Was Anyone Else Looking Forward To Season 2 of Aku No Hana (Flowers Of Evil)

Well, the hate for the art style really didnt help. The mangas art is gorgeous, and when you compare it with what we got it was bound to alienate people

To a normal audience it was too jarring although it gained a minor cult following for how estrange it was. 


I truly could go for a modern season 2. So much is left.

If only.

So many people hated the art, but I thought it did a great job setting the unsettling atmosphere.

Honestly same. i’ve been checking for updates every single week like a clown. the first season was such a vibe and the cliffhanger literally ruined me. they better not pull a no game no life on us or i’m actually gonna lose it.

Im rip van winkle, 5 year wait was not long right?

> its wild how we get multiple seasons of a show now but in the mid 2010s we were lucky if we got a more than a season of content.

Before then you were extremely lucky if things got adapted at all. Getting sequels was just as rare if not less likely before that.

Go look up some old seasons, pre 1997 basically, which was when there was a lot of deregulation, and new cable and digital channels started to appear.

Many older seasons only had a few new shows in their entirety. Here's the Summer 1995 chart to make the point:

https://myanimelist.net/anime/season/1995/summer

TWO new shows. That should sink in. Basically before the late 1990s/2000s the very concept of "seasonal anime" just didn't exist, since you could count the number of new shows launched in many seasons on the fingers on one hand.

Something like "Aku no Hana" simply wouldn't have been greenlit before the 2000s. You might have 3-5 new shows in many seasons before that so unless you could convince the network you had a hit series then you'd be out the door straight away. By the mid 2000s they had 40 timeslots to fill each season for anime however, so stuff like "Aku no Hana" could slip through. The difference is that now they're trying to schedule 200+ new things per year instead of 20, so they're gonna be open to more ideas.

However, if it's not profitable **enough** they won't allocate another time slot to a sequel instead of creating a new show. Like, say they could make Aku no Hana 2 and that makes $10000 in profit, they won't do that if they could make a new show, and new shows generally make $50000 in profit. The network will just reject the proposal and sign with a different show, even if Aku no Hana 2 would make **some** money.

Plus, to have made that you would need to cancel the sequel for some other show, or just not make some other show at all. Imagine you get Aku no Hana 2, but you have to sacrifice some show that did get made so it never got made. What if Erased / Boku dake ga Inai Machi never got made in that reality? So if you want one thing made, you're competing for the finite amount of timeslots with other things that could or did get made.

Basically, even though there are now many more timeslots than there were up to the mid 1990s, there are still a finite amount of timeslots, and it's competitive - if your sequel isn't projected to make at least "average profits" compared to a new show, the TV network won't sign the contract to let you make it.

That's why i think focusing on the quality or lack of quality of Aku no Hana is a red herring here. it's not about that, it's because the show simply wasn't financially successful enough. A show can be a complete turd but keep getting sequels if people simply go out and buy the DVDs and merch. Ultimately, regardless of creator's intentions, anime is a business that's funded by the "production committee" members - companies that pay money into the project for a stake in the licenses and profits. If the goods aren't selling, they will just stop paying. And since TV timeslots are a finite resource that creates pressure such that only "above average" performing shows will ever get sequels, thus half of all shows will never get a sequel because you have to perform better than average.

The rotoscoping got them shitted on too hard for a s2. It's too bad since it's a story a lot of gooners would love if the art was done right.


The Ed is probably one of the most haunting we'll ever see.

Have you read the manga? I'm a big fan of everything I've read from Shuuzou Oshimi and Aku no Hana is probably up there as my favorite from him. I never got around to watching the anime but I know it only adapts the first part of the manga which is a shame because the 2nd part really goes places.

Only a handful of shows ever get a second season.

**they need to remake the anime first to get people to watch it**, the rotoscoping is useless if there's almost nothing to sell. especially when the style is disliked by lots of people

look at AnoHana. despite being drama anime with serious topic, there are a lots of merchandise to sell, even if something didn't exist in the anime, if people like the visual, people will buy the merchandise and other stuff related to it, like [this can badge with character wearing animal costume](https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10786750).

Aku No Hana only have [19 items to sell from every category](https://www.1999.co.jp/search?typ1_c=110&cat=&state=&sold=0&sortid=7&searchkey=%e6%83%a1%e3%81%ae%e8%8f%af), compared to AnoHana that have [more than 600 items to sell](https://www.1999.co.jp/search?typ1_c=110&cat=&state=&sold=0&sortid=7&searchkey=%e3%81%82%e3%81%ae%e6%97%a5%e8%a6%8b%e3%81%9f%e8%8a%b1%e3%81%ae%e5%90%8d%e5%89%8d%e3%82%92%e5%83%95%e9%81%94%e3%81%af%e3%81%be%e3%81%a0%e7%9f%a5%e3%82%89%e3%81%aa%e3%81%84%e3%80%82&target=Serieshin). the difference is so massive despite both of them have good story

I read the manga first and still think the art direction of the anime is superior to the original. Maybe people would gush over it if they gave the boot to the director and made a cookie cutter movie with bombastic visuals as a sequel, seems to be the trend.

It's in my extended top favorites and is always included by me on the list of series which I wish I had a second or other additional season. And I say never say never, never say die, as series have come back after many years in various instances.

What was definitely unhelpful was all the backlash toward the more realistic art style, which I picked up on from when I went to read a lot of discussions at the time (the series aired in 2013, but I didn't start watching anime until 2016 and didn't watch Aku no Hana until years later in 2019).

All you hear daily is a constant refrain of how so many people are apparently fed up with tropey and generic shows, the millionth rehash and reiteration of hero's party isekai JRPG stuff, etc., and then as soon as any series dares to do something different it gets immediate kneejerk dogpiling on by so many, so you can see why so many nowadays don't bother to color outside the lines too much.

Yes. The rotoscoping is an integral part of it as well. It would gross me out if they would have skipped the rotoscoping, the acting really sold that show for me in many ways. Everything truly fit together so well. It's unfortunate many didn't like the style but I'd rather have it not get a second season than do such a massive identity shift.

The rest of the story was not well executed imo. I’d bet the author would redo quite a few choices they made.

The end of S1 wasn't really a preview of S2 as a S2 was never planned. It was more of a quick "here's what happens in the rest of the story. Enjoy the manga!"

The rotoscoping was fine. A lot of people just enjoying talking badly of anything thats branching out or different. Look at life for example, people may get picked on for standing out or being different (which is wrong ofcourse).

However the reason it didn't get a second season is because it just wasn't a good show/ strong/popular enough story.