I finally stormed through the chapters of Blood On The Tracks in no time. My heart was pumping faster and faster as I kept reading this terrifying manga.
A Trail of Blood or Blood on The Tracks or Chi no Wadachi, this manga was nothing like I have ever read before.
Pro tip: Read only the words with the bold letters if you are short on time.
This post contains NO spoilers of this manga. Feel free to read the whole post if you have sufficient time.
The fact that this manga terrified the hell out of me without even having a ghost or a monster or any other supernatural entity is just beyond explanation.
With mere facial expressions and chilling silence, this story is now engraved into my heart and mind and soul. I will never be able to forget this even if I wanted to.
I regret nothing upon reading this.
You can watch the video too. To read the full blog post, keep scrolling.
What is the story about?
The story is about a young boy named Seiichi Osabe, whose mother seems to be lovely from the outside and a bit weird. She is overprotective of his son but has some issues, some gravely terrible issues of her own.
Her son’s life is soon turned for the worse when her mother does something unimaginable. When she did it, his reaction was something like this.
This manga has 105 chapters as of 8th October 2021 and it is still going.
I picked up this manga after reading Chainsaw Man knowing that there will be a complete change in the theme and concept, so I fasten the belt of my seat and hoped for some psychological drama in the story.
As expected, I was impressed. The story had a strong impact on me. Still, I am having a weird feeling inside my head as I write this post.
Every time, I was left wondering how the story will unfold as each chapter went on.
The focus point of the manga
The manga highlighted a very grave issue of child abuse and Shūzō Oshimi portrayed it all so exquisitely that I am now left waiting for chapter 106.
Osabe’s mother seemed to be shady since the start of the first chapter. The way how she smiled at him … was really creepy.
I thought instead of looking at her son, she was staring right at my soul as if her one sinister smile was enough to get rid of me.
This creepy and suspicious smile of the mother was impactful only because of the thrilling art style by the mangaka who must have poured in countless hours into making them with pure precision. What a hardworking man he must be! I just can’t forget the art style of this mangaka.
But the best thing that struck me throughout the story was the facial expressions of the characters and how they talked more than when they spoke with their mouths. A lot of things were spoken when the characters simply looked at each other or just stood rooted at a spot.
One has truly said:
Action speaks louder than words.
The author clearly knew how to build tension. My heart kept pounding faster and faster as each panel came under my eyes.
What makes Blood On The Tracks manga different from others?
This was the thing that just made me feel awestruck. It was like my jaw just dropped.
The eyes were the main antagonist of the story (I think). They told the reader more than they could ever think of.
I mean, the eyes explained every feeling imaginable, be it sadness, be it happiness, be it confusion, be it shock, be it scary, everything was clearly shown just with the help of the eyes … terrifying eyes.
Another thing that was used extensively in the manga was the number of panels in which a simple non-important scene was turned into an extraordinary significant one by putting tension into them with the help of impactful facial expressions.
Everything was shaded around a character resembling the darkness by which they were surrounded.
The darkness engulfed the main character like he was its own child. Poor guy’s childhood was ruined because of his abusive mother.
Suffering of the protagoinst
Suffering. A word that a human despise. But sadly, can’t be away with it all the time.
Osabe couldn’t even say anything for a while in the story. He was immensely troubled by the events of his life.
His only reaction was: huff … huff … huff. He only panted while keeping his eyes wide open all the time as if he was in shock, and to be honest, he really was.
Despite everything happening with him, he had a complicated relationship with his mother. He was always conflicted between two minds. Sometimes, he wanted to get away from her. Sometimes, he wanted to be with her.
This just shows that her mother played a big part in his life, messing him up in her ordeals.
The Mother
Osabe’s mother, Seiko, was really beautiful thanks to the art but oh man! She was a monster from the inside.
Judging from the photo, do you think that by any means she is crazy?
There was a point when I thought: hey, the mother doesn’t seem bad and then the manga showed the scene involving a poor cat lying on the road. It was a shock, to be honest.
The way those panels were drawn and executed was completely thrilling even set your eyes upon. It added an immense tension and when it got over, I kept smiling for a minute or two (creepy, yeah?)
I was just thinking: man! What a scene!
Actually, I smiled for the most part of the Blood On The Tracks manga as I was completely in awe of the execution of the story and how everything, from the start of the first chapter itself, supported the writing without a flaw imaginable.
A True Psychological Thriller
Psychology is always a complex subject to deal with in the real world as well as the entertainment world. No wonder when executed correctly, they can do wonders.
Monster manga is one of the best examples that I could think of in a psychological thriller.
A Trail Of Blood could easily be one of the best as this just keeps getting better and better as each chapter continues to arrive in the market.
The fact that nobody but the mother, who is the closest person in the life of her child, bothers him and abuses him to the extent that he doesn’t have control over himself, is just disturbing to even think of.
Parents doing these kinds of things must be suffering from something from the inside but instead of getting help, they take it all out on their innocent children.
It doesn’t matter if a person is beautiful or completely normal from the outside, you never know what they could be hiding inside their messed up minds.
I am glad that such an issue was portrayed with the help of the manga and I hope that it can get through to a lot of people as this problem is suffered by thousands of unfortunate kids out there. Pretty alarming, right?
CONCLUSION
Blood on the Tracks manga was highly thrilling to read and one can surely ponder over its ridiculously good art style.
Lastly, if you are suffering from something then please, tell someone and get help as soon as it occurs or troubles you, otherwise if it increases then the events could be headed in a worse direction.
If I have to summarize this manga in a word then I would simply say: Scary
Do you know what else is scary?
Chainsaw Man: Except it has a lot of bloodbath in it. Read it with full enthusiasm.
