Hell Is Dark with No Flowers Volume 1 Review

What better way to prepare for Halloween and the spooky season than with a horror novel? Rooted in mystery and Japanese mythology, the light novel series Hell Is Dark with No Flowers perfectly fits the brief but will it prove interesting? Let’s find out!

The story follows Seiji Tohno, a 22-year-old who is currently without a job and living out of internet cafés. He often sees the people around him as literal monsters, which has driven him to close himself off from humanity. However, no matter how Seiji may want to continue his current NEET lifestyle, he’s quickly running out of money and now he can’t afford another night in the café he’s been frequenting.

It’s on this day that Seiji stumbles upon a European-style mansion. There, he meets the mysterious Shiroshi Saijou, who listens to Seiji’s situation and invites him to work part-time as his assistant (room and meals included!). With no better options, Seiji ends up agreeing, but he can’t help but feel he’s getting in over his head…

Shiroshi, as it turns out, is something of a mystery solver; people come to him with troubles and he helps  them work through them. But there’s an air of the supernatural here as these cases almost always involve yokai and those being possessed by them, something that ties into Seiji’s situation as his eyes have always led him to see such people as the monsters (or yokai) they are.

In truth, Shiroshi is a supernatural being himself. He’s the son of the Demon King who’s in a race to take over the job, but for now, he’s here in Japan searching for sinners to send to hell. The people who come to him are almost always responsible for or related to some kind of horrific crime, but rather than strike them down there and then Shiroshi prefers to solve the mystery and force them to confess. If they ever show remorse perhaps they’ll be spared from their fate, but that certainly doesn’t happen in any cases in Volume 1.

While I like the premise of this one, I have to say the one thing that brings the book down is Seiji himself. He’s almost forced into working for Shiroshi due to his living situation, but rather than a full-fledged assistant, he’s often treated more like a pet. I suppose this makes sense when you consider Shiroshi isn’t human and likely views humanity as being beneath him, but still, it leads to Seiji being an audience surrogate to be monologued at rather than a character with his own agency.

In many ways, it feels like author Yoru Michio takes notes from buddy-cop crime dramas, which live or die based on the strength of the character dynamics. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the relationship between Seiji and Shiroshi because it feels unbalanced, not just because of the way Shiroshi treats his assistant but also due to the strength of their characters. Shiroshi is a far more interesting character and in some ways, I’d have preferred just to watch him explore cases by himself. Sure, the stories would need tweaking to allow for that, but it may have proved better on the whole.

Still, my complaints about the characters aside, I did enjoy the individual stories presented here. As mysteries, they were interesting to follow along with and Michio provided readers with enough clues to figure them out for themselves alongside Seiji. However, they are not for the fainted-hearted as they deal with topics like abuse, suicide, and self-harm as well as leaning into gore and body horror at points. In terms of the overall atmosphere, this is another area that Michio has done well to depict and despite my inability to care for Seiji, I was at least drawn in by the rest of what this book had to offer. It can be quite graphic at times, but always in a way that’s befitting of the genre and the terrible things these people have done. It’s not horrific just for the sake of it.

Hell Is Dark with No Flowers Volume 1 comes to the West thanks to Yen Press and has been translated by Taylor Engel. Personally, I found the translation reads find, but I did come across this post on AnimeNewsNetwork talking about there being editing issues which actually would explain some of my issues with it feeling like Seiji was monologued at. I’ve not read the original Japanese to compare and the post isn’t verified, so while it’s worth being aware of, do take it with a pinch of salt.

The series is complete in Japan with 8 volumes meanwhile here in English, Volume 2 is scheduled for a release in January so we’ve still got a few months to wait for more. Yen Press will also begin releasing the manga adaptation of the series starting in January, which may prove a better way to experience this story.

Overall, Hell Is Dark with No Flowers is certainly an interesting mystery/supernatural series. While I have issues with how the characters are handled, there’s no denying that fans of the genre will still enjoy watching the fallout of the criminals coming to Shiroshi for help.

Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.