Flowers of Evil (惡の華) is a 2013 television anime series based on Shūzō Oshimi’s manga series of the same name. The series was adapted by studio Zexcs, and the staff credits include director Hiroshi Nagahama, series composition writer Aki Itami, character designer Shuichi Shimamura and music composer Hideyuki Fukasawa. The series first aired in Japan on April 2013.
Background:
“It takes only a second for evil to take root in the human heart, and for Takao Kasuga, the germination begins when his obsession with his beautiful classmate Nanako leads him to steal her used gym clothes. Unfortunately, this loathsome act of theft is witnessed by Nakamura, the strange girl who sits behind Takao in class, and she quickly blackmails him into fulfilling her own dark obsessions. As Nakamura’s twisted tendrils worm their way into Takao’s miserable psyche, their relationship blossoms, entwining him in a nightmarish existence as her virtual slave. But what is Nakamura’s final goal? And will even poor Nanako be ultimately drawn in? The harvest has only begun as Takao finds himself led down the garden path to damnation when the seeds of sin and a soiled gym suit give birth to the FLOWERS OF EVIL!”
Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, January 2024.
When I got into anime during the early 2010s, right before I started going to University was the boom of Attack on Titan which grabbed everybody’s attention. In the very same season that the series aired was Flowers of Evil, a mature story that was presented with a unique style that didn’t bold well with the anime community, in fact it was pretty much mocked by everybody and was mostly ignored.
This is because Flowers of Evil was animated using a rotoscoping technique which in simple terms is drawing over live-action footage. Not many anime uses this style as it would deviate a lot from the original character designs of the source materials, and looking around I don’t see any examples other than The Case of Hana and Alice which I felt worked really well. So it was because of the rotoscope and reception is why I never bothered to check out Flowers of Evil.
The author’s works as years go by, had started to grow more in popularity with the manga source material being picked up as well as Blood on the Tracks and Welcome Back, Alice for English translations. As I’ve gotten older my appreciation for unique art styles has grown as well with having seen Gekimation and stopmotion films made in Japan, so Flowers of Evil has always been on my mind to give it a shot. At the end of the day, you should always give a series a try even if its been poorly received because you never know you may end up liking it and I think that’s why some folks sticked to the anime adaptation.
Sentai Filmworks picked up the streaming and home video release for Flowers of Evil for the United States & Canada as well as owning the UK & Ireland rights. For the UK, it was sub-licensed to MVM Entertainment who at the time could only release titles on DVD due to the challenging market. Blu-rays were around but was considered a risk so subtitled only shows were kept strictly to DVDs. Eventually DVDs start to fizzle out for the distributor as Blu-rays slowly become the norm and that meant the license had expired.
Then Anime Limited out of the blue during their MCM London October 2023 panel announced they had rescued the UK & Ireland home video rights for Flowers of Evil with a new collector’s release and for the first time releasing the series on Blu-ray.
Collector’s Edition Contents:
Even though Flowers of Evil has been released before, with the growing popularity of the author’s works and the show’s reception as years go by, plus the fact that this UK release is the first time it’ll be released on Blu-ray in the region, a collector’s edition makes perfect sense.
This release is presented with a rigid box containing an Scanavo case to house the Blu-ray discs, and alongside the case are 6 Art Cards and a fold-out poster.
The artwork is free of any information or BBFC content and the info sheet covers the information and specification like previous Anime Limited releases. The limited edition Blu-ray has 1000 units printed for an SRP of £69.99, and is expected to receive a standard edition Blu-ray release later down the line.
The series was included as part of their 12 Days of Christmas 2023 Early Bird line-up so I ordered it alongside five others. The set was on offer for £39.99 with the Anime Unlimited membership lowering the cost down to £35.99.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid Box with Scanavo packaging and clean artwork
- Info sheet for specification and BBFC description
- 6 Art Cards
- Fold-out Poster
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 8th January 2024 (AllTheAnime), 22nd January 2024 (General retailers)
The collector’s edition release for Flowers of Evil contains all 13 episodes across two Blu-ray discs, with the encode & authoring done by Sentai Filmworks via their 2021 re-release. As no English dub was produced, the audio options available are Japanese with English subtitles only.
The yellow subtitles are locked during playback, and the regions are accessible to Blu-ray players set to A & B.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | Japanese |
| Audio | Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | A B |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | Yes |
| Discs | 2 (1 BD-50, 1 BD-25) |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
No extras are included on either discs.
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Flowers of Evil is available to purchase on Blu-ray by Anime Limited in the UK & Ireland. The collector’s edition Blu-ray release can be bought through different retailers including Amazon UK, AllTheAnime Store, and Anime-on-Line.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
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