{"id":36532,"date":"2014-12-12T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-12-12T14:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=36532"},"modified":"2014-12-12T08:46:55","modified_gmt":"2014-12-12T13:46:55","slug":"the-flowers-of-evil-vol-11-by-shuzo-oshimi-translated-by-paul-starr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-flowers-of-evil-vol-11-by-shuzo-oshimi-translated-by-paul-starr\/","title":{"rendered":"The Flowers of Evil (vol. 11) by Shuzo Oshimi, translated by Paul Starr"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/12\/Flowers-of-Evil-11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-36540\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2014\/12\/Flowers-of-Evil-11-571x800.jpg\" alt=\"Flowers of Evil 11\" width=\"571\" height=\"800\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/series-flowers-of-evil\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ten volumes of\u00a0<em>Flowers of Evil<\/em><\/a>\u00a0have already shocked, scared, titillated, challenged readers (in translation) over the last two years. The series comes to a close with this, the final volume &#8230; or does it? In creator Shuzo Oshimi&#8217;s &#8220;Afterword,&#8221; he warns, &#8220;Just as Kasuga says in the story, nothing ends.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The future is wide open for Takao Kasuga, as he and Aya Tokiwa look out\u00a0towards the\u00a0unbroken expanses of the\u00a0sea.\u00a0They&#8217;re not alone for long, as Sawa Nakamura walks down from her mother&#8217;s restaurant to join the pair. Before she appears, Tokiwa warns and encourages Kasuga: &#8220;no being half-assed &#8230; Make sure you won&#8217;t have any regrets.&#8221; Kasuga wants\u00a0answers to what happened the last day he and\u00a0Nakamura shared together \u2013 \u00a0crowds, fire, terror \u2013 but she can only offer what seems to be a careless &#8220;I forgot&#8221;; she&#8217;s more curious about Tokiwa than giving Kasuga the closure he seeks. But perhaps that&#8217;s not what he needed all along &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward \u2013 &#8220;Following Time&#8217;s Passage&#8221;\u00a0\u2013 with Kasuga in college, working at a dry cleaner&#8217;s, living in a single room\u00a0&#8230;\u00a0although he&#8217;s definitely, sweetly not alone. Time is suddenly fluid, dialogue becomes minimal, and suggestions of what the future might hold waft in and out, although what really happens isn&#8217;t particularly clear. On purpose.<\/p>\n<p>After 11 volumes, &#8220;&#8230;\u00a0the final page of this manga begins anew,&#8221; Oshimi concludes. The ultimate question \u2013 which Nakamura repeats in that last panel here \u2013 remains unanswered: &#8220;What&#8217;re you doing?&#8221; As if in teasing answer, the adult versions of the original middle-grade trio\u00a0\u2013 Kasuga, Nakamura, and Nanako Saeki\u00a0\u2013 are fleetingly glimpsed: do we see\u00a0wishful prophecy, or a more\u00a0ominous peek at the trap of normalcy that Nakamura had so denigrated as an enraged adolescent? Oshimi seems to\u00a0encourage uncertainty, literally offering a chance to tell the whole story all over again. When this final volume\u00a0closes, you&#8217;ll have to decide which version to believe &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Young Adult, Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2014 (United States)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ten volumes of\u00a0Flowers of Evil\u00a0have already shocked, scared, titillated, challenged readers (in translation) over the last two years. The series comes to a close with this, the final volume &#8230; or does it? In creator Shuzo Oshimi&#8217;s &#8220;Afterword,&#8221; he warns, &#8220;Just as Kasuga says in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36540,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,73,76,66,31],"tags":[6608,58,10,5720,13,248,42,249,250],"class_list":["post-36532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-fiction","category-graphic-novel-manga-manwha","category-japanese","category-translation","category-young-adult-readers","tag-bookdragon","tag-coming-of-age","tag-family","tag-flowers-of-evil","tag-love","tag-paul-starr","tag-series","tag-series-flowers-of-evil","tag-shuzo-oshimi"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Flowers of Evil (vol. 11) by Shuzo Oshimi, translated by Paul Starr - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-flowers-of-evil-vol-11-by-shuzo-oshimi-translated-by-paul-starr\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Flowers of Evil (vol. 11) by Shuzo Oshimi, translated by Paul Starr - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ten volumes of\u00a0Flowers of Evil\u00a0have already shocked, scared, titillated, challenged readers (in translation) over the last two years. 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