"I believed you would tear down your walls and follow me beyond the hill."

A sense of normality

Hypocrisy results when one’s real self and the projected self conflict. What happens when a human is torn off its walls? Why do we hide away behind the walls we built ourselves and then act like that's how it's supposed to be? Like it's somehow natural? Like it's - right? 

The Flowers of Evil left me yearning for more. Follow a pretentious loner of a main character seeking his "muse" in life, as his only troubles aren't beyond the classic high school drama circles... until he meets the one person in this town to see his true colors in but a heartbeat of sexual confusion. The only person willing to tear these walls down.

Like a bittersweet poem, the story and characters stop fitting the predetermined roles posed at them, and instead start exploring the caverns of the human psyche - what it means to be you, what it means to fit into this stupid game of rules and regulations. If someone tore these walls down, would the shit flow in, or could the trapped self-image bloom into a disturbing, yet very human flower? Whatever happens, I want to see this flower bloom. The writer convinced me to do so.

Disturbance as an art form

There are four different parts to the nigh unbeatable distressing experience. First is the superb story and the beats to get there. Second is easily its animation. People being rotoscoped gives them real weight, real movements with enough jitter and imperfections to keep the tension on stranglehold, even through the slowest of walks and talks. 

The backgrounds are grounded in the reality of the rotting small town, with muted colors instead of the often romanticized cherry blossom HDR color festival is a very welcome and needed change of scenery. The air feels heavy through the screen and helps uphold the built-up anxiety and dread of what's to come.

The initial response from the general weeb public to the animation was not much of a surprise, with people dropping out on the first episode because of it. Not to sound like that pretentious main character, but it is one of the most humorous pieces of irony I've witnessed, fitting the themes as well as it does.

Grounded in dread

The third part wrapping this beautiful car crash together. Like the animation, the soundscapes work in favor of keeping the grounded and heavy atmosphere together. All this work culminates in the final scene of every episode, with the ending theme locking the characters and viewers alike into the carousel of misery.

Storyteller of smoke and mirrors

There's a theme in the anime community to somehow both under- and overestimate teenagers at the same time. Especially with puberty, people struggle the most with seemingly insignificant problems and toil with the expression of this very real frustration, usually coming off as annoying at first glance.

Not only through the animation or expressive language, the characters simply feel oddly real. Real people with their histories and demons to face. It's often not about what they struggle with, but instead their understanding and reaction. Seemingly one-note characters show their many hidden colors, the main cast especially coming to terms with who they are and how that differs from who they want to be.

Rollercoaster in anxiety

I had to take multiple pauses to watch the mere 13 episodes over. I was promised a psychological anime with heavy themes grounded in reality, and I was not disappointed. Flowers of Evil is an emotional rollercoaster, and I cannot wait to read the manga through to catch the little details of the characters.