Monday 3 June 2013

Flowers of Evil - Episode 9

With Saeki seemingly wise to everything that Kasuga has done up until now, it seems as if our protagonist's world is about to collapse in on him entirely.  Then again, perhaps what follows is even worse than that...

Rather than accept the invitation to break up with him, tell him she's disgusted by him or refuse to speak to him, Saeki instead does the exact opposite in refusing to split up with Kasuga in spite of the evidence as to his activities.  Although you might think that Kasuga himself might be thrilled by the prospect of this, you couldn't be much further from the truth - racked with guilt, he refuses to even come to school the next day, whereas Saeki decides to confront Nakamura to find out what she knows about everything that's been going on.


In fact, Nanako is rather dogged in her persistence when it comes to finding out what's going on in Kasuga's head, and after school that very same day she pays him a visit.  Kasuga refuses to see her, but that isn't going to stop Saeki saying her piece - indeed, once again Kasuga's actions have made things worse as Saeki resorts to shouting at his bedroom window that she doesn't care about him stealing her gym uniform and that she just wants to understand him.  Couple this with Kasuga's mother discovering his paint-stained clothes and there's no longer anywhere for our main man to hide - could this be the moment to skip town with Nakamura?

As per its weekly habit, Flowers of Evil remains as fascinating as ever as it delves into the darkest recesses of adolescent behaviour in an admittedly somewhat over-the-top yet still utterly believable way.  Even as an easily manipulated milquetoast protagonist it's hard not to watch Kasuga's behaviour with a mixture of amazement and despair, and watching Nakamura and Saeki orbiting around him is creating a great and hugely intriguing dynamic.  It seems pretty clear that this series simply isn't going to have the time to go everywhere that we might hope it to, so I hope it at least manages to find a good cut-off point by the time it reaches its finale.

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