[Manga Musings on Mondays] Chi no Wadachi – Review

Created by: Shuuzou Oshimi

Chapters: 75 (Ongoing)

 

Greetings and welcome to another Monday week and as usual, it brings with it another manga review! This time, I look at a manga which has been getting a lot of buzz around lately (yes yes, it was the Super Eyepatch Wolf video which made me interested in this in the first place) and for good reason. Chi no Wadachi or Trail of Blood is the latest work by the mangaka of Flowers of Evil so you can expect a lot of messed up psychological elements and the thrilling setup aims to provide just that, but does the overall execution deliver on the promise? Let’s find out!

 

THE PREMISE:

An overly caring mother goes to great lengths to protect his son’s happiness and to make sure that he never comes in harm’s way.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT:
Parenting is hard. Or I believe that it must be so. Not that I have any personal experience in nurturing my children because well, for that I might need to have my children.

Nurture vs. Nature has been a hot topic of debate in psychology for forever but even after years of extensive research, observations and tests (even the unethical kind) we haven’t been able to concretely say which aspect plays a more significant role in shaping the development of a child as an individual. Most adults who live with trauma of some kind can date the root cause back to having abusive or uncaring parents while some others may endure far harsher circumstances and still grow up to be just fine. On the contrary, a child showered with love and affection may still grow up to be an inherently ‘bad’ person.

Although many storytellers in fiction have made entire careers revolving around dysfunctional family relationships, these themes have not been explored as much when it comes to the medium of anime and manga.

Enter Chi no Wadachi.

This is the kind of story where right from the get-go you can tell that something’s wrong. Most of the focus is on the central relationship between Seiko and her son Seiichi but the way these two interact with each other just seems very unnatural. Intentionally so. As if they have been hard-wired to talk like that. Like putting up a face on the outside to prevent everyone from looking at the darkness within. This sense of dread permeates the narrative in the first few chapters keeping the reader on edge until the pivotal moment at the end of the first volume, when – colloquially speaking – shit hits the fan.

Everything from that point on becomes a nerve-wracking game of lies, deceit, gaslighting and general messed-uppedness as new twists and turns are thrown in with every subsequent chapter, always  keeping the reader coming back for more.

And of course, no discussion of this manga can ever truly be complete without talking about the characters. The central trio of Seiko, Seiichi and Fukushi (introduced later on) are by no means the most realistic portrayals of people put to page but the last thing they are is one-dimensional. While each being emotionally and psychologically messed up due to one reason or the other, none of them conforms to any set behavioral patterns. They won’t always do what you think they will or even necessarily do what’s right, which does make relating to them a lot harder but it also provides the perfect setup for some damn fun entertainment, so long as you are able to resist wanting to punch them in face at times.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T READ IT:

Apart from the main trio, the personalities of the other side characters in the story are a mess. They are either over-the-top (people make fun of Seiko for saving her son from falling off a cliff(?!)) or simply oblivious to anything that’s going on around them (Seiichi’s father). The inconsistent writing can put off some people but it is by no means a deal breaker. What is more worrisome is the direction which the story seems to have taken in the recent chapters. It feels that the mangaka has run out of ideas and the narrative has become fairly straightforward to the extent that I fear that it all may end on a rather anticlimactic note. Though, I really hope that it isn’t the case and even though Oshimi-sensei has backed himself into a corner, he is able to come to come out swinging.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

While by no means suited to everyone’s tastes, fans of psychological thrillers and pulpy heart-racing narratives will be right at home if they decide to give Chi no Wadachi a chance. It’s very easy to binge (I read all of 75 chapters in less than 2 hours) and while I am still nervous as to whether it will be able to stick its landing, it has been a pretty wild ride up until now and one that I definitely recommend for genre fans.

 

RATING: 8.3/10

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With that, we conclude this week’s coverage. Next week, I will be reviewing the manga chosen through the votes of last week’s poll, Reiko Momochi’s Confidential Confessions. To have your favorite manga get reviewed the week after, be sure to vote in this week’s poll here!

And feel free to leave the titles of any manga you think needs more attention down in the comments below and I will be sure to include it in later polls.

As always, thank you for reading and see ya next Monday! ^^