不安の種プラス

FUAN NO TANE PLUS

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
4
RELEASE
August 11, 2016
CHAPTERS
116

DESCRIPTION

More collections of chilling short stories dealing with urban legends, ghosts and superstitions all organized around a specific theme (School, Visitors etc.).

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO FUAN NO TANE PLUS

MANGA HorrorFuan no Tane

MANGA HorrorFuan no Tane Asterisk

REVIEWS

TheGruesomeGoblin
40/100
Even more spooky faces. Look outside your window because there's probably a ghost. No, really. This isn't a joke.
What? This again? Really?

Alright, fine. I mean I'm still actually reviewing Yami Shibai seasons, and an actual third Fuan no Tane went into publication earlier this year, so just fuck it I guess.

Wait... hold on... I just heard a sound behind my computer monitor.

Oh my god no.

Alright. I'm just gonna stay calm. Fuan no Tane has taught me that if there is something spooky or creepy going on, you absolutely should just ignore it and maybe it'll go away.

Let's just pretend there's not a skeleton glaring down at me and continue the review.

Seeds of Anxiety -

My feelings towards Fuan no Tane by Masaaki Nakayama are kind of… complicated. On one hand, I really think a bunch of the stories are just lame. The ghosts are just creepy faces or spooky female ghosts, there's really no build up or explanation to the scares, and sometimes there are chapters where arguably nothing whatsoever happens at all.

But on the other hand, this actually is a genuine attempt at a horror manga series where characters actually get scared. There are ghosts, there are spirits, there are... debatable creepy things that go on. It feels so often that I look at a random manga under the horror genre and this is what I see.

Gore's obviously fine, but those other three are immediate red flags...

In a sea of that, no matter how unsatisfying the scares are or how dumb they are, I have to respect Fuan no Tane for what it continues to be. Genuine attempts at spooky stories and scares.

I just want spooky stories... ~~preferably good ones...~~ that's all I've ever wanted...

And you know it's not like all the ideas are complete flatlines or just require no effort. Which is why I'll give it more props than Yami Shibai seven seasons in...

Also with Plus, there surprisingly are some improvements. There are actually a good amount of stories that are surprisingly long for Fuan no Tane standards. Ten page long chapters???

Wow, I feel like I'm reading a novel over here! It's almost like there's not much you can do with just two or four pages! And especially not for over 100 chapters!

I mean, there's actually even some stories that extend past one chapter. Not many, but the fact that there are at least some is nice. Especially since one of my biggest problems with Fuan no Tane was that the story would end with a character seeing a ghost and that was it.

WELL DID THE GHOST DO ANYTHING? THAT'S THE PART WE WANT TO SEE. I'M FINE WITH LEAVING IT UP TO THE READER'S IMAGINATION BUT NOT EVERY SINGLE STORY.

But also, you have the additional problem that if you've read the first Fuan no Tane, and to be fair, quite a decent amount of time is between the two series' original publication (first manga = 2002 to 2005 and second manga = 2007 to 2016), but the majority of the stories from Plus feel really repetitive to read because a lot of them really are just more of the same.

Okay, here are two scares. One is from the original, and one is from Plus. If I look at this review in a month's time, I can personally guarantee that I will be completely unable to tell which is from which series.

No matter what, these panels are what you're ultimately reading Fuan no Tane for. So when you hit a chapter where the whole chapter is a woman waking up thinking she's twelve hours late for work, and the scare is her realizing that she misread the time...

"Oh, it actually is 8 AM and not 8 PM... weird."

...Where the fuck is the spooky face??? Look, I'm sure everyone's woke up at one point and couldn't immediately tell what time of day it is. You're just waking up, it's normal to not be 100% there the MOMENT your eyes open.

I will say though there is one story I especially liked. A guy happens upon a guy who is halfway sticking out of a hedge.

For the record, it’s story #96.

The guy stuck in the hedge asks the man for help as he's actually a motorcyclist who's been in a terrible accident and now he's stuck in the hedge. Still not exactly at ease but able to believe him since he sees the wrecked motorbike, he attempts to help the hedge man. And with some effort, he gets him free. Except...

He didn't exactly escape the accident without a scratch. This is probably without question the goriest thing out of both of the Fuan no Tanes and it is actually effective. Except for the fact that I still can't really tell what he was actually stuck on? I'm not sure if it's the side of a house or a car on the other side of the hedge. ~~I want to say it's probably a car?~~

But then you have the added element of the man's remains falling down onto the living one after he actually got him free. And we actually get to see his reaction which is key because it is a look of pure fucking horror.

Because since he's still looking in the direction from where the man fell, he is probably looking at the remains of the man's other half which is probably nothing but a grisly mess. After all, the accident had resulted in instant death...

There's also a clever story or two taking advantage that this Fuan no Tane goes over 100 chapters. As the 99th chapter is about the Hyakumonogatari.

Basically, a bunch of people tell ghost stories with each other and for every single story, you put out one candle. The idea being that once the 100th candle is put out, something otherworldly may appear or something terrible may happen.

And then the 100th chapter of Fuan no Tane Plus is… just some white pages. Except for…

And that’s when it clicked. The ghost stories of Fuan no Tane itself are exactly like that of the Hyakumonogatari. Just ghost stories you’d tell in a ring of friends for a goof. Maybe one or two of them will genuinely be a bit creepy or dark even, and some of them will just flat out fucking suck.

And when the Fuan no Tane creator acknowledged this directly in a meta way by implying that this entire second manga was just a round of Hyakumonogatari being done by some kids that went wrong, and that the reader would meet some spirit since they had hit chapter 100… I smiled.

Fuan no Tane actually made me smile.

Even so, I still on the whole don’t like Fuan no Tane, but I’m actually coming out of this sequel with more respect for the author. He could have just thought of it on the spot when he neared 100 chapters, but I’d like to think that he aimed for it intentionally just to make that cheeky joke. And sure there's still a lot of really short stories in there, but a hundred stories is still a lot.

~~Unfortunately, he probably DID just think of it on the spot because he of course goes well over 100.~~

Conclusion

It’s still Fuan no Tane. If you didn’t like what the first Fuan no Tane had to offer you, then you’ll probably not like the sequel. And if you’ve read the first Fuan no Tane and was just curious if this was more of the same because you’re already suffering from spooky faces fatigue…

...Well, it’s the same. Additionally, despite a somewhat improved opinion of the author, I can’t do what I did with the last review and actually provide a list of the stories I thought were interesting or creepy. As there really was only that one (#96)…

Whether there’s less stories I genuinely found creepy or it was the spooky faces fatigue settling in and causing a lot of the stories to blend together, I’m not sure… but since there’s a whole fifty more chapters than the first series and I actually have less stories to recommend from them…

It’s only fair I give this a lower score than I did for the original. A 4 out of 10. It’s unfortunate, but still not far from the expected result…

...Now, is my boney friend gone? Yes. Good, perhaps droning on and on about not always spooky stories scared him off.

...

Eh… wait.

Wait a moment. How silly of me. I have nothing to fear from skeletons.

After all...
___I already am one.___
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