Kousha no Ura ni wa Tenshi ga Umerareteiru – bonutzuu’s manga archive

TW: bullying, sexual harrassment, suicide, murder

My first thought after finishing all 7 volumes in one go: WTF, can’t you end on a good note?

“There is an Angel Buried Behind the School Building” is the story of… yeah, you saw the TW. Bullying. Nothing can compare to the WTF I screamed when I flipped to the last page of the first chapter. Judging from the title, I thought this was gonna be about a bunch of kids investigating a school ghost legend or some shit, not becoming the school legend.

This manga seriously gave me Higanbana no Saku Yoru ni flashbacks. Also reminds me of this other manga Hakoniwa Yuugi.

Okay, so here’s the story: Rika is a shy girl who transferred to a new school. The class’s princess, Hachiya Ai, befriended her. Rika felt that she finally found her place at school, but actually, Ai wanted to turn her into the class’s pet dog AKA bullying target.

Rika’s life became hell after that. However, another girl called Yuu felt bad for her and helped her out. Yuu knew that she would be the next target, but her childhood friend and crush, Hayato, promised to help her out. When push comes to shove, though, both Hayato and Rika, whom Yuu helped before, betrayed her.

Yuu then got molested by her classmates on a daily basis. The homeroom teacher of the neighboring class, Norose, noticed that and tried to help her out. However, somebody snapped a shot of him comforting the stripped Yuu, and so he was laid off for sexually harassing a minor.

Here’s the thing. Before Rika transferred in, the “dog” was a girl name Sorano Maria (*Higanbana flashback intensifies*) AKA Sora. She jumped off the school building to commit suicide because of Ai’s bullying, but people brushed it off as an accident. Her homeroom teacher Momoko felt so bad and built a psychological wall, only recognizing her students as ‘angels’ and denying all evidence that pointed otherwise. Norose could not get through, and neither can another girl in the class, Naname, who vowed to fight Ai’s manipulation.

Naname tried to bring the class to justice and save her best friend Yuu, but almost got killed on multiple occasions by her classmates. She finally got the cooperation of another boy, Kenta. He showed Naname to a mechanical box that contained Sora’s final words. The box had a cassette tape that contained Sora’s voice recording, as well as the voices of everyone as they bullied her. It also contained a drawing book where Sora recorded her life in hell in the form of a manga, titled “There is an Angel Buried Behind the School Building.”

Naname found out that Izumi, a boy who helped her one time when she almost got killed, was Kenta’s friend and was the boy Sora took the brunt of the bullying to protect. Sora called him her “Peter Pan”, and they vowed to go to Neverland together (ie. jump off the roof). However, Izumi let go of her hand last minute, and Sora fell alone.

Naname gave the tape recording to Meshiro, a teacher who substituted for Norose. Meshiro had a discussion with Norose about the bullying and decided to confront the teacher Momoko directly. While Meshiro played the tape to Momoko so that she would be disillusioned from thinking that Ai is an angel, Naname took a copy of the tape and confronted Ai herself. Izumi, trying to atone for what he did to Sora, came and saved Naname from getting stabbed by Seki, Ai’s “prince” and right hand man. The two fought and were critically injured. Naname went on to confront Ai alone, and after blabbering some nonsense, Ai grabbed Naname, and the two fell into a large hole together.

One of Ai’s lackeys set fire to the building they were in, and after witnessing the students’ crazed behaviors, the teachers finally realized these kids were not angels at all. Momoko, disillusioned, went in to save her kids. She managed to save Seki and Izumi from the crumbling building, but got killed in the process.

After Ai’s disappearance, the class finally went back to being decent human beings and atoning for their sins. Meshiro became the class’s new teacher, replacing Momoko. Norose’s name was cleared, and he went back to teaching. Izumi and Seki made it back alive. Rika saved Naname’s life during one occasion and freed herself from the oppression. Hayato, after a period of becoming a dog himself, learned to stand up for other people, but his relationship with Yuu was already irreparable. Yuu made an emotional recovery and went to see Naname, who made it out alive and just woke up from her coma.

Forward three years later, Yuu and Naname entered the same middle school. The same bullying shit happened but on a larger scale and with different people. Now there’s murder involved. This dude has a massive crush on Ai when they were kids (and was also her murder accomplice), and so he had a sexual relationship with an girl who’s Ai’s look-a-like. However, he killed her because she was promiscuous, and wanted to kill Naname to get revenge for what she did to Ai (which was nothing. Naname didn’t kill Ai. Ai almost killed Naname, even). Izumi, Kenta, and Rika, along with a few other former classmates helped Naname out and ended the deal. The manga ended with Naname and Izumi getting on better terms, and Kenta and Rika warming up to each other.

However, two years later as the gang entered high school, it seemed Ai somehow came back to life and was about to enter the same high school.

And that’s the part where I go WTF, can’t you just let this bitch die already?

Yeah so I have mixed feelings about this manga. It was a page-turner from start to end, and was well-drawn with an interesting story full of twists and turns. On the other hand, I constantly went: holy shit, are fourth graders capable of this kind of shit? They tried to murder their classmates. I don’t doubt that it’s possible (my fourth grade friends once ganged up on a boy in class. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard everyone stomped him like that scene in JoJo part 5), but wow. One other thing was that I feel that it shouldn’t end on a sequel bait. The ending was cathartic but when I saw the last page, I was like fuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

I actually wanted to see how the author would deal with Hayato, who betrayed his crush Yuu and allow her to get molested in grade school despite promising to go through everything together. The story kinda left him out, and implied that he just went on to live his own life. He didn’t return to help Naname and Yuu during middle school. I think that might be for the best? Ai didn’t get a redemption arc either, and I didn’t think she deserved one. There was this scene where she laid out her motive for pushing her classmates to the brink of suicide as simply as ‘I want to see them struggle before they die.’ I was like, well shit, there’s no saving this one.

I used to be bullied. One time in kindergarten, another time in elementary school. My friends were also bullied. Most of the time, it ended with the bully breaking down crying when we actually stood up to them. However, in this manga, Ai is infallible. There’s no way to defeat her the normal route, and that’s what makes her a terrifying antagonist.

Although the focus shifted from Rika to Naname, Rika did get her redemption. She refused to kill Naname and broke away from the bullying by her own will, later helping other people out. Another one was Izumi, who let Sora die alone when bullying was at the worst. He managed to move on and live, helping other people as he went, knowing full well that he could never atone for what he did.

I think this is a pretty good manga, but be aware that the content is very heavy and might not be for everyone. I had to skip over some pages because they were just too much. This review is getting a bit too long so I’ll end here. Hope you enjoyed reading.