Creator: Setona Mizushiro
U.S. publisher: Go! Comi
ISBN: 9781933617626
Released: April 2008
Original release: 2007

After School Nightmare, and more specifically the first few volumes of the series, was my introduction to the manga of Setona Mizushiro. The beginning of the series left a strong impression on me, so I sought out more of her work released in English, namely X-Day and more recently Black Rose Alice. But for a very long time, I didn’t ready any further in After School Nightmare. The manga is a dark psychological drama with elements of the fantastic, which is a type of story that I tend to enjoy, but some of the series’ themes could occasionally hit uncomfortably close to home. I have since found the courage to read the rest of After School Nightmare and so far have continued to find the series to be both engrossing and disconcerting. After School Nightmare, Volume 7 was first published in Japan in 2007. The English-language edition, now out-of-print, was released by Go! Comi in 2008.

After rejecting Sou and after his breakup with Kureha, Mashiro now finds himself more alone than ever. The distance between himself and others is made even more painfully clear when the relationship between Kureha and Sou, once rivals in love, begins to deepen. At first they merely commiserate with each other, having both been hurt by Mashiro, but eventually they become very close. Meanwhile, Mashiro is struggling to come to terms with the confusion and turmoil of his feelings, and his identity, on his own. Physically, his body has both male and female characteristics, but for his entire life Mashiro has striven to be seen and accepted as a man. More recently, however, his desire to express himself as a girl has grown. One of the reasons that Mashiro refused to recognize his developing feelings for Sou, seeking refuge in his relationship with Kureha, was that he was trying to deny this feminine part of himself. However, that avenue of escape may no longer be an option for him.

While Mashiro is the lead character in After School Nightmare and much of the manga’s focus in on his personal struggles and growth, both Kureha and Sou have major roles to play as well. After School Nightmare, Volume 7 reveals more about them and their unfortunate family circumstances than ever before. Surprisingly, Kureha actually returns home to visit her parents for a time, though she still harbors ill-feelings towards them due to the trauma she suffered in the past. The exact nature of the unpleasant ordeals that Sou has lived through and has never quite recovered from are exposed in the volume as well. Mizushiro isn’t afraid to go in some very dark directions with After School Nightmare. Many if not most of the characters are dealing with the lasting repercussions of abuse, whether it be mental, physical, emotional, sexual, or some combination of the four. Perhaps even more tragically, at times this maltreatment is even self-inflicted.

In addition to Sou and Kureha, there is another character whose backstory is specifically explored in After School Nightmare, Volume 7—Koichiro Kurosaki, Mashiro and Sou’s upperclassman from the kendo club. Throughout the series, Koichiro has been something of a cipher. He comes across as well-adjusted and mature, but also distant and reserved. Frequently Mashiro comes to him seeking advice and Koichiro, calm and collected, provides guidance seemingly without judgement. However, in the seventh volume, it is revealed that he, too, is struggling with his own family problems and personal issues. Koichiro’s very careful in how he presents himself, but his vaguely unsettling cool exterior is a cover for a much more troubled and darker personality. Because he has earned the respect and trust of others, Koichiro is in a position to inflict some truly significant harm should he choose or allow himself to do so. This sort of intense, psychological drama in After School Nightmare is part of what makes the series so chilling.

Creator: Setona Mizushiro
U.S. publisher: Go! Comi
ISBN: 9781933617480
Released: January 2008
Original release: 2006

The sixth volume of the manga series After School Nightmare, an intense and dark psychological drama by Setona Mizushiro, was originally published in Japan in 2006. The English-language edition of After School Nightmare, Volume 6 was released by Go! Comi in 2008. Go! Comi is no more, so the entire series has gone out-of-print, but the manga still seems to be relatively easy to find. After School Nightmare is a series that honestly disturbs me, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since in part it’s a horror manga. But while I find After School Nightmare to be disconcerting, I also find it to be oddly compelling. Mizushiro deals with some heavy issues in the series, including emotional, psychological, and physical abuse, trauma, and violence. The search for personal identity and the roles that gender and sexuality play in defining who a person is are major themes as well. In fact, it was those themes that first drew After School Nightmare to my attention.

Despite some lingering doubts, Mashiro made the decision to give up on his feelings for Sou in favor of his feelings for Kureha. Sadly for him, things aren’t turning out how he would have liked at all. Tying his masculinity to her insecurities, Mashiro wanted to feel needed by Kureha, to become her white knight and protector. But now Kureha is beginning to feel more confident in herself and trying to rely less on Mashiro. Suddenly finding himself without an acceptable role to play in their relationship, and no longer being able to meet the established though self-imposed requirements of what it means to be a man, Mashiro is thrown into turmoil. In the past he presented himself as a prince who would rescue those who were weaker than him, but it’s help that is no longer wanted nor needed. Just when he thought that he had everything finally figured out, Mashiro finds his relationships falling apart because they were built on his own insecurities and fears. He is desperate to be seen as a man by others and at the same time is terrified by the fact that he also yearns to express his femininity.

Most of After School Nightmare takes place in one of three settings: the school grounds, the dormitories associated with the school, and the shared nightmares of the students participating in the special after school class required for their graduation. Granted, it’s not graduation in the usual sense. The students who successfully complete the course completely disappear from the campus and from the memories of those left behind, almost as if they never existed at all. The mysteries surrounding what it really means to graduate combined with the story’s limited settings create a marvelously ominous and claustrophobic atmosphere. As a result, when the series breaks from that narrow focus, it can be especially unsettling. In the sixth volume, for what I believe is the first time in After School Nightmare, a truly significant scene occurs away from the school entirely, which serves to emphasize Mashiro’s reluctance to deal with his issues head on. But it’s a moment of false freedom; he won’t be able to run away from his problems indefinitely without there being negative consequences.

The nightmares in After School Nightmare are intended to be an environment in which the students can work through their personal traumas and fears, but the participants are simultaneously stripped of many of their defenses and left incredibly vulnerable within the dreams as well. In theory, what happens in the dreams is meant to remain private and not to carry over into the waking world, but in practice that is rarely ever the case. Even so, most of Mashiro’s growth and maturation is thanks to those nightmares. It’s not until After School Nightmare, Volume 6 that he’s forced to really begin to recognize outside of them how selfish and self-centered his relationships with other people have been, how he’s using them to make himself feel better about himself, and how his actions affect others. In many ways, Mashiro’s waking life is just as much of a fantasy as the dreams he is made to share with his classmates, and both reality and nightmares can be troubling and traumatic. However, it’s the nightmares that are the more truthful and honest even though they can also be highly symbolic and strange. In the end, as horrifying as the dreams are, the denial and insidious falsehoods of reality may ultimately be the more damaging.

Creator: Setona Mizushiro
U.S. publisher: Go! Comi
ISBN: 9781933617473
Released: October 2007
Original release: 2006

After School Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro is a manga series that I honestly find disconcerting, so much so that even though I also find it compelling, I could never bring myself to read past the first few volumes until recently. The manga is a dark and intense psychological drama dealing with issues of abuse, gender, and personal identity. Despite being a series that is quite obviously fantasy-horror, some of the themes actually hit fairly close to home for me. Mizushiro has skillfully crafted a chilling setting and ominous atmosphere for After School Nightmare in which to explore both nightmares and reality. The ten-volume series was published in English by the now defunct Go! Comi and so is sadly out-of-print, but it seems to still be fairly easy to find. After School Nightmare, Volume 5 was first published in Japan in 2006 while the English translation was released in 2007. The series reaches its halfway point with this volume, but the intensity of the drama and psychological horror shows no sign of letting up anytime soon.

After having let his feelings be pulled one way and then another, Mashiro has made his decision: In order to live as a man he has rejected Sou and his aggressive advances in favor of his girlfriend Kureha. Mashiro tells himself that it’s because Kureha is the one who needs him the most, never considering that Sou might need him, too. Ultimately though, Mashiro’s decision is a selfish one and not nearly as gallant as he would like to believe or portray. Although he has been living as a boy for most of his life, he is still incredibly insecure in his gender identity, mostly due to the fact that his body has both male and female characteristics. By dating Kureha and by becoming her self-proclaimed guardian and protector, Mashiro hopes to unequivocally establish his masculinity for himself and for others, something he doesn’t believe would be possible if he recognized having feelings for another guy. But even though Mashiro has made his decision, he still has lingering doubts.

Many of the characters in After School Nightmare are broken, damaged, or incomplete individuals who are attempting to put the pieces of their lives together to form, or reform, some sort of whole. That is part of the purpose of the titular after school nightmare—a special class that, through shared dreams, forces them to confront their greatest fears and in the process reveal them to the other students as they all try to determine who they really are as people. It can actually be quite painful and heart-wrenching to witness the events unfold both within the nightmares and outside of them; truly terrible and horrifying things occur that strongly influence the characters’ physical, mental, and emotional well-being. At this point in the series Mashiro’s personal struggles and torments are the ones about which the most is known, but After School Nightmare, Volume 5 begins to reveal more about Sou’s tragedies which previously had largely only been hinted at.

From the beginning of After School Nightmare, Sou has been shown to be one of the strongest and most assertive characters in the series which is why seeing him in such a vulnerable state in the fifth volume is especially distressing. Sou is an unlikeable person in many ways—among other things showing a shocking lack of respect for Mashiro, the person he supposedly loves—but I can’t help but feel some empathy for him as he is caught up in multiple extremely unhealthy and manipulative relationships. And he’s not always the one doing the manipulating; his relationship with his sister and the control she seem to have over him is particularly troubling. Mashiro’s rejection hits Sou hard, too, certainly much harder than either of them really expected. At first Sou reacts in anger, but ultimately he tries to lives in forced denial of his feelings. Considering how the rest of After School Nightmare has progressed so far, I don’t anticipate that this method of coping will turn out well for any of the people involved.

Creator: Setona Mizushiro
U.S. publisher: Go! Comi
ISBN: 9781933617336
Released: July 2007
Original release: 2006

Setona Mizushiro’s After School Nightmare is a ten-volume manga series, an intense psychological drama that explores issues of gender identity and sexuality in a fantastical sort of way. The manga incorporates elements of horror and is an effectively disconcerting work. Up until now, I had only ever read the first three volumes of After School Nightmare. Those volumes, initially borrowed from the library, left a significant impression on me and I immediately sought out a complete set of the entire series for my own. (Fortunately, though out-of-print in English, After School Nightmare is still relatively easy to find.) But while I found the start of the series to be compelling, years passed before I was able to gather the courage to read more of the manga. After School Nightmare, Volume 4 was first published in Japan in 2006 while Go! Comi released the English-language edition in 2007.

Mashiro is conflicted and confused, no longer certain of who he is as a person and struggling to determine just that. The special class that he must complete in order to graduate isn’t doing anything to ease his personal turmoil. In fact, it’s forcing him to confront his insecurities and fears. But the class is also making him stronger, encouraging him to face his feelings head on both inside the shared dreams of the class and outside of them. This also means facing Sou and his relentless advances without running away. While Mashiro is becoming more confident, he is also opening himself up to Sou’s aggressiveness and influence. Matters become even more complicated when their classmate Shinbashi witnesses them sharing a kiss. Shinbashi is in love with Mashiro’s girlfriend Kureha and cares for her more deeply than her boyfriend seems to. After seeing Sou and Mashiro together, Shinbashi mistakenly assumes Mashiro’s indecisiveness in his relationship with Kureha is due to his sexual orientation, never guessing that Mashiro’s true struggle is with his gender identity.

Shinbashi has been an increasingly important character in After School Nightmare ever since he was introduced in the second volume, but the role he plays in the fourth volume is absolutely crucial. At this point in the series it doesn’t seem as though any of the characters will get a happy ending, and Shinbashi is no exception. While he may not be dealing with the repercussions of extreme physical, emotional, and mental abuse like those experienced by his fellow classmates, his story is still a tragic one. Shinbashi has become a friend and confidante of sorts to both Mashiro, who ought to be something more like a rival, and Kureha, despite her fear and hatred of men. It’s heartbreaking to see that because Kureha’s aversion is so severe, she and Shinbashi can only communicate through their cell phones; she can’t even stand to be in the same room with him. And while by nature Shinbashi is passive, he loves Kureha completely and would do anything for her, even to the point of self-destruction.

A large part of After School Nightmare is focused on Mashiro’s search for self identity and how that identity is effected by the people around him and influenced by their relationships with him. Mashiro’s friendship with Shinbashi is a rather peculiar one that, oddly enough, somehow works. Where Shinbashi is self-sacrificing to a fault, Mashiro is incredibly self-centered, so concerned with and tangled up in his own problems that he often forgets to take into consideration how his actions may hurt others. An interesting thing about After School Nightmare is that while very few of the characters are easily likeable, I still find that I can empathize with them and can even identify with some of their plights. After School Nightmare continues to be an unsettling work with an intense and ominous atmosphere—I wouldn’t hesitate at all to describe it as a type of quiet, psychological horror—but there are occasional glimmers of hope that at least some of the characters will be able to overcome their troubles and fears.

Creator: Setona Mizushiro
U.S. publisher: Go! Comi
ISBN: 9781933617244
Released: April 2007
Original release: 2005

After School Nightmare is a ten-volume manga series created by Setona Mizushiro which has prominent psychological elements and an unsettling atmosphere. The series is currently out-of-print in English, but fortunately most of the volumes are still relatively easy to find. I initially read the first few volumes of After School Nightmare after borrowing them from my local library and made a point to collect the entire series based on the impression left on me by the early part of the manga alone. However, I never actually read any further than the third volume, in part because I found the series to be so effectively disconcerting (which I don’t necessarily consider to be a bad thing, especially for what could be considered a horror manga) and because some of the themes in the series are pretty hard-hitting and true-to-life, even if they are explored in a fantastic way. After School Nightmare, Volume 3 was originally published in Japan in 2005. The sadly now defunct Go! Comi released the English-language edition of the volume in 2007.

Every Thursday, Mashiro and a small group of other students attend a special class after school required for their graduation. In it they enter one another’s dreams, taking on forms representative of their true selves and forced to face the darkness that resides in their hearts. Many of these forms are so unlike the students’ appearances in their waking lives that it’s often impossible to know for certain who is who. At least that was true before Itsuki Shinonome joined the class. The youngest student at the school and a genius with an incredible intellect, he is prepared to leverage that privileged information in any way that he can in order to leave high school behind as quickly as possible. Knowing that Mashiro is desperate to uncover the identity of the student who takes on the form of the Black Knight in the dreams, Itsuki makes him a deal. In return for Mashiro helping and protecting him, as well as closely following his orders, Itsuki will reveal the name of the student who is the Black Knight, but only after he is able to complete the class.

Over the last few volumes of After School Nightmare Mashiro has become increasingly obsessed with the identity of the Black Knight, and with good reason. He was assaulted by the Black Knight within the dreams and suspects that the knight may be the same person as Sou, another student who has been very forceful about his feelings for Mashiro. Mashiro wants to confirm whether or not his suspicion is correct, but he hasn’t really completely thought through what he will do with that information once he knows the truth or fully considered exactly how having that knowledge will change him. Already Mashiro finds himself thinking more and more about Sou—the thin line between hate and love becoming blurred to an even greater extent—and this has had major impacts on Mashiro’s other relationships, particularly on the one with his girlfriend Kureha. Something that Mizushiro has done especially well in After School Nightmare is capture the complexities and turmoil of interpersonal relationships and how they affect one another.

Through the genre of dark, psychological fantasy, After School Nightmare touches upon issues related to identity, gender, and sexuality. Although all three can be closely intertwined, gender specifically is frequently at the forefront of Mashiro’s mind since his body has both male and female characteristics. He is so concerned about being seen as a man by others that he immediately rejects anything feminine about himself, blaming that side of him for all of his weaknesses instead of taking full responsibility for his actions and feelings. But as Itsuki points out, girls have to deal with plenty of challenges and unfair situations every day of their lives; simply existing within society requires and demands incredible strength from them. Mashiro’s attitude towards gender roles in the first two volumes of After School Nightmare was very traditional, so I’m glad to see his rigid assumptions and beliefs being shaken up a bit. Of course, this will force him to completely reevaluate who he is as a person, which will be a difficult and perhaps even traumatic process, especially as he was already struggling with establishing and accepting his own identity.