There's something profoundly regretful about the fact that neither adaptation of Aku no Hana was willing to fully adapt the story of Nanako Saeki.
Both the live-action film and the tv series adaptation preserved some of the story's most uncomfortable and shocking moments, but fail to adapted the scenes that give those moments meaning. These omissions are not as minor as they seem.
The meeting between Saeki and Kasuga at the shopping center in chapter 24, where she asks him if he's finally happy with Nakamura, is an important piece in her descent into hell, since she can't understand why he broke up with her to be with Nakamura if he's still not happy. This encounter only adds to her confusion, as well as her belief that she can somehow win him back, which, of course, brings us to the horrific scene in chapter 26, which is there in both adaptations for... reasons.
There is another little moment that got cut from all adaptations (call it a nitpick of mine). In chapter 25, after the argument between Saeki and Kinoshita, there is a panel of a dead cicada being eaten by ants. That image has a deep symbolic significance, and yet, it didn't merit being kept on the show.
The flying hat however... they seem to be very fond of it. An isolated panel of her hat flying in the wind while she bikes away as tears fall from her eyes. A seemingly meaningless detail... but they kept it.
Anyway, the deflowering on chapter 26 was completely expendable. If I had to cut anything from every adaptation it would be that one! I'm the only one who seemed traumatized by it, anyway. No one else in the story seems particularly concerned about it. Kasuga certainly isn't!
I will give the folks kudos for the metaphorical imagery. That was clever!
So once again, that scene was all adapted. Well, almost all of it... They left this out... for reasons unknown.
The folks responsible for both adaptations were willing to keep that scene in, but were not willing to follow through with it. So, that crucial conversation in chapter 29 disappears. What makes this especially frustrating, after deciding to adapt chapter 26...? Why open that door if you're not willing to cross it?
A curious thing about both adaptations is how they remove a particular question that wouldn't take more than two seconds to deliver. I know they seem trivial questions, but they need an answer, and Takao's unwillingness to engage with the subject at hand is very telling. Ultimately, Saeki is right about him going from one obsession to the next, never really caring about the people he claims to care about. His stubborn denial of reality and his selfishness will destroy him and everyone he comes in contact with.
Of all the parts they cut, chapter 29 is the biggest offense of all, because chapter 29 is the linchpin of their relationship, if not the entire narrative. It crystallizes the manga's central themes and offers Kasuga a path forward. More importantly, it reveals something essential about Saeki. She is not standing outside the story's suffering, untouched by the same anxieties and alienation that consume Kasuga and Nakamura. She's just as trapped. The difference is that she has already arrived at a painful realization: there is no magical "other side." There is no distant place where all confusion, shame, and loneliness vanish. There is nowhere to run that will free us from ourselves. That conversation completely transforms Saeki from her idealized image into a full human being. It's one of the most mature moments in the manga. Without it, the adaptations lose not only Saeki's character but a vital piece of what Aku no Hana ultimately stands for. That realization is not as nihilistic as Kasuga thinks it is. It is the first step upward out of the hell he got himself into.
This conversation is later referenced in chapter 42, when they meet for lunch, but of course both adaptations cut Takao's line, since chapter 29 was so unceremoniously dropped out.
These cuts are incomprehensible, but what's really annoying and frustrating is that all the scenes I mentioned above would have been adopted in that godforsaken anime... How's that for irony?
germansingergirl
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
areudirty
origamiaround
gracieabrams
vaporwave
kianamaiart
