Comments on this one is crazy. Its like the Drug brigade is here to champion the cause of illegal substances in a society where they don’t even speak out about how casually women are assaulted there…

All that to say, you should probably take anything in a Japanese manga anthology about crime with a pillar of salt, because they’re not exactly as forthcoming about their own criminal behaviors as the west. It’s genuinely not that deep bro.

Re: the actual manga — 5/10. I see what the author was trying to do there, but I think the characters definitely needed more build up. The purpose of the manga was about their lives and the situation quickly spiraling out of control, and the drugs were just a symbol of that. All of it would have hit a lot harder if we actually cared about the characters before it happened. The ending was sad tho.

It's just a oneshot guys.

Author just wanted to say "drugs bad" and the oneshot format makes it lack in depth and character building, but it's inherent to most oneshots. It does what it wanted to do and while not groundbreaking, it does an okay job.

This happened to my buddy Eric

Also I'm confused why this has the suicide tag? Did she kill herself by eating the cherry blossom petals?

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 3:40AM

Also I'm confused why this has the suicide tag? Did she kill herself by eating the cherry blossom petals?

Heavily implied, yup...

Comments on this one is crazy. Its like the Drug brigade is here to champion the cause of illegal substances in a society where they don’t even speak out about how casually women are assaulted there…

The "drug brigade" -- as opposed to the anti-drug brigade that have also been crawling over the comments?

Personally I barely even touch alcohol, let alone any currently illegal drugs, but I can recognize a stupid and corrupt drug war when I see one.

Regarding the drug at the center of this one-shot, I'd say it's pretty clear it was not intended to be a drug, as in the stand-in for any one drug, as much as the drug, the ur-drug that is thematically tied to spiralling, self-destruction, addiction, despair and so on and so forth.

As people have pointed out, the drug is not the focus of the story as much as the two protagonists are-- their lives, the hardships they face.

The good drug-conscious folks of the forum need not be disappointed, the author wasn't really making any grand statement about drugs.

Now, the issue is it's hard to see if the author was trying to make any point. The drug was not the point nor, I think, is the drug the crime implied by the anthology theme. The crime is most probably the murder (duh).

Thirty pages are indeed too few to go over, in any serious depth, such themes as suicidal urges and ideation, codependency, murder-suicide; the sex feels off, as has been pointed out (kudos to the author on that!), but it also feels somewhat out-of-place (not to the point of making this "just porn", still); it's hard for a piece like this to outrun the misery porn allegations.

Those who see a representation of BPD in this are probably right. Problem is, it's BPD rep in a pretty middle-of-the-road work.

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 5:21AM

Comments on this one is crazy. Its like the Drug brigade is here to champion the cause of illegal substances in a society where they don’t even speak out about how casually women are assaulted there…

The "drug brigade" -- as opposed to the anti-drug brigade that have also been crawling over the comments?

Personally I barely even touch alcohol, let alone any currently illegal drugs, but I can recognize a stupid and corrupt drug war when I see one.

“Stupid and corrupt drug war” do you hear what you’re saying about a yuri manga in a crime anthology? This isn’t Ronald Reagan lol.

They portray drugs negatively. That’s it. The police come to the door and she’s paranoid. For a Japanese person, that’s a reasonable fear considering how much their society values “fitting within the lines” to excessive degrees. Even outside of Japan, there are plenty of people fine with doing a crime until an authority appears and they’re regretful. News flash: drugs CAN be harmful. People can OD. People can lose their minds. People can do crazy things off a pill. People can do nice things off a pill. People can have a good time. People can be perfectly fine. A society that doesn’t have nearly as common casual exposure to these situations will portray what they hear about versus what they know, in media about this stuff.

You can dislike how this manga talked about drugs all you want which is like, alright, odd culture war to fight but be my guest. I’m sure author-san is lurking to take your detailed feedback on their simplistic portrayal of ambiguous pills in their manga about a character losing control and killing the love of her life by mistake. But the level of offense in these comments are unwarranted and ridiculous. Why is everyone getting so offended?

If anything, I thought the detail about the main character noticing the drugs didn’t feel like anything special but she felt more depressed afterwards was a neat touch. Didn’t expect a detail like that in a manga at all. And the touch about the drug affecting them differently was cool too. I felt that was an accurate experience.

Edit: I’m thinking about the other comments which call out the undiagnosed/mentioned mental illnesses the characters could have. If that’s the case, their excessive and unregulated mystery drug use accelerating the spiral is pretty cool and accurate to real life as far as my experiences. It’s not every time it could happen, but all it takes is one bad trip messing with your head to lead to an outcome like the ending without realizing. The drugs are an interesting vehicle to the story if this is intentional.

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 4:36AM

the drugs understander has logged on

the drugs understander has logged on

Hi, former crackhead here,

Also I'm confused why this has the suicide tag? Did she kill herself by eating the cherry blossom petals?

Heavily implied, yup...

That seems like an ineffective way to do it

Drugs R 4 losers

Also I'm confused why this has the suicide tag? Did she kill herself by eating the cherry blossom petals?

Heavily implied, yup...

That seems like an ineffective way to do it

Indeed! But it is dramatic, which is why it went that way.

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 7:00AM

“Stupid and corrupt drug war” do you hear what you’re saying about a yuri manga in a crime anthology? This isn’t Ronald Reagan lol.

I don't think I've even said anything about drug portrayal in this manga. I was responding more to comments here like "pinnacle of evil" and "drug brigade".

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 7:17AM

People kept hyperfocusing on the specifics of the drug being used when that wasn't the point, though. A lot of people just are kinda tired of the equal moral policing done by the "oh the author didn't research drugs therefore bad propaganda!!", which is tiring and comes off as batting in favor of drugs rather than actually engaging with the work's contents in good faith. Adachi the narrator probably doesn't even know what the drug is called and didn't seem interested in knowing more, so how would you convey that information in the story itself?

I don't like the story, but that's entirely due to personal reasons - me being a sentimental weenie that managed to connect with the characters way more than most people apparently had. Honestly, I don't think I can read an ongoing series or even a single-volume manga of this like some suggested, it'd just be a bit too much.

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 7:45AM

Yea like a lot of other people have said, this really is not a story made to be some 1-D anti drug PSA. The drugs are a vehicle to explore a deteriorating relationship and a woman who needed help before the drugs, as shown by the cutting scars on her arms. And her girlfriend who is not equipped to handle any of that so follows her into madness. Exploring is a stretch bc it's only 30 pages but i digress.

Ending in a tragedy which again, this is a one shot, ofc none of the characters are reaally developed and many things are implied. Just taking "drugs bad" from this story is a very blunt take that i feel ignores the rest of the story. Especially with how generic and vague the drugs are spoken about. To me the real tragedy is how mental illness irl is not taken seriously or lacks accessible avenues for people to pursue help and instead Tsukushi went and bought random drugs made with human horrors for help. Bringing down her gf and ultimately each other.

I also would not be surprised if JP publishers were extremely strict about how drugs are portrayed so the author had to make many concessions. JP government wanting to snipe someone on site for holding weed or smth. Like an actor had to quit acting for being accused of drugs while never doing it bc it's that harsh. As another commenter pointed out, it is darkly logical when we look back at history at how drugs in East Asia were used as an avenue of colonization from the West which the West has done inside itself as well against minorities.

drugs are bad because they are produced in the south globe

This is only true of some illegal drugs. The US has plenty of weed farms and meth labs of its own, LSD can be wholly lab-synthesized (and has a bio source rooted in ergot fungus), shrooms can be grown at home, I think fentanyl is fully synthetic...

I was talking about synthetic drugs, most drugs created in the south globe are exported to Europe and North America (they are the main destination for cocaine trafficking)
I was not talking about weed, opio, or stuff like that, I explicitly said artificial (synthetic). Opio is not bad but the US and England had created wars for opioids.

But as I said in my comment, I don’t care about the topic lol It’s not individual faults, I found the one-shot hot. I just thought the guttural reaction to defend drugs as if this was propaganda was funny because drugs are that type of topic “Evil vs Awesome” you will have this type split for obvious reasons (I was giving a example as to why drugs can be bad. Funny enough, many migrants consider us drug addicts because in my country a lot of marijuana is consumed lol and I think ridiculous)
Going back to the topic, a one-shot being edgy about drugs is not that big of a deal, especially because that is already a established mentality in Japan. The one-shot also present more ideas than “drugs are bad” It’s better to view it as a descend of madness that as anti-drug propaganda. Hope to see more frenesy drug use in my yuri sex.

Anyway, I think the other person was being sarcastic hehe. But brutal crimes for drugs still exist, not that it matters in this topic, I explain like shit because eng is hard but I agree with Liddle

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 7:59AM

As a person with diagnosed BPD who dated a lot of diagnosed BPD and as BPD in her familly, it’s all too familliar. Shockingly, sometimes author do portray mental illnesses without naming them. But if you know you know. Sending 30 "I want to die messages", self-harm, extreme mood swing, absurdly intense sex, fear of abandonment, seeing your lover as a drug - all of this is very specific to BPD.
BPD persons will often take drugs/alcohol, and spiral down even more. As I said, if you know you know. I've been okay for years now, but still got triggered by this manga pretty hard after a few pages because of how weirdly realistic it is on the BPD thing. This is most likely not a coincidence.

This reminds me My Dearest Nemesis in the sense that Jiang feels very autistic in the manga, without it ever been explicit - you don’t know if the author does it on purpose or just unconsciously create a character with all the traits, but it feels like good rep nontheless.

As for drugs, yes, I dont understand why people on this thread are getting all defensive. I did drugs many times in the past (mostly weed and cocaine) and had addicts around me, I got close to be alcoholic at some point (BPD related) - drugs are bad, folks, lmao. Everything in this manga is realistic for alcohol abuse in mentally ill patients - why are you defending drug rep ? Mind boggling to me.

The real lesson here is don't do breath play. That shit is dangerous.

Definitely not Suzu’s best work but honestly…idc all that much. Highkey missed seeing their works. Also YOOO I AGREE WITH THE COMMENT ABOVE ME 100% STRANGLE PLAY AINT SAFE especially while on ANY type of drug

The real lesson here is don't do breath play. That shit is dangerous.

Yes that also. But in general, don’t do drugs or alcohol because they alter your ability to judge whether you're doing something good.

BDSM on drugs/alcohol ? Terrible idea. Sex on alcohol/drugs with a new partner ? Terrible idea.

If you're high or drunk, you are less likely to pick up the signs something is wrong. I've been there many times and I stopped alcohol after one or two times where it went too far.

The piece afterword in the anthology allegedly is literally "drugs bad".

Comments on this one is crazy. Its like the Drug brigade is here to champion the cause of illegal substances in a society where they don’t even speak out about how casually women are assaulted there…

The "drug brigade" -- as opposed to the anti-drug brigade that have also been crawling over the comments?

Personally I barely even touch alcohol, let alone any currently illegal drugs, but I can recognize a stupid and corrupt drug war when I see one.

“Stupid and corrupt drug war” do you hear what you’re saying about a yuri manga in a crime anthology? This isn’t Ronald Reagan lol.

They portray drugs negatively. That’s it. The police come to the door and she’s paranoid. For a Japanese person, that’s a reasonable fear considering how much their society values “fitting within the lines” to excessive degrees. Even outside of Japan, there are plenty of people fine with doing a crime until an authority appears and they’re regretful. News flash: drugs CAN be harmful. People can OD. People can lose their minds. People can do crazy things off a pill. People can do nice things off a pill. People can have a good time. People can be perfectly fine. A society that doesn’t have nearly as common casual exposure to these situations will portray what they hear about versus what they know, in media about this stuff.

You can dislike how this manga talked about drugs all you want which is like, alright, odd culture war to fight but be my guest. I’m sure author-san is lurking to take your detailed feedback on their simplistic portrayal of ambiguous pills in their manga about a character losing control and killing the love of her life by mistake. But the level of offense in these comments are unwarranted and ridiculous. Why is everyone getting so offended?

If anything, I thought the detail about the main character noticing the drugs didn’t feel like anything special but she felt more depressed afterwards was a neat touch. Didn’t expect a detail like that in a manga at all. And the touch about the drug affecting them differently was cool too. I felt that was an accurate experience.

Edit: I’m thinking about the other comments which call out the undiagnosed/mentioned mental illnesses the characters could have. If that’s the case, their excessive and unregulated mystery drug use accelerating the spiral is pretty cool and accurate to real life as far as my experiences. It’s not every time it could happen, but all it takes is one bad trip messing with your head to lead to an outcome like the ending without realizing. The drugs are an interesting vehicle to the story if this is intentional.

I definitely agree with this take after a good reread. Wildly uncomfortable to read but it's not horribly done. I think peoples main problem with this is that it's simply too short while trying to portray such a heavy topic. We don't really get time to breathe after shit happens and then it's over and both MCs are dead at the end of it all. I think most of the early commentors were just caught off guard because if my memory is right it didn't have some of the tags it had now like "depressing as fuck". Could be wrong though. Also, like another person in the forum said, they were able to show a scarily accurate representation of BPD without actually calling it that; and, the result of what happens when you mix that with drugs and lack of self control. I appreciate the author for trying to show manslaughter this way, definitely don't see shit like this every day.

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 12:20PM

The drug didn't make them go crazy, it's that she clearly had severe mental health problems that she was self medicating for. But thats obviously a dead end because instead of getting psychiatric help, you build tolerances and one day the drugs aren't enough to make you not want to kill yourself. Everyone's in such a tizzy that this is war on drugs propaganda that you're not even trying to analyze the story.

Mdma can be fun, but do you know what happens when an untreated person with severe BPD pops them like they're candy?

last edited at Jul 7, 2026 11:25AM

That shy Adachis should fall for Shimamuras...