Feb 27, 2025
Wanted to wait til the manga was over to give it a final review but I think it deserves a recommendation now, because it is currently one of the best ongoing manga full stop.
Aono-kun starts as a mix between horror and romantic comedy, in a pretty lowkey way. From the beginning, I was really impressed at the mangaka's mastery of tonal shift--one moment it's a very funny story about awkward teenage sexuality, the other it is sending chills down your spine, the next it is warming your heart--and all of it feels natural and well balanced.
The reality is, "I want to hold Aono-kun so
...
badly I could die" is a tragedy. It is phenomenally constructed. You get strongly attached to Yuri and Aono as characters, and then you grow to understand that what brought them together wasn't chance but long turning cycles of family abuse and violence. The hauntings in Aono-kun are horrific and terrifying, but they grow only more horrific as you realize that they're really the reflection of past and present cycles of abuse that are kept quiet and normalized by the entire community. So then you keep hoping Aono and Yuri will break the cycle somehow. That knowing what they do, loving each other as strongly and as naturally as they do (and can I say--they are such realistic and human depictions of genuine teenage love between two broken people), it will end up well. But you know it won't. It never could, really. After all, the premise of the manga itself posits that Aono is dead and Yuri is alive. This story was doomed from the start. It just was doomed for more reasons than mortality.
There are a few flaws in the story. The haunting mechanics being explained by powerpoint chapters are a bit of a snooze. The art is simplistic. But the art also does its job, and the author's use of paneling, expression work and shadows is exquisite. I still give it a ten because I genuinely believe this to be one of the best horror mangas ever made, if not one of the finest works of horror of the 21st century. It is horror not just because of the genuinely terrifying moments, but because of the emotions of despair and agony it invokes in you. Its tragedy is that much better because it isn't built on one horrible thing happening after another, but a slow building realization that this was never going to end any other way.
I want to recommend Aono-kun to absolutely everyone, and I also am very aware that it is not for the faint of heart despite the cute first few chapters. I think it needs to be experienced at least once, and preferably reread with the context of previous chapters. I cannot recommend this enough.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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