(( _ _ ))..zzzZZ's manga / #Anthology(4)

ONESHOTPART OF ANTHOLOGY [Tokyo Horror Stories Vol. 2] A man jumps off of a roof to be caught by a monster. The monster doesn't speak but grabs him along urging the man to follow him. He is led to a movie theater where he is force fed some kind of crystal. The monster before him transforms into his dead first love. He leads him to areas where he had dates with his first love. The movie theater, the botanical gardens, the beach. Everything at these dates were exact replications of the first time they had met. Hikaru feels tortured and apologizes profusely. He burdens the guilt of still being alive while his lover is dead. He regrets not being there more for him before his lover, Hajime. The date at the beach at night was the last one. This date is different. Hajime isn't saying the same lines he said at the dates in the past. He talks to Hikaru, his real thoughts. He wants to break up. He wants to stop burdening Hikaru. He wishes he could've been loved truly by Hikaru when he was still alive. Hikaru kisses him, not Hajime, but the monster. His spirit bursts into flames as they kiss, disappearing. Hikaru wakes up, groggy and bloody in the hospital bed. He looks to the side and sees the plants, that smells of life. I read this 19 minutes after it was released on here. Truth be told it was because i wanted to be one of the first to read it on here. I liked this. I was window shopping newest updates by cover when this caught my eye. I of course didn't know what to expect by this cover and i was so early there were no tags really to tell other than "Psychological". Im..satisfied with this. The art is beautiful, yes, and the story was pleasant. Like drinking an almost cold cup of tea. Survivor guilt always gets me. I thought making him such an unpleasantly deformed monster was an interesting approach because by the end of it, I didn't see him as the monster, I saw him just as beautiful as Hikaru did. I think that was intentional. Seeing him wake up after an attempt, even if it was only a few panels, I love the way the silence that loomed over it. It felt so real. The plants that "smell of life" got me, tears started building. His memory of Hajime was so beautiful. I loved the deliverance of this whole oneshot. Some of the things Hikaru thought and said resonated with me, even if I've never been in such a situation. Empathy is so weird. You can try and try with all your might to empathize with somebody but unless you're in an identical situation, you will NEVER know what that really feels like. And even if you're in the same situation, everyone has different relations and different experiences with one another, valuing others in a special way, building special bonds. What I'm trying to say is you could walk to the moon in someone's shoes but you'll never be able to fully understand them.

Started: 2025-05-01 Finished: 2025-05-03 I’ll be honest, not a lot happened in this and the translation wasn’t very good but I loooved the watercolor art style. - a mother carrying rice cakes is eaten by a tiger. It’s some kind of shapeshifting tiger and its brother calls it out when it sees the human blood. He’s upset that the brother ate the humans and tells him to take responsibility for the now motherless kids. The bad tiger rolls his eyes and so the brother takes responsibility instead. He goes and apologizes to the kids for his brother’s actions and cooks for them. He raises them for a couple of years I believe 11. The older, now grown, child of the two develops a crush for the tiger. He tries to muster up the courage by asking the tiger to sleep inside, drink with him, etc. when the tiger finally agrees to drink, the boy confesses. The tiger rejects. The boy, mad, runs off where he runs into another man at night. The man listens to his sorrows and asks him for a night. The boy agrees and the man takes him to the woods. The boy is scared because he’s a virgin and when he tried to leave, the man turns scary and tries to force himself. He realizes the man isn’t human and the tiger that rejected him punches the man. They fight and the boy realizes the man was the bad tiger who ate his mother and planned to eat him that night. When the good tiger and the boy get home, he treats the tigers wounds from the fight, feeling guilty. He apologizes to which the tiger explains that he’s liked the boy as well but rejected him because he didn’t want him to get hurt. They lay together under the moonlight. The boy is ravished and the sister comes back to talk about business. The end. Hmm maybe like a 3-4️ Apocalypse - Cigarettes after sex

Started: 2025-05-05