Reviews tagging 'Blood'

River's Edge by Kyōko Okazaki

5 reviews

minimicropup's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Okay, so technically I didn’t like this because so many awful things happened. But I think it was well done. 

 

Energy: Visceral. Compulsive. Devastating. 

Scene: 🇯🇵 Set in Tokyo, Japan.

Perspective: Observing the day-to-day struggles of a cast of high school students.

 

🐩 Tail Wags: The startling, sad, but believable storylines. Illustration style. 

 

🤔 Random Thoughts:

Throws every bad thing that could happen to someone as a teen at the reader, but it didn’t feel gratuitous. It seemed plausible. 

Check content heads-up as a lot of it is graphic especially when you can watch it play out on the page. 

 

This was originally from the ‘90s and it feels that way. Some of it didn’t age well, but the topics and outcomes aren’t irrelevant for today. Footnotes provide context when popular media is referenced from that time. 

 

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🤓 Reader Role: Watching the scene unfold getting to understand the group dynamics and backstories.

🗺️ World-Building: Immersive, sensory, gritty. 

🔥 Fuel: Character de-evolution, parallel plots, and atmospheric tension. Who will survive, who will succumb, and will there be justice? 

📖 Cred: Hyper-realistic to plausible. 

 

Mood Reading Match-Up:

Stagnant water. Canadian goldenrod. Factory smoke. Steam whistle. School bell. Tears. Faint ocean breeze. Sewage. Ozone. 

• 1980s/’90s high school drama 
• Coming of age tragedies
• Harsh life struggles
• Dark foreboding atmosphere
• Teen psychological horrors

 

Content Heads-Up: Homophobia, homophobic slurs. Outing (by friends). Bullying (physical assault, humiliation, name-calling, threats). Toxic relationship. Adult/minor relationship. Fatphobia. Sexual content (consenting; graphic, on page; rough off page). Corpse (discovery, disposal). Eating disorder (bingeing, purging; on page). Violence (attack, strangling). Murder. Cheating on romantic partner. Pregnancy. Abortion (discussion of). Obsession, unrequited love. Animal cruelty (cat torture, death; on page). Fire (fatality). Suicide. Blood. Miscarriage. Rape (on page). Vomit. Body fluids (semen). Drug use.

 

Rep: Japanese. Gay. Lesbian. Heterosexual. Cisgender.

 

📚 Format: Advance Reader’s Copy from Kodansha Comics, Vertical Comics, and NetGalley. 

 

My musings 💖 powered by puppy snuggles 🐶

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Death, Eating disorder, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Fatphobia, Homophobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Vomit, Fire/Fire injury, and Outing

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Drug use, Miscarriage, Blood, Abortion, and Pregnancy

sandramarinis's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I enjoyed reading this book, but I don't think I would rate it higher as it felt like the storyline was a bit unclear from time to time.

Positives:
Even though it's a sad story about sad people I think the book brings forth good examples of toxic relationships and self sabotaging behaviour and mental illnesses in a way that gives people something to reflect on. The problems and issues of the characters in the book aren't solved, which makes you feel as hopeless as them, and I think that might be intentional. We get to see examples of a narcissistic romantic relationship and how the main character felt compelled to stay in a hopeless relationship due to fear or hope. We also saw how everyone were living lies and longing for more, yet finding comfort in old and bad habits that would prevent that change from happening. I think that part was well done.

Negatives:
In the beginning I struggled differentiating between the characters as I didn't see the difference between several of them. Eventually I did though. Some parts weren't as good as others. I also didn't like that it was unrealistic when it came to the whole

dead bodies-storyline

. I think the quality of the drawings varied a lot. Sometimes it was very good, and other times it looked unfinished. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Biphobia, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail

yellowbinge's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Publishing date: 

27.06.2024

Thank you to NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for the ARC. My opinions are my own. 

The book as a meal: I am eating out, but somehow my ex found me and disturbed my meal

The book left me: Feeling pretty horrible

Negatives: 

Trigger warnings galore, be warned

Positives: 

Very realistic portrayal of teenage/young adult troubles

Doesn't shy away from horrible things 

Interesting story

Features: 

Content warnings in the millions, interesting artstyle, dislikeable characters, themes of growing up, different situations for the same age group

Why did I choose this one? 

I have heard stunning things about this manga, so I thought I should dive into it. 

At the time I was in a mood for more comics as well. The cover is also very eye catching to me. 

Pick-up-able? Put-down-able?

Devourable. I finished this one one sitting. I had to see what would happen next and how they would handle their current situation. The way these characters keep getting into the most avoidable trouble is outstanding to me. 

What was the vibe and mood?

This had the vibe of watching a dramatic tv show. Everything went wrong, everyone got into trouble, tragedy after tragedy occurred. Almost like a car crash you can't look away from

Final ranking and star rating? 
S tier, 5 stars. This is a read I know will be living rent-free in my mind for a long time. A read I think a lot of people should try out. However, it has every trigger warning under the sun, so please check which it has before diving into it. Great story with a lot of drive. Fitting artstyle. A lot of personality. Very good read. Will recommend. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Drug use, Eating disorder, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, and Pregnancy

Minor: Homophobia and Vomit

hazelwood's review

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Very dark. (Kittens get murdered. People die.) I'm not sure what the point of it is. Something about desire. These kids are fucking each other up the whole time. Nothing really gets resolved either. It just didn't really speak to me, specifically. Interesting story, but kind of depressing. Heed the content warnings, lots of heavy topics.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Gore, Homophobia, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Suicide attempt

kaiyakaiyo's review

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

yeah this was incredibly fucked up in the name of “showing real issues” or some bullshit like that & im really wondering why manga is so obsessed with teenage girls suffering, specifically sexually 

lots of rape and sexual assault, near murder, a very badly handled teenage pregnancy storyline, and some sort of cobbled together point about self-esteem? so much of the violence was gratuitous; the author could’ve made these points without actually illustrating a rape scene, strangulation, etc…

weird as hell

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Bullying, Drug use, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Self harm, Sexism, Blood, Vomit, Stalking, Abortion, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy