Review for Gakuen Densetsu ~ Hasami Onna
A spooky anthology filled with horror, be prepared to get scared~
I was actually planning on reading this for Halloween but it totally slipped my mind. Since I am still not able to a lot because of my knee I decided now was the right time. Plus, I was in the mood for some manga or comic.
This book contains 4 stories and I have written a small review for each of them.
Story 1: Miss L Next Door: There is a rumour going around about Miss L, a teenage girl who committed suicide and whose father stuffed her (yes, really, wtf dad) and who is now even less happy with her appearance. She is hunting for pretty girls. Switch to the now in which we meet Tsukasa and her friend Koyoi. We see girls get hurt, is it Miss L or someone else? I quickly had a suspicion about what was going on with the girls, however I definitely didn’t see the twist coming at the end that was just WOW. The last panel was also great and I loved that it ended with that. Good story, interesting characters, and plenty of creepiness.
Story 2: Darkness Chii-chan: WOW, this one was dark and spooky. A guy talks about a girl he used to play with named Chii-chan. She was a dark and scary girl, but our MC finds out it gets even darker when Chii-chan comes back. I loved this one so so much, it was all the way creepy, especially when we found out more about Chii-chan (though I would have liked to learn some more about her, why is so filled with grudges?) and more about who now lives in our MC’s old house. That ending, oh nope nope nope nope. Great story this was. Definitely will have me looking in dark corners.
Story 3: F.R.I.E.N.D: WOW, Shiori maybe you should just have made normal friends… or um checked what the hell you put in your aquarium because this got very dark. Meet Shiori an insecure girl who just wants friends and befriends something creepy in her aquarium… little does she know the consequences though I could see them from afar and I was just screaming at her to get rid of whatever was in the aquarium. It got more and more creepy with each page and that ending, wow this mangaka knows how to end their stories in the best ways. Making you feel safe at first and then BOOM.
Story 4: Scissors woman: Oh boy, this one was just twisty in all sorts of ways. I kept thinking x was happening, but then the truth would come out, and then another thing would happen. This was well written though given all we learn about the characters.. I wasn’t such a fan of them. It started with girl one, then girl two, and lastly girl three. The ending, well I guess sleep tonight won’t happen. Maybe I still can reset my mind, I got 10-11 hours to make my mind fluffy and happy again. 😛
All in all, this was a great anthology with fantastic and horrific stories that definitely should be read, as I did, during the day. Still no guarantee anyone will sleep when they do, but hey, at least you didn’t read it during the night. The art was pretty good, I liked the style and how the characters were drawn. The creepiness came out really well.