After School Nightmare, Volume 9

by Setona Mizushiro

Mashiro has finally come to terms with his feelings, but even though Sou has cast aside his controlling sister, her hold on him goes deeper than he thinks. When Kureha finds her own strength and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1933617705
• ISBN13: 9781933617701
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: Go Comi
• Length: 200 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.9" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

Does Not Suggest Easy Answers

Boy meets girl. Boy meets boy. Boy is pursued by both and struggles to choose between them. Anyone who's read a girls' manga in the past few years can recognize the standard plot--play musical chairs with the genders, and you've got almost every romantic manga. After School Nightmare, in tone, depth, and style, stands above the crowd, though by twisting all of romance's conventions, this tale is not for the teens who want a swoony romance like Miwa Ueda's Papillon, but instead for those readers who like the grittier romances with a dangerous undercurrent, like Annette Curtis Klause's Blood and Chocolate or Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely, and enjoy the questions raised in Carol Plum Ucci's What Happened to Lani Garver? Our lead, Ichijou, is physically a boy and a girl, or as he thinks of it, a girl on bottom and a boy on top. Choosing the girl, fragile Kureha, means choosing to be the boy he was raised to be, with all the power, respect, and familiarity that implies, even if it means Ichijou must bury his blossoming feminine side. Choosing the boy, the fiery Sou, is far riskier and means a drastic change, a loss of status, and embracing a part of himself he barely understands. Many manga play with gender swapping and characters of both or neither gender, but they also handily sidestep any actual psychological or emotional questions about gender identity. Girls may dress as boys, or boys turn into girls, but however they push boundaries, like any good Shakespearean comedy, everyone ends up back in their original gender with their heterosexual romantic match. When differently gendered characters appear, from drag queens to transgender people, they are comic relief and sidekicks, never the main character in a drama. After School Nightmare successfully, and dramatically, pulls all of the gender shenanigans out to the front of the story, gives them real emotional weight, and then rips them apart. Mizushiro's way to embody these crossroads--boy to girl, honesty to lies, dreams to reality--is evocative and enveloping. Each student's psychology and fears are faced in the collective dreamscape as they attend a special after-school program. Upon entering the dream, the goal is to gain the key, as in a video game, to win and graduate. What graduation means is a mystery, except that each student who graduates confronts their fears, escapes from both the class and the school, and their existence is wiped from everyone else's memories. Each student is represented in the dream as what they fear the most, and these self-portraits are chilling: a girl with gaping wounds where her face and heart should be, a paper giraffe too flimsy to survive long, or an apparently endless stretch of arm, jointed with many elbows and coiled like a snake. Ichijou appears as himself, but in a girl's uniform, while Sou may or may not be the vicious Black Knight, hidden behind layers of armor. By throwing her characters into a dream, Mizushiro plays to her strengths of illuminating

A knight to remember...

The true identity of the knight has been discovered, much to the surprise of many. This isn't the only revelation of the book, as we also discover the disturbing truth behind Sou's obsessive sister Ai. Kureha has to not only learn to accept who & what she is, but she also has to compete with someone who isn't playing fair. The storyline keeps getting better & better in this series. The pacing is very well done & the characters are enthralling even when they're really behaving in ways that aren't that likable. Like another review said, this volume ends on a "what they hey?" type of ending that makes me eager to read the last volume. 5/5

A Stunning Volume

After School Nightmare has been one of my favorite manga series since I stumbled on it about a year ago. Since then, I have devoured each new volume as soon as I could get my hands on it. The main highlight of the series is how the characters' struggles become fully realized in the dream world. In the real world, Sou is able to drag his feet when it comes to choosing between two people very close to him. However, when he enters the dream world, he is forced to decide which of them he wishes to save and which one he wishes to sacrifice. Every internal struggle is externalized and characters must act to resolve them, which makes for incredibly compelling reading and great amounts of character development. Obviously, I love this series on the whole, but the ninth volume takes it to an entirely different level of quality. I hate to be melodramatic or enthuse too much about it, but this may quite literally be the best volume of manga that I have ever read. Sou receives the main focus, and we as readers are finally able to understand what made him into the dark young man he is in the series. He's never been my favorite character in ASM, but the way that the author portrays his psychological struggles is one of the most fascinating, gripping things I have ever seen or read, be it in novels, manga, or in a movie. The only downside to this volume is that it ends on a cliffhanger that feels a bit rushed, and doesn't seem to tie back into the main story--yet. However, I have faith that it will all be properly explained and integrated when we receive the tenth and final volume in January.

Wonderful story

I thought for awhile about this manga series till I finally decided to get Volume 1 and then had to order every one available. It is a story of mystery, intrigue, love and peer pressure. There is a bit of horror to it but to me not very much. To not spoil the story itself it is basically a story of finding oneself and your place in the world. I highly recommend this manga series. IF there is an anime as well I would purchase as well. Although it appears to be light yaoi, but is it really?