Kasuga discovers that she is working on a novel and is brought to tears upon reading the manuscript because he can identify with the protagonist. Kasuga finds his classmate Aya Tokiwa looking at Les Fleurs du mal in a used bookstore and she starts lending him novels, rekindling his love of literature. The beach in Tokawa Town where Kasuga and Tokiwa speak with NakamuraĪ few years later, Kasuga is going to high school in Ōmiya-ku, Saitama and still can't forget Nakamura.
They curse their town and pour kerosene on themselves, but before they can use a lighter, Nakamura pushes Kasuga over the float and she gets tackled by her father. At the festival, they don disguises and climb to the top of a float while wielding a knife. The day before the festival, Nakamura breaks into Kasuga's house, attacking his father, and the two escape. The school doesn't involve the police and his parents decide to move over the vacation. Saeki later turns herself in to the police for setting the fire, prompting her best friend Ai Kinoshita to tell their school about Kasuga's crimes. When he chooses Nakamura over her, she rapes him but Kasuga resists, causing her to burn the hideout down. Saeki discovers the plan and lures Kasuga to the hideout, trying to seduce him and make him stay in their town. He steals the panties of all the girls in his class except Saeki's and uses them to decorate a makeshift hideout, winning Nakamura's approval.Īt the start of summer vacation, they create a plan to nail the panties to a piece of plywood to display at the upcoming festival. When she runs from him, Kasuga goes to her house and reads in her diary about her disappointment in not being able to reach "the other side". He writes a composition to convey his feelings to her. Unable to choose between them, he estranges both girls and the police collect them.Ī month later, Kasuga breaks up with Saeki and resolves to help Nakamura. Saeki catches up to the pair as they rest and tries to make Kasuga come back. When his mother finds out he was responsible for the vandalism, he runs from home and attempts to bike with Nakamura past the mountain adjacent to the town. He attempts to confess by vandalizing his classroom with Nakamura, but Saeki refuses to break up with him. At the same time, Kasuga grows closer to Saeki and manages to become her boyfriend.Īs Kasuga spends more time with both girls, he finds the guilt of his theft weighing down on him. However, a girl named Sawa Nakamura sees him and blackmails Kasuga into a "contract". One day after school, he impulsively steals the gym clothes of Nanako Saeki, the classmate he idolizes. The story starts in a small town in Gunma Prefecture and follows Takao Kasuga, a middle school bookworm whose favorite book is Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal.
The first part of the series is set in Kiryū, Gunma In North America, the manga has been licensed for English language release by Vertical and the anime series has been licensed by Sentai Filmworks. A live-action film adaptation was released in September 2019. The anime was animated using rotoscoping techniques, causing some controversy among fans of the manga. It was simulcast outside Japan by Crunchyroll. The title of the manga comes from Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal.Īn anime television series adaptation of the manga, produced by Zexcs, aired in Japan between April and June 2013. The story follows a middle school student named Takao Kasuga who's forced into a "contract" by fellow student Sawa Nakamura, after being caught stealing the gym clothes of his crush Nanako Saeki, and the series of events afterwards that follow these three characters. It was serialized in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine between September 2009 and May 2014. The Flowers of Evil ( Japanese: 惡の華, Hepburn: Aku no Hana) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Shūzō Oshimi.