血の轍

CHI NO WADACHI

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
17
RELEASE
September 8, 2023
CHAPTERS
153

DESCRIPTION

Ordinary middle school student Seiichi Osabe receives love and care from his mother Seiko. Until one summer an incident changes the family dynamic forever. This is a story of a mother’s love that has gone too far….

(Source: Kodansha USA)

CAST

Seiko Osabe
Seiichi Osabe
Yuko Fukiishi
Ichiro Osabe
Shigeru
Shigeru no Haha

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

Aimer
90/100
A Manipulative but Beloving Mother
To start: human babies, unlike any other animal or being, at the first few months of their entire lives, are incapable of walking or lifting their bodies on it's own, without any support. Human babies need help more than any other living being. Having that said, this manga perfectly utilized the psyche of a child ánd mother. Which hereby, in my opinion, cannot be surpassed by any other of Shuuzou Oshimi’s work, ‘’Happiness’’ / ‘’Aku no Hana’’.

The worthy mentioning genres are psychology – family life – tragedy – thriller – mental health.

*~~~ MINOR not very important SPOILER ahead

Story:
Proclaiming that this is not your casual dark psychological story. This goes deeper than just a shock of stunning face expression which blows the reader away. A story about most children’s warm reflection of one’s deeply caring mother, in a tightly household. The silently and cautious interactions of an only child with mommy and daddy, will hit you like a snow storm when you found out the striking truth of it’s silly and very welcoming of beginning.

The bulk of Chi no Wadachi (Blood on the Track) lays at the very first pages, where the manga consists of just a bunch of interactive moments, with the consecutively views of mommy, daddy, and the family outside of the ring. The characters of the manga are beautifully established and developed throughout the series. The emphasis worthy of main objects in the story are: mother (seiko), son (seiichi), girlfriend (fukiishi), seiichi’s cousin (shigeru). Reminder, what they are talking about, doesn’t matter at all, it is the main plot that is received by the reading at the near beginning, which will be the decisive reason as to, why the first ‘’few interactive moments with consecutively views’’ are highly important to mention. The unnatural but deserved plot twists that leaves you with shaky fingers, and the urge of reading forward through the pages of the zoomed in, sweetness of smiles given by the ‘’overprotective’’ mother; that wants you to find out a bit more than a caring and beloved mamma. Which, will also especially make a great impact on the far progress of reading through the wonderfully drawn characters, and just like it did for me; it will feel like a gust of wind when you find out what’s really happening in this exciting story. However, the art and chosen theme on it’s own is a masterpiece that makes you feel pity for the both the mother and son. These details of pages are the very relevant flashback moments that you need to fall back on when you hold onto the reading of this impressively manga series.

Out of so many psychological, thriller manga series out here, there is not a single one, that may captivate the reading style, like how Chi no Wadachi is drawn and written, by one single author. The answer to how good and compassionate the author has build this story together, is not explainable by just one reader, reading the amazingly deal of this still ongoing psychological ride of a manga. (chapter 93 right now, writing this)

Character:
My favorite character would be the father (ichiro osabe), although he’s apparently just a side character, he is the closest person between the mother and son. Not forgetting the fact that he has seen things that are absolutely not being questioned about in the story, at all. For example, the way the mother has shown her intimacy to her beloving son, and not allowing any one else except for His Mother to come close to him. At this day of age, you wouldn’t think about it, but the author surely took this psychiatric theme until this far to the reader. And unfortunately, you can’t escape this realization of thought until communicating with his beloved wife is the very solution. That’s just the kind of way of how the father is dealing with it.

My rating (enjoyment) is 10/10 if Chi no Wadachi would be ending in a sensible and brillant way... For now a solid 9.5/10. (Edit: it ended perfectly solid.)
Continue on AniList
KuroGFX
100/100
Trail of Blood: parental gaslighting and psychological dread the terror of being a child
__
Trail of Blood
__
Trail of Blood is a Psychological Domestic Thriller/Horror about a shy boy named Seichi with a mother with an overprotective nature that hints at something more possessive and weirder in nature
If you think about it theirs no deeper intimate unknown than that of our own parents they aren’t strangers but in many ways they are usually depending on your main character in a story depending on the type of story your character can make all the influence of the tone because the main character will typically be the eyes and perspective of which you view any story so thus they become your foothold into that world and the way in which you see that world Seiichi the main character is not able to do anything in the circumstances he finds himself not cause he’s an observer but because due to the position of being just a kid the world is an unknown as you cling to your parents to help guide and protect you but the idea of those parents being unknown or alien to you can elicit an unknown dread of inside as a child.
__
HORROR
__ A great Horror narrative is a precarious act of threading the needle you set up a clear or somewhat understandable danger to the character and present it to the audience then you play on those expectations and elevate them in natural ways playing on the tension like a bow calmly moving across the strings of a violin the music like the creeping angst of fear steadily builds. Most horror typical can be derived from a perceived threat in the 1972 movie Alien the threat reveals itself in the form of the Xenomorph a predatory and intelligent lifeform with a lacquer exoskeleton frame that hunts down the crew of the Nostrum With classic Horror like Alien, the nature of the threat is an obvious one but with Trail of Blood its a bit different as it revolves around the people closest to you how you react around them can feel like an act of willing obedience even when at times they make you feel uncomfortable and you can’t say anything Seichi is introduced as having an overprotective mother but the way the story utilizes this early setup gives us only a peak into how far that overprotectiveness may go. Gaslighting and other manipulation makes this kid question his own reality and the art even turns surreal and dreamlike as he’s being pulled by a pendulum in a series of events he can’t control in the end he's trapped for the time being a lot of times I've heard similar experiences with friends where they simply bided their time to leave their own families due to not feeling comfortable at all around them one of my friends never told his mother his new address. family dynamics can sometimes feel like a cage and in here there is no clear method of physical escape or maneuvering away from the threat using intelligence and adaptability.
__
ARTWORK
__ The artwork in Trail of Blood has a grainy, sketchy, and lifelike mannerism like captured photographs and the faces vary wildly with subtle yet different expressions that communicate much of their inner emotion and turmoil or curiosity each character has in their eyes and mouth movement or intensity in the face. If you’ve ever played Omori the style feels reminiscent or similar due to the similar method of line shading as if the shadows move from image to image giving it a photographic quality which in Trail of Blood seems almost stark and creepily alive and an atmosphere as if the images are like breathing memories of painful nostalgia and remembrance that you honest to god wish you could forget it's hard to put into terms what some of these panels make me feel it's a fleeting type of horror Seichi looking out onto a beautiful landscape like he's almost yearning to leave and its simply haunting knowing that at the end of every day of school Seichi simply has to go home and it can almost seem as if theres a strangled cry for help that he wishes to express but can't even say
__
Prologue
__ this manga actually touched a deep part of me with my own mother who had a bipolar temperament and it screwed my perspective on my mom and made me afraid of her it was like living with two different people one who loved you and one who seemed fade in seamlessly with horrifying screams at me and rants that would pick me apart this is not to make my mom seem like a. bad person she is who she is and I learned that my mom had shit happen to her that hat screwed her over in ways I could only experience secondhand through her she's a strong person but also broken a bit. she's switch between personalities and purposefully minimize my feelings and when I'd upon up about not having trust for people and friends around me she'd feed my fears with cynicism and she'd say things like "your right you can't trust anyone" and she'd try to isolate me from not only friends but other people like other family members whether it was aunts or even my father and brothers all the while trying to advocate her bleak outlook on life and the world to me as at the age of 13-14 she communicated to me her unfiltered life story with raw detail in the car on the way to Karate practice. She's not above using guilt as a manipulation tool to get what she wants and the only reason I',m her favorite son is because my genetics are closer to hers which is essentially to say my looks and she undermines my brothers who either have more mixed looks of our parents or look more like my dad in aspects. which is why I feel like this manga succeeds amazingly at recapturing and instilling this type of dread.
Continue on AniList
adrymanga
94/100
A manipulative, twisted and shocking, but loving, clingy and beautiful mother
Blood on the Tracks - Memorable for both shock and beauty

*spoiler free

First things first, as a heads up, this "review" is kind of less of a review, and rather just me rambling about my own experience with this story. So, mostly random thoughts, and the lesser being an actual analytical review (I'm gonna try to do a bit of that too though)
Also, I am absolutely NOT a good writer, so I apologize in advance if I don't make sense. Another also, I won't be putting any images : I want this to be barebones.

PS : It's gonna be pretty short too

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

After a few years of putting off Blood on the Tracks after I caught up with it at like chapter 105 (i don't like reading stuff weekly/monthly), I continued it today : 8th of June 2024 (cause it has been finished for some time now).

What I can say is, it was just as gripping as when I first started reading it....and that was a LONG time ago, when I was still a teen. But I still remember going through the chapters and just being shocked and intrigued and wanting to see more. I'm so glad that I finally finished this manga.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
This story honestly just put me in a chokehold and I've thought about it from time to time, without even trying. Just memories of certain moments from it, going through my head. And the greatest thing is that, even with all the horrible feelings from it, the actions of the characters, the implications and the themes (+ the sprinkles of shock that I've mentioned), that popped into my head, those are paired up with the beauty of the art and the craft of the story. I couldn't help but to think of the positives aswell during those time. I couldn't help appreciating how good it was, and missing it.
Of course, I did mention how I stopped reading because of catching up to the releases of the chapters, and I really hate waiting for them. But I also stopped because, combined with said schedule, it felt like the story was dragging. (I did read a few chapters as they were releasing, and then I halted my reading after a few)
But now, I got back into it, and it really helped to have the entire story available at once. It flows really well and I had a very buttery smooth experience. I was able to digest it properly and I really liked that.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Now, going a tiny bit into the story, this is, in my opinion, a very unique one. It is genuinely the first story that I have seen handling its subject matter the way that this one did. That being : __How a child's development is affected by their parent/s.__ Hold your horses though, I am NOT saying that it's the first series to center on this, not even close, but the way it is tackled + the specifics of it make it different, and I have not seen any other piece of media doing this exactly. __The relationship between Seiichi and his mom is one of a kind in the media that I have consumed or heard about so far. The layers formed of love, need of acceptance, depression, anger, trauma, manipulation. Everything just makes the whole deal between the two so complex and different. (and I by no means meant to be insensitive with the mentions of said elements, but they do play big roles in both characters)__ All around, very dark, very personal, tragic, icky and, title reference : beautiful at some points....while being quickly contrasted again by mind boggling dialogue or actions (in a good writing way :D) And the ending was more than solid honestly. Lastly, the art : pretty simple at first glance, but very effective and well done. Also, very pretty..... and I apologize but Seiko is honestly one of the prettiest women I have ever seen drawn. My man nails it when it comes to designing femme fatales. I really like Shuuzou Oshimi's artstyle :3. Either way, how I said, "spoiler free", so I won't give details, but I especially loved how at certain moments the art got very experimental.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

All around I loved how dark and gritty it was, both in writing and occasionally presentation, when it was best for that to happen.
This series is one of a kind, with fantastic writing, a unique subject, an engaging storyline, detailed characters AND character development. I might not be good at putting into words exactly how I feel and what I have experienced, but I can for sure say that I greatly enjoyed it (even though it broke me at some points), __and I will forever remember this manga__.
Continue on AniList