Sexual anxiety and big tit copypasta

"Flowers of Evil" burned a permanent spot in my brain

If you’re reading this I assume you’re familiar with “Flowers of Evil” by Shuzo Oshimi. I assume this because the manga is widely popular, and also I have the sneaking suspicion that anyone reading this is an immortal being who has perused every published work in human existence before eventually wandering into this blog.

If it’s been awhile since you read Flowers of Evil, lemme try to (spoiler-free) summarize:

Protag-kun considers himself a chad intellectual, since he Reads Books. This makes him better than the normies of his small town. One day he impulsively steals the gym clothes of his crush (he might be a genius who read Baudelaire, but he still has a libido). The Weird Girl of the class witnesses his crime. She uses this to be a bully, and since protag-kun is a dumb kid he goes along with it. Then shit keeps escalating (dude trust me).

The anime and the manga give me two very different experiences. I would never go as far to say the anime is so good you should skip the manga (since the manga is a Shuzo Oshimi manga, and that dude fucks). But the anime left a very different impression than the manga.

The anime intensifies the tension and evokes a sense of dread through its deliberate pacing and unsettling rotoscoping. Just look at the difference in character design:

Rotoscope girl is unnerving to look at, the other is some manga chick.

And yeah, maybe I’m missing the point preferring the rotoscoped look over the doughy manga designs (much of Oshimi’s work is Kids React To: Horrendous Shit). I am also not saying the Flowers of Evil manga has bad art. But I wouldn’t classify it as great. Shuzo Oshimi has improved his craft over time - “Blood on the Tracks” I classify as “great” without any hesitation.

Flowers of Evil ran from 2009-2014. Anything I could say negatively about it is a non-issue in Oshimi’s more recent work, and man, I don’t want to dwell on the negatives for an author I love. Flowers of Evil just looks like a manga, and where it shines is in its psychological exploration of the characters.

And I’m fine with manga looking like a manga. I am! I swear! That’s why I read it so damn much! However, the art style of the anime complements the plot more effectively.

I wish more anime adaptations would explore what works best for the medium rather than aiming for a 1:1 adaptation. In the good timeline, there’s more reviews on MyAnimeList profusely sobbing because they’re not getting a perfect adaptation of the original. 

I’ll always love you, 3D Legoshi

Anyway here’s my point. 

When I think about Flowers of Evil (manga) vs. Flowers of Evil (anime) I get two very different feelings. And they’ve been exaggerated over time the more I think about them, so bear with me, as these are not accurate representations of either. I am sure if I rewatched/reread both, my feelings would change.

The manga feels like it’s looking back on teenage years. This is partially from its more standard art style, which sits in stark contrast with the uncanny-valley of the anime. Both art styles add a lair of unreality, but drawing in a standard anime style is more pleasant than aggressive rotoscoping.

There’s definitely moments of extreme horror and dread, especially as the story continues. But shit like this is hilarious:

This scene was cut from the anime for being Too Silly

Now let’s consider the tone of the anime. The anime feels more like you’re experiencing your teenage years as they’re happening. The persistent sense of anxiety and dread pervades, and I can't locate the release for this pressure. There's no comforting nudge to dispel the anxiety and assure that everything will be okay. It's an unrelenting and uninterrupted pressure. And it never stops.

As an adult I can look back and think “God, I was stupid as a kid.” However, I didn’t have the luxury of hindsight when I was a kid. I didn’t know I would make it through okay and live to be an adult.

So when I write about adolescence I generally think in those terms. Am I trying to tell a story where the characters are  experiencing it in the moment (anime  Flowers of Evil) or one where I’m comfortably reminiscing, having survived my youth (manga Flowers of Evil).

It’s a pretty common thought/writing experiment - How would X story work in Y genre? What if Y character was the protagonist of Z series? What if Z series was drawn in X style?

With Flowers of Evil, the adaptation is just different enough that it feels like the result of one of these hypothetical thought experiments. They are both suspense stories, with the caveat that the anime does not have anything resembling breathing room for the viewer.

Manga vs Anime scene comparison

Since I didn’t have a typical high school life, and I didn’t feel any inclination towards creative writing until I became an adult, most of my OC’s are adults. Writing about a character in a typical high school setting means I need to either 1.) exercise a good deal of empathy, or, 2.)  I’m building on tropes of a saccharine Anime High School that does not exist in reality.

Ideally: I would be able to easily write about high school life. I would be unconcerned that it’s personally unrelatable, and not be so bogged down by my past experiences. I’m always chasing that mythological dragon of making a Mainstream Manga of Polite Sensibilities. But I know the bigger hurdle to my making a mainstream manga is how rough my art is, not whether or not the characters are the “correct” age to be manga protagonists.

I define adolescence as a time where you are lacking all personal autonomy. And it sucks and it hurts. And when you’re an adult you can laugh it off because you survived it.

And that brings me to my own manga I want to talk about today.

“My big-boobed classmate is distracting” is my attempt at making a story that feels like the manga version of Flowers of Evil, except I’m taking the little comedy moments and ramping them up to 11.

Here’s a preview:

Paid supporters can read the whole manga on the Tapir Terrace.

The seed of the idea started with me wanting to make a manga adaptation of this copypasta:

i got this new anime plot. basically there’s this high school girl except she’s got huge boobs. i mean some serious honkers. a real set of badonkers. packin some dobonhonkeros. massive dohoonkabhankoloos. big ol’ tonhongerekoogers. what happens next?! transfer student shows up with even bigger bonkhonagahoogs. humongous hungolomghononoloughongous

I thought, man. Wouldn’t it be funny if that’s literally the plot of a manga - obsession about breasts, but the breasts are always deliberately hidden due to strategic camera angles. It would be the ultimate

“I’m not touching you!!!!”

I did submit this for editor review (due to its ecchi elements I didn’t bother as many people as usual), and- sorry for sounding like a crybaby- but I think this was my most misunderstood manga. Which is my fault. I’m not at the skill level to convey what I had in mind. The overall sentiment of “I’m going to fuck with the audience because it’s funny” is really tricky to pull off. The best case scenario is something like a classic Twilight Zone episode. However, I know I am not Rod Serling, so this story mostly left its few readers frustrated and confused. 

When I showed it to one of my friends, their reaction was mostly “Why in the fuck aren’t you showing the tits?!”

The feedback from Weekly Shonen Magazine said it more tactfully (translated from Japanese): 

The story focuses on the breasts, but in the beginning, the breasts were drawn in such a way as to hide it. I didn't understand the intention. Since this is a story about breasts, please don’t hold back, and embrace this! Draw lots of pictures of breasts to appeal to the readers!

He was so kind and encouraging. I felt no desire to clarify my intentions. If that’s the impression he got, that I’m being held back by my own anxieties, then I need to rethink my approach.

Fortunately, there is no confusion or ambiguity when people read PolyMonFur. I have learned from my mistakes.

Could a sexually repressed person draw THIS?

Miscellaneous thoughts about “My big-boobed classmate is distracting” (Warning for spoilers) :

• This has one of my favorite villain motivations for an OC.

• If anyone upgrades to paid over this oneshot, I’ll take that as a resounding vote for “Please draw more big boob manga. I am voting with my wallet to actively guide you towards this path.”

• I drew this a little after the Angel Girlfriend manga, so it’s also about a year old.

• My favorite editor feedback on this work came from Monthly Action (again, translated from Japanese):

  It was interesting to see a man's boobs suddenly appear and become extremely large. However, that is all. What the average reader is looking for is "attractive characters" rather than “novel settings.” It is even fair to say that the story and setting are only a means to make the characters attractive. It might be a good idea to review and reconstruct the purpose of expression itself.

• The original title I submitted this under was “俺は超乳化しました” or, “I became chounyuu”. I changed it because “My big boobed classmate is distracting” sounded catchier. Personal pronouns aren’t gendered in English so the gender transformation element is lost, so I wanted to brainstorm something new.

• There’s a lotta peeps into transformation stuff reading this newsletter. So I’ll clarify: yes this manga has a male-to-female transformation sequence. Unlike the girl’s breasts, this is seen very clearly when it happens. You can find anime boobs everywhere, but TF sequences happening organically in a manga are rare. I felt it was my moral obligation to fully render this transformation scene.

• You do eventually see the girl’s breasts at the very end, so this story isn’t a total cocktease

Thank you for reading!

Read my manga on the Tapir Terrace.

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