A review by nolansmock
The Drifting Classroom: Perfect Edition, Vol. 2, Volume 2 by Kazuo Umezu (Umezz)

5.0

This is the kind of manga that ruins others for me. Not only is it still totally unhinged over half a decade later, the artwork is somehow contemporary and of its time simultaneously. I've thought a lot about Charles Burns 'Black Hole' while reading this and while it's far from the American suburbs of the '70s, there's a similar atmosphere and looming horror, yet somehow 'Drifting Classroom' makes even more modern work seem timid, like 'Lord of the Flies' on acid and speed. I mean, I can't even guess the body count at this point. And while its rolling circumstances follow a repetitive pattern, they continuously surprise and rarely stop for a moment to breathe, which is remarkable at about 1000 pages between the first two volumes. I wanted to pace myself reading but couldn't. There are times when I wonder what respite would look like in this story, a moment of zen, and a short diversion into baseball gives a sliver of a taste of it, but I also appreciate the rushed cadence of the story, because if I were one of these kids, I wouldn't want to stop trying to get out of that hellscape either.