Blood on the tracks is a really twisted horror manga. It follows Seiichi, a shy and awkward teenager who has an incredibly overprotective mother, Seiko. After Seiichi’s cousin started to mock his relationship with his mother in the first volume while on a family trip in the middle of the woods, Seiko pushed him off a cliff top, to what you’d assume would be his death. Well volume two starts with a twist that he survived, but he’s massively injured and is in a coma.

I really felt sorry for Seiichi, as he’s left in the impossible spot, not knowing what to do. He can’t tell people that he saw his mother hurt his cousin because, if people even believe him, he would lose her but he wants to do the right thing. She’s very manipulating of him, and he’s completely dependent on her. Even when the pair are alone in a brief sequence, they don’t talk about it at all. You can tell he wants to know why she did it, but he can’t bring himself to ask.

Seiichi’s inner turmoil is very present throughout the story, with long sequences where he’s expected to answer simple questions where he just can’t. The art style reflects this. It’s manic, and there’s so little text throughout the entire volume, so it’s easy to absolutely fly through it in one sitting. Normally it would feel like a rip-off when you by a manga that can be read so quickly, but it works perfectly for the story and the art is so great throughout that it makes up for it. It’s also completely page turning and you can’t wait for the next big reveal and that makes you read it even faster.

Blood on the Tracks is simply messed up and the way volume two ends is somehow even more messed up than when it began. It leaves a really unsettling feeling in your stomach as the story continues, but you have to know more. Seiko is a demented character and I can’t wait to pick up volume three and start reading straight away.

Thanks for reading! If you liked my review, please subscribe to never miss a post: