just a pile of rashly collected appaling ideas being made into a season doomed to fail miserably since the first episode.

But hey, there will be no more seasons right? No more ways to torture long-time fans, such as myself, with this bullshit anymore, so that we can have at least a decent feeling about this franchise? Right? RIGHT?!

What is the first thing you think about when you see a show like this? "Oh god, what a trash", "This can't be serious" or "Just another hentai dressed as anime"? Let me tell you, it was the same with me, until I actually watched it. Because this show is finally something that can achieve greatness with a such hentai-like story.

"Our protagonist wakes up in a world, where men are almost extinct and he has to reproduce in order to save humanity". Even though the sitation is not likely, or let's just say impossible to happen, the atmosphere itself is quite serious. Relevant problems and ... hardships of women are depicted, while never losing the focus of the inner struggles of the protagonist as well.

And when we're talking about the protagonist: Already after watching one episode, you will notice that the director intended to make this a more mature and not-hentai-like show. The protagonist doesn't just want to mindlessly fuck every woman he sees. He is searching for his love, while trying to be as true to his morals as possible. Even though this makes him a rather unnatural and unrealistic teenage boy, it is certainly necessary. If this would be a real life teenager, all we would see is sex after sex with every possible woman he encounters.

But yeah, nudity and sex can't be completely avoided. And the "lustful teenager" aspect ,as previously mentioned, doesn't disappear (the protagonist is probably the only one who has a different mindset): There is a guy, who embraces this situation and is happy to reproduce with every woman. Fortunately, since the focus is not on him, it only adds to the ambience of the story. Though it could be a bit less.

In other aspects, the show also does fairly well. The animation is very nice with no 3D shit. The voice actors are not bad and music/sound effects are certainly above average.

So after all this is said and done, my final message is: Give it a try! You will honestly be surprised, especially if you start the show with no standards in mind

Another isekai has arrived and once again, we ask the same questions: Is it good? Is it entertaining? Will it bring something new and unknown? Does this show finally give isekais a new standard, like Re:Zero did in 2016? No, no, no and no.

For those who watch anime regularly, the concept of dying and respawning elsewhere (mostly a fantasy world) with the help of a god/goddess/supernatural entity etc. must sound familiar. Why? BECAUSE ALMOST EVERY NEW SHOW USES THIS IN SOME FORM! Seriously, 90% of the modern anime’s stories have been borrowed or literally copied from an older one. Not only does this ... question the meaning of copyright, but it also makes almost every idea a cliché. And this show is no different.

“The world's best assassin, to reincarnate in a different world as aristocrat” or “Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha, Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei suru”. Already the name gives many people cringe vibes, but when you read the description, it even gets worse. Our lovely protagonist, whom we know almost nothing of, gets resurrected in a different world, where he is tasked by a goddess to kill the hero. And of course, our protagonist agrees! No questions, no complaints, nothing. Because he is an assassin, duh. With this juicy introduction, what can go wrong, right? But okay, let’s put these “prejudices” on hold and look at the show itself.

As expected, the show is not good. The first and most important aspect, the story, has failed miserably and the show hasn’t even finished airing yet. Putting the above mentioned reasons aside, the story is still lackluster. Our protagonist is overpowered. While this concept works well in for example One Punch Man, it is not good here. This way, his training is short, he has absolutely zero character development and even the side characters, who are supposed to be weak, get insanely strong in like 1 episode. Plot holes, bad writing and questionable events happen frequently.

And talking of the characters: As mentioned before, the MC is bad. Really bad. He is a “master assassin”, with no emotions or anything that roughly imply, that he is a human being. This just doesn’t fit a show like this, where meeting new characters and developing oneself is supposed to be important. While this changes a little bit during the show, the beginning still suffers greatly from it.

The side characters are even worse. His accomplices (girls, what a surprise) have basically no importance and characteristics so cliché and shallow, that I could just summarize them in 1 sentence each. And that’s what I’m going to do: Girl 1 was saved by him and now loves him. Girl 2 was saved by him and now loves him. Does this ring a bell? Yes? Good, because that is what happens in almost every isekai. Except, that in some of them, the girls actually do have a personality, other than just love the protagonist without conditions and follow his orders like mindless dolls. Oh, and of course, how could I forget this, they both try to become his concubines! Yeah, this often leads to awkward and senseless situations, but I guess that was pretty obvious.

On the animation part, this show once again creates nothing new. It even seems as if the show was released in 2017, since the animation is simply old. Few details, bad shading, bad character designs and absolutely HORRIBLE 3D animations. Fortunately, 3D is rarely used but god, did my eyes hurt after seeing it.

The sound part is perhaps the only aspect that has some potential. The intro is an interesting rap like (I guess?) song and the ending is a calm melody. The voice actors are okay, though some characters (guess who) have a VERY annoying way of speaking.

Final verdict: “The world's best assassin, to reincarnate in a different world as aristocrat” is poor. It shows absolutely nothing new, while making bad use of the old concepts, thus creating a boring and sometimes even edgy abomination. Therefore, a rating of 2/10 seems appropriate.

“He died doing what he wanted, right? I bet he was happy”
RIP Kentaro Miura (1966-2021)

I’ll try to avoid as much as possible but be warned: This review contains spoilers. Also, I will include a couple of things that other reviews mentioned, so don’t be surprised if you recognize a few statements.

STORY

The story of Berserk is very unique and interesting. It may appear simple at first, but evolves into something much, much more with the main focus on themes like destiny, the idea of evil, friendship and love (not shonen-like), rivalry and hatred. The story is made of 5 major arcs:

The Black Swordsman Arc:. Chronologically not ... the first arc, which may confuse the reader in the beginning. The story is nothing special (yet): Guts, a lonely man marked with a curse brand and armed with a huge sword is hunting down demons. This goes on for 3 volumes. But after this, the story changes.

The Golden Age Arc: This is a fully flashback arc, up to the present life of Guts. Now the story starts to get really interesting, as it unravels more and more of Guts’ past. Probably 90% of all character developments are in this arc and in terms of characters and plot twists, this arc is the best. However, the pacing is very slow and it might even bore a couple of readers in the beginning. And there is almost no fantasy (except for Zodd and the Skull Knight) setting here… Or so I thought until the Eclipse came. Well… that is probably the biggest and most amazing plot twist I’ve ever seen. It is astounding, how many different emotions the author can put in in just one volume. I won’t spoil anything major, but I have to say, this is where Griffith proved, just what he’d do to achieve his dream.

The Conviction Arc (or Black Swordsman Arc 2): The things wrap up pretty quickly after the Eclipse and the reader finds himself in the present times once again. Guts is now out on a journey to kill the apostles. In this arc, the truly dark side of this fantasy world starts to show itself, often almost as drastically violent as in the Eclipse. Many amazing fights and dialogues and the introduction of the new characters. Amazing arc, but it gets even better.

The Millennium Falcon Arc: This is my personal favorite arc and the epitome of Berserk. Remember, when I said, that the Conviction Arc had some amazing fights? Well, now it gets even better, as a new group is introduced, the Kushaans, with their insane emperor, who is also an apostle. The pacing is great and we finally see Griffith fighting once again. He and his army have a massive battle and an epic showdown between Griffith and the emperor. Frighteningly good, probably the best manga arc ever. And then I haven’t even talked about the art, which was at its peak during this part…

The Fantasia Arc: The last arc of Berserk and probably the worst one. The main element of this arc is the journey to the elven island, however, the pacing became slow once again and there was only one single good fight in the story. Also, the ones Guts and his team fought against were…pirates. This was the only part in Berserk, which I couldn’t take seriously. It also took quite long for the story to continue and for the crew to actually reach this island. Well, that was once again not very interesting and Berserk lost the “dark” setting almost completely. Fantasy was still there, though as if from a completely different universe. The art was still at its peak, fortunately, which basically compensated for the lost darkness. This is also the part, where Berserk stopped, since poor Kentaro Miura died. Chapter 363 is the last one, cherish it as much as you can, because it will most likely not continue.
As for the ending: It hasn’t been officially announced yet, but I think we can safely assume, that Berserk will never get an ending. And I am kinda glad about that. Why? Because I can’t imagine a single good ending for this story. There are just too many subplots and themes to be finished. And even the endings I can possibly imagine are shitty ones. It is better to leave the story open, than to finish it badly. I have seen this circle too many times (Attack on Titan, The Promised Neverland, Game of Thrones and I could go on), this should not happen anymore.

CHARACTERS
Now, this is in my opinion the worst part in Berserk. Before the question marks start to pop up, let me explain:
The problem lies not within the “old” characters: Guts and Griffith are probably the best protagonists ever. They are like two sides of a coin: Different in almost every way, and yet so similar at the same time. One cannot exist without the other. Their friendship, rivalry and later hatred is just epic and astonishing in every way imaginable. It is far superior to the likes of Naruto/Sasuke or Midoriya/Bakugo. It has always been a mature rivalry, never a childish one, even though they met as kids. When the two of them separate, they are the strongest personalities and characters in Berserk. Just amazing. Really.
The third old main character, Casca, is also great. She appears as a totally unlikable bitch in the beginning, but then gets a tremendous amount of character development and became my personal favorite of the story besides the GG duo. Too bad, that after the Golden Age arc she went insane and only regained her mind in the last couple chapters.

Now, let’s get to the main problem: The “new” protagonists
Let me just describe them all in a couple of words: A crazy royalty tsundere (Farnese), her faithful servant who is of course in love with her (Serpico), a randomly picked up loli (Schierke), a useless and annoying brat who “wants to surpass Guts” (Isidro) and an even more useless comic relief (Puck). To be honest, I knew that no other character will be as good as Guts or Griffith but I seriously expected something better than this. Farnese and Serpico were the only interesting characters of this bunch, but Farnese (for some reason) fell in love with Guts, which ruined her whole personality, and Serpico received almost no backstory or anything interesting, just a completely unnecessary fight with Guts. For the others I have only one thing to say: Seriously? Nowadays every show has one of these completely cliché characters.

Fortunately, the side characters are better, though not perfect. Every one of them suffers from the same problem: We don’t know anything about them. Like, really nothing. There is sooo much unused potential in these characters and they are just stay that way. The Skull Knight is the only one who we now know a little about, but there are still so many mysteries about him. The other ones (especially the antagonists) are completely unknown and we meet them (except Slan and Zodd) only once. It may add to the whole ambience of the story, but it would be nice to know more about them. For example: Who is Void or any other member? What is the backstory of Zodd? What exactly are apostles? And most importantly: Are the apostles even the true evil of the story? Many questions to be answered.


ART

Well, what can I say that hasn’t been said before? Absolutely gorgeous, insane details, beautiful characters and monsters and probably the best art among the mangas. The early volumes may not convince the readers of today, but if you read other mangas released around the same time, you will see the enormous difference. And those are only the early volumes. At the end of the Golden Age arc and in the Conviction arc, it begins to evolve and slowly turns into the art that everyone praises so much. The only manga which has an art (and which I’ve read), that may come close to that of Berserk is Vagabond.


ATMOSPHERE

I daresay, that this is the part which scares away the most people, because you either love it or hate it. You either think that this is an absolutely astounding masterpiece or a burning piece of garbage. There is nothing in between. Since I myself believe this to be the first one, I will explain that: In my opinion, this is one of the strongest aspects in Berserk. The atmosphere is just soooooo fitting. The darkness, the world itself, the almost completely realistic violence (yes, the Middle Ages were extremely brutal) and the philosophical part just make this an almost perfect dark fantasy setting. Nowhere have I seen this amount of detail and creativity in this part of any manga, which once again proves, how excellent of a writer Kentaro Miura was. There are almost no “shonenesque” fights or situations, except when magic was first introduced. However, you can’t really count that as a negative aspect. Magic will always bring a bit of the shonen feeling to ANY manga. And to be honest, Miura managed to introduce it quite well, without the manga losing its seriousness and maturity.

Despite all the positive things I have said, I can understand why a couple of people don’t enjoy this. As many reviews have already mentioned, this manga is not for the faint of heart. Berserk contains an insane amount of violence and there is absolutely no censorship. You will even see children ripped apart, brutally tortured and murdered. Many people are not mature enough or just generally dislike this kind of violence.

Oh and the good old prejudice: "But isn't Berserk just a very brutal hentai?"
I can understand if somebody, who is completely unfamiliar with Berserk and hentais asks this, but let's be honest: Nobody reading this review fits that category. And so, you have no reason to spread this nonsense. But since an opinion without arguments is worthless, I will list the most important ones going AGAINST this "well structured and completely understandable" statement:

1. The first and most important point is, that more than 90% of the hentais have no story at all. Needless to say, Berserk does not fit in this description.
2. In almost every hentai, female characters are depicted in a completely unrealistic way (proportions, moaning while experiencing pain etc.). There is only one character in Berserk (Slan), to whom this description would apply to. But she is the impersonator of lust, so this doesn't really count.
3. Rape and other explicit themes are presented in a totally different manner. While it may seem like something normal or even arousing in a hentai, it is something tragic in Berserk. Remember when Farnese was introduced, along with her fetishes? I think your first reaction was not a "Oooh, what do we have here?", but rather a "Jesus, what the fuck is wrong with her?"
4. Sex is something romantic in Berserk and it has a meaning (although this is a point where Berserk does show a little bit of hentaiish traits). Therefore, it rarely happens and only with very few characters. Try to say that about hentais.
5. And finally, the actions of characters influence the story. While this is a point probably unnoticed by many, in hentais, the actions of people are often completely irrelevant. You killed somebody? Oh, don't worry, everybody will forget that in like 2 minutes. A girl has been violated against her will? No problem, she will be ready for another round soon! Now, do see my point?

This list is by far not everything, but I think it is enogh to convince most people. Though, if you are still against facts, let me ask you a question: Would you call series like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad a pornography? Because they have sex and nudity as well.

Now at this point, you might ask why I still give this manga a 10/10 even after all these critical points

There are two reasons for that:
1. Even with all its flaws, Berserk is still the best manga I’ve ever read. Other high rated mangas suffer from way greater issues, which are just not available in Berserk. And even the flaws it has only appear big because their positive counterparts are so masterful, they are mostly little imperfections if you look closely. I think you know what I mean, but I will explain it to those who don’t: For example, the characters. As I wrote further above, in my opinion, this is the worst part of Berserk. But this is just, because the “new” main characters just seem so debased compared to the older ones, even though they are not that bad (except for Isidro and Puck). However, it doesn’t matter, no new antagonist can be as good or Griffith and no new protagonist can even come close to the greatness of Guts or Casca. The same goes for the Fantasia arc in the story part: I said, it is the worst, but not that it’s bad. Same reasoning. If you only look at the arc itself, it's not that bad, however, if looking at the manga as a whole, you will see the enormous overall quality difference.

2. There is no such thing as perfection. Many people state that they only give 10s to “perfect” mangas or animes, but this is just bullshit. Perfection cannot and should not exist, and I will explain why:

Cannot:
Imagine you are an author and you want to write a story. You already have an idea in your mind, so you ask the opinion of two people. One likes your idea, the other doesn't. So you adjust the story to both of their likes. Suddenly, a third person comes, disliking the adjustment you've just made. And once again, you change it. And then a fourth, fifth, sixth person comes... and this goes on forever. An endless circle, that prevents stability and would never stop, if anyone tried to work in a way you just tried to. As long as we all have different preferences and opinions, perfection will never be created.

Should not:
Another exercise for your brain: Just think, what would happen, if somebody, by some unexplainable and unrealistic means, would have written a literally flawless manga. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, everybody loves it. What would happen to other mangas? Their fanbases would disappear, leaving them abandoned. No other manga would be sold. Every manga other than the perfect one wouldn't even be considered good. Only inferior to the perfect one. Nothing else could be enjoyed anymore. Is this really something we desire? To sacrifice everything in order to get one perfect manga? No, I think not

After mentioning all these things, you probably understand, why I still give out 10's and don't spare them for a time something flawless comes out. And as I've said, even with all its flaws, Berserk is still the best manga and one of the best literary work out there. Therefore, I grant you the highest honor, by rating this as a masterpiece with 10 stars.

Last but not least: The recommendation. I would absolutely recommend this manga, but you have to fulfill a couple of requirements:
1. You like EXTREMELY dark, complex and brutal stories
2. You are not easily disturbed and don't easily cry
3. You are at least 18 years old (I mean, there is nobody to check it, but it's for your own sake)
4. You are ready to venture into something completely new and unlike any other manga/anime
5. You are ready to give up enjoying many other mangas and other forms of literature (because I guarantee you, Berserk will raise your standards a lot)
6. And finally, you don't mind that you will never get an ending for this.