Trigger warnings: gore, violence, coercion
This is a very dark manga, you have been warned!
MAJOR SPOILERS
Looking for more information?
Who wrote this manga?
- Roka Kouen, and Yoshino Tsukasa
This manga was recommended by the creator of Chainsaw Man, Fujimoto!
Who is the publisher?
- Ichijinsha
- Howl Comics
How many volumes are there?
- There is just one volume out so far!
- Volume 2 comes out August 16th!
- There is no English release as of right now.
Where can I read this manga?
You can check out volume 1 here!
What is the genre?
- Supernatural horror, mystery, BL
What happens in volume 1?
When he was a child, our main character, Tomoaki, had a strange relationship with a younger boy named Hajime. Hajime was an incredibly strange and violent boy, sometimes trying to cause controversies just to injure others, and oftentimes physically assaulting the women around him.
Why did Tomoaki stay in this strange relationship with Hajime? Tomoaki can’t quite say. As they grew up though, they grew apart, and both moved on with their lives…
But Tomoaki has recently been having dreams of young Hajime beating up women in front of him, and he can’t seem to recall if any of them actually recovered or not.
While you may think Tomoaki sees these dreams as nightmares, you would be wrong. He is actually jealous of these women, and though he may not admit it, his subconscious does in the form of dream-Hajime.
A Reunion
After not seeing each other for a number of years, the two reunite as adults. With Hajime being as beautiful as ever, he is incredibly popular with the students at his university. Tomoaki, being a little bit older, is no longer a student, but is now a counselor at the same university.
As the two begin talking for the first time in years, there is a strange air between them – is it due to Hajime’s almost strangely piercing gaze? Is it because Tomoaki had a strange dream about Hajime that very morning? The reason isn’t made quite clear.
Tomoaki lets Hajime know about his job on campus, and Hajime promises to come hang out later.
A Very Bad Counselor
We then cut to Tomoaki’s job, and we quickly learn that he’s pretty bad at it. All of his patients are women, and most of them just want to chat with him about boy drama. As his job is to counsel them, he typically just lets everyone vent to him.
There is one patient though, Rinko, who insists she is going through an incredibly difficult time in her home life. She is often in an angry panic as she insists that no one will listen to her, let alone believe her.
Tomoaki then shares a piece of knowledge shared with him from his mentor: the quickest and most efficient way to calm down a woman who is threatening suicide is to sleep with her. We then cut to Rinko’s apartment, where she has indeed calmed down, for now.
We soon learn that Rinko has a husband and a child, and just generally thinks that everyone is out to get her. Tomoaki has slept himself into a corner, as it’s revealed that he’s been using the “sleep with her as a form of counseling” method for quite a while now. After sleeping together, she soon goes back into ranting about seemingly very minor things in her life. While these things seem minor, it’s unknown if they will send her back into a suicidal spiral.
While she’s ranting, Tomoaki falls back asleep and dreams of Hajime beating her up. This time though, Tomoaki stops dream-Hajime, to which dream-Hajime asks “what are you pretending for? Even though you actually want me to do it to you…”
Tomoaki’s method of placation lasted a comically short amount of time as seemingly the very next day, Rinko comes to his office with a knife. At first she threatens to kill herself, stating that “if I kill myself, then people will finally believe that I’m troubled”. But she quickly changes her mind, and announces that killing Tomoaki would be better proof that she’s troubled, and attacks him.
Luckily though, Hajime came to visit at this very moment and saved Tomoaki.
Hajime lends an ear
Hajime, clearly having better de-escalation skills than the literal counselor Tomoaki, asks Rinko to please share all of her worries with him.
Rinko then shares her story: her next-door neighbour, who was a terrible neighbour for a long time, has died. They died, and are now haunting her. The most unforgivable thing this ghost has done, she goes on, is that it pushed her young child down the stairs.
Hajime, sympathizing with her, promises to discover “the truth” of these ongoings, and has her sign a contract with him in her own blood.
Finding out the Truth
Not too long after, after Rinko has calmed down and left, the two men chat for a while. Hajime then decides that he’s “hungry”, and tells Tomoaki that he’s going to go get “food”. Tomoaki follows along, and questions Hajime when they end up at not a restaurant, but Rinko’s apartment. Hajime questions Tomoaki right back, wondering how he knows this is Rinko’s apartment.
Hajime tells Tomoaki that he’s welcome to come in with him, but to not interrupt his meal.
They let Rinko know that they’ve arrived to find out the truth of what has happened next door, and get the neighbour’s key from the landlord.
This is when the tone of the manga changes drastically: upon opening the door to the next-door neighbours apartment, we’re greeted by a horrific-looking ghost.
The ghost wastes no time killing the landlord, and Hajime in return wastes no time attacking the ghost.
Rinko runs back to hide in her apartment as everything goes down…when it’s very quickly revealed that there’s actually no ghost, and she was either imagining everything, or deliberately making everything up.
Her husband and child? Nonexistant.
Her next-door-neighbour? No one has lived in that apartment for years.
The people who have been harassing her? She was creating the harassing notes herself.
Hajime questions how Tomoaki wasn’t able to figure any of this out the whole time he was “counseling” her, and then he goes in to have his meal.
What does he eat, you may wonder? The souls of women, it turns out.
Tomoaki does nothing as he watches Hajime suck the soul out of Rinko’s body. He actually gets excited, but can’t admit it – neither to himself, not to Hajime.
After she dies, and he calms down a little bit, then Tomoaki puts on a show of asking Hajime what he’s done. Hajime sees right through this act though, and in a direct reflection of Tomoaki’s dreams, Hajime tells Tomoaki that he knows he also wants to be eaten.
Confused, Tomoaki tries asking Hajime exactly what just happened, and at first Hajime just casually tells him he had a meal.
Hajime then explains a little bit more: at first, he thought that if he was visually appealing, tasty things would come to him. He quickly learnt that wasn’t enough though, and in the years the two didn’t meet, Hajime spent his time learning how to behave like an appealing person. Implying that he himself isn’t human…
Tomoaki, clearly scared, asks Hajime that if he isn’t human then what is he? And while Hajime does give an answer, it was an incomprehensible one.
Hajime then goes on to tell Tomoaki that he knows Tomoaki wants to be eaten by him, but that he isn’t into men.
Hajime then tries to strike a deal: if Tomoaki can introduce him to some more delicious-looking women, he’ll do him the favour of eating him.
While Tomoaki turns down this proposal, Hajime comes to his office the very next day, deeming himself his assistant.
Maddie’s Ratings
The characters
All of the characters, besides Hajime obviously, felt so incredibly realistic. I loved how flawed everyone was, and it’s very clear that they’re all really struggling with their own demons.
I really loved how Tomoaki was depicted as someone struggling with their own sexuality. While he opted to sleep with Rinko, it’s pretty clear that he really doesn’t care for women on a basic human level.
I think Rinko’s character was also incredibly unique, and I do wish we could have gotten a little more of a backstory for her (I’m not complaining that there wasn’t enough content with her, i’m just hungry for more).
This mangaka is very good at writing realistic, human horror, and I think this is their first time adding such supernatural tones (though I could be wrong here).
Scariness
The scene when the two boys went to Rinko’s apartment and everything went down had this volume an instant 10/10 for me. The parallels were phenomenal, and there was just so much that was finally revealed…
There were constant uneasy vibes surrounding Hajime, but there really isn’t anything actually revealed about his character until the very end, leaving you guessing for the majority of the manga.
Storytelling
I absolutely love the way this mangaka handles telling mysteries. When Hajime did tell Tomoaki what he was, but the words came out all jumbled together…actual chills.
This is probably the most uniquely told horror manga in my collection, and i’m so very happy to have it.
Maddies Manga 
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