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The Drifting Classroom #7
The Drifting Classroom, Vol. 7
A flash flood turns the desert into a drowned world, and the students struggle to protect the school--and their precious vegetable garden--from the deluge. But just as the first vegetables are ready to harvest, the crop is infested with a strange fungus. Was all their work for nothing? Lonely for home and their parents, the students make a surrogate mother out of a statue...only to find it replaced one day by a new, terrifying idol...
192 pages, Paperback
First published August 21, 2007
7 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
Kazuo Umezu
131 books305 followersKazuo Umezu or Kazuo Umezz was a Japanese manga artist, musician and actor. Starting his career in the 1950s, he is among the most famous artists of horror manga and has been vital for its development, considered the "god of horror manga". In 1960s shōjo manga like Reptilia, he broke the industry's conventions by combining the aesthetics of the commercial manga industry with gruesome visual imagery inspired by Japanese folktales, which created a boom of horror manga and influenced manga artists of following generations. He created successful manga series such as The Drifting Classroom, Makoto-chan and My Name Is Shingo, until he retired from drawing manga in the mid 1990s. He was a public figure in Japan, known for wearing red-and-white-striped shirts and doing his signature "Gwash" hand gesture.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
July 24, 2023
Another great volume.
The story continues, more events keep happening even though the school is isolated in the future we find ourselves always with a story and always with a new predicament for the children
This volume we read about the fungus mushroom event, the kids are worshipping takamatsu's mom, the kids who ate the mushroom worshipping the one eyed god.
A one eyed monster attack.
And after his recovery sekiya is going to take over the school again next volume.
2021 Read.
The story continues, more events keep happening even though the school is isolated in the future we find ourselves always with a story and always with a new predicament for the children
This volume we read about the fungus mushroom event, the kids are worshipping takamatsu's mom, the kids who ate the mushroom worshipping the one eyed god.
A one eyed monster attack.
And after his recovery sekiya is going to take over the school again next volume.
2021 Read.
April 24, 2022
I have just three words for this volume
Amusing, bizarre, and insane
Yes all at once.
Amusing, bizarre, and insane
Yes all at once.
September 19, 2011
So far these kids have endured the following: The transportation of their elementary school to some future wasteland. A maniacal cafeteria worker. Homicidal teachers. Mass suicide among first graders. A giant bug that laid eggs that created little bugs. Pre-adolescent power struggles -- and those can get nasty. Bubonic plague.
Did I leave anything out? I must have.
In this installment, the rain that allowed their garden to grow brought with it a proliferation of mushrooms. Are they edible? Those who eat them experience strange feelings of power followed by dementia. The kids decide they should pray for help, and in one of the most non-American moments so far, one child asks, "Who should we pray to?" They settle on a bust our hero, Sho, made of his mother in art class. Meanwhile the mushroom eaters make a one-eyed idol of mud who proves to be the more receptive deity and manifests itself as a tentacled monster.
Umezu's drawings are the most storyboard-like of any of the manga artists I've read. His action sequences, consisting almost entirely of dark pages with kids grappling, shattering wood, raised weapons, and close-ups of kids shout "aaaargh" and "gyaaah" are genuinely exciting in their own ridiculous way. When Yoshikawa, formerly one of the good kids, eats mushrooms and goes down on all fours to scurry out of the schoolyard to her new god, it is genuinely creepy. Takamatsu, the cafeteria man, who has gone from a threat to a retarded man child, and now back to an incredible danger, looks like a deranged, overweight Desi Arnaz. Now that's the very essence of horror.
Did I leave anything out? I must have.
In this installment, the rain that allowed their garden to grow brought with it a proliferation of mushrooms. Are they edible? Those who eat them experience strange feelings of power followed by dementia. The kids decide they should pray for help, and in one of the most non-American moments so far, one child asks, "Who should we pray to?" They settle on a bust our hero, Sho, made of his mother in art class. Meanwhile the mushroom eaters make a one-eyed idol of mud who proves to be the more receptive deity and manifests itself as a tentacled monster.
Umezu's drawings are the most storyboard-like of any of the manga artists I've read. His action sequences, consisting almost entirely of dark pages with kids grappling, shattering wood, raised weapons, and close-ups of kids shout "aaaargh" and "gyaaah" are genuinely exciting in their own ridiculous way. When Yoshikawa, formerly one of the good kids, eats mushrooms and goes down on all fours to scurry out of the schoolyard to her new god, it is genuinely creepy. Takamatsu, the cafeteria man, who has gone from a threat to a retarded man child, and now back to an incredible danger, looks like a deranged, overweight Desi Arnaz. Now that's the very essence of horror.
June 27, 2020
In this volume strange mushrooms begin to pop up all over the school's vegetable garden, and whoever eats the mushrooms...changes. Then we see another monster appear who is somehow connected to the mushrooms. This series never fails to surprise.
July 6, 2024
mmm I don't know I wouldn't have eaten those mushrooms but that's just me
May 25, 2016
Crazier and crazier. So now we encounter the widespread effects of mushroom eating, which leads to. . . religion, apparently, and a cult following by the mushroom eaters (now and forever The Bad Kids) of a one-eyed mud idol who becomes a chthulu-tentacled monster. Our dwindling but resourceful group of Good Kids decide THEIR god will be a bust of Sho's mother that Sho had made in Art class.
Anyway, the kids developed a kind of government, so now they decided they needed religion, and gods to pray to for help. This is a little children's bat-shit crazy microcosmic representation of society set in the dystopian future. Can the kids do better than their ancestors? Not so far they can't, but there's a core group of Good Kids who may be able to pull it off…. but this is in the horror genre, so I have my doubts.
It would seem this volume anticipates a Monsanto critique: The mushrooms The Bad Kids eat seem to derive from some kind of synthetic protein, which is not good of course compared to the good and healthy organic veggies the Good Kids have been growing and eating. The bad synthetic mushrooms turn kids into zombie-like creatures. Don't eat these, is the moral about these morels!
Bad Kids make insane decisions all the time, impulsively, frantically, manically. Good Kids are resourceful, keep a level head, think things through carefully.
News on another front: Sekiya the once insane cafeteria worker who became docile and infantile and locked in a kid's locker now gets hit on the head and is once again his old evil self. Watch out, volume eight readers!
Anyway, the kids developed a kind of government, so now they decided they needed religion, and gods to pray to for help. This is a little children's bat-shit crazy microcosmic representation of society set in the dystopian future. Can the kids do better than their ancestors? Not so far they can't, but there's a core group of Good Kids who may be able to pull it off…. but this is in the horror genre, so I have my doubts.
It would seem this volume anticipates a Monsanto critique: The mushrooms The Bad Kids eat seem to derive from some kind of synthetic protein, which is not good of course compared to the good and healthy organic veggies the Good Kids have been growing and eating. The bad synthetic mushrooms turn kids into zombie-like creatures. Don't eat these, is the moral about these morels!
Bad Kids make insane decisions all the time, impulsively, frantically, manically. Good Kids are resourceful, keep a level head, think things through carefully.
News on another front: Sekiya the once insane cafeteria worker who became docile and infantile and locked in a kid's locker now gets hit on the head and is once again his old evil self. Watch out, volume eight readers!
September 25, 2021
2.5
(Spoilers only because the images are large.)
Saki, their savior!
Later on in this volume ...
Or ... maybe not.
😂😂😂
Sometimes this series is unintentionally hilarious.
(Spoilers only because the images are large.)
Saki, their savior!
Later on in this volume ...
Or ... maybe not.
😂😂😂
Sometimes this series is unintentionally hilarious.
August 1, 2022
Just when you thought things couldn't get worse... they do in every single way.
I mean, totally bonkers volume with mushroom-induced cult formation and an old friend being "revived" to cause even more trouble. Oh boy what could be next.
I mean, totally bonkers volume with mushroom-induced cult formation and an old friend being "revived" to cause even more trouble. Oh boy what could be next.
August 19, 2016
You know a book was written in the 1970s when it features schoolchildren getting high on magic mushrooms and worshipping a one-eyed god. Only four volumes to go and still no end in sight to the hysteria and madness.
May 12, 2014
Now, the whole series thus far has been....strange, so it sounds weird to say this, but it just took a turn for the really weird.
And why won't the lunch guy just die?!?!
And why won't the lunch guy just die?!?!
July 29, 2022
The problem seems to be never ending and every second you find yourself deeper into that shit!!!
How do these young kids have so much self control if not all then some and how will they go back..
How do these young kids have so much self control if not all then some and how will they go back..
August 19, 2021
This is a review of the entire series!
For Sho Takamatsu, it seemed to be an ordinary day of school like any other. In the aftermath of a sudden earthquake, his entire elementary school vanishes into thin air along with all the students and teachers that were trapped inside. The earthquake seemed to be so powerful that it caused a ripple in time, projecting the school into a dark and bleak wasteland where nothing but death, mutants and mind-breaking anomalies await. Sho takes on the role of the leader, trying to keep the other children safe from harm while searching for a way back home.
The Drifting Classroom takes things at a very slow pace. The horror elements don't even begin to seep in until several volumes into the series. While it starts off slow and does drag a bit in places, I think every volume is better than the previous. It took me a while to get into it but I really started to feel invested once I saw the bigger picture of what it was trying to portray.
While the dialogue and reactions of the characters seems a bit clunky and unrealistic at times, it's important to remember that many of the characters are extremely young elementary school students. Most of them haven't even learned how to talk properly let alone think themselves out of life or death situations. Watching children so young and vulnerable get thrown into one nightmare after the other led to some very intense chapters that didn't shy away from showing little kids being brutally murdered, eaten and smashed to pieces. It might not start out scary, but each volume escalates the horror, the violence and the stakes. As hundreds of children are driven mad with fear, hunger and isolation with no adults to care for them, it's only a matter of time until they begin to turn on each other as well. These kids can give the children in Lord of the Flies a run for their money once their minds start to break.
Some smaller things such as the art quality and the sometimes stagnant way the characters and their reactions are drawn feel off-putting and even a bit silly at times, but it's important to remember that this is one of the pioneers of horror manga, written all the way back in 1971. Devilman is another great manga that has some of the same issues. They're both great series, but you can tell they were written during the experimental phase of manga when they were just beginning to find their way into mainstream entertainment. Though certain aspects of The Drifting Classroom haven't aged that well, it was surprisingly ahead of its time in other ways. As the story progresses, it begins to tackle the themes of overindulgent consumerism, industrial pollution, and the greed of one generation causing major issues for the next generation. It goes into dark detail about how every little action we take that harms the planet hurts future generations of children far more than it hurts any of us.
For Sho Takamatsu, it seemed to be an ordinary day of school like any other. In the aftermath of a sudden earthquake, his entire elementary school vanishes into thin air along with all the students and teachers that were trapped inside. The earthquake seemed to be so powerful that it caused a ripple in time, projecting the school into a dark and bleak wasteland where nothing but death, mutants and mind-breaking anomalies await. Sho takes on the role of the leader, trying to keep the other children safe from harm while searching for a way back home.
The Drifting Classroom takes things at a very slow pace. The horror elements don't even begin to seep in until several volumes into the series. While it starts off slow and does drag a bit in places, I think every volume is better than the previous. It took me a while to get into it but I really started to feel invested once I saw the bigger picture of what it was trying to portray.
While the dialogue and reactions of the characters seems a bit clunky and unrealistic at times, it's important to remember that many of the characters are extremely young elementary school students. Most of them haven't even learned how to talk properly let alone think themselves out of life or death situations. Watching children so young and vulnerable get thrown into one nightmare after the other led to some very intense chapters that didn't shy away from showing little kids being brutally murdered, eaten and smashed to pieces. It might not start out scary, but each volume escalates the horror, the violence and the stakes. As hundreds of children are driven mad with fear, hunger and isolation with no adults to care for them, it's only a matter of time until they begin to turn on each other as well. These kids can give the children in Lord of the Flies a run for their money once their minds start to break.
Some smaller things such as the art quality and the sometimes stagnant way the characters and their reactions are drawn feel off-putting and even a bit silly at times, but it's important to remember that this is one of the pioneers of horror manga, written all the way back in 1971. Devilman is another great manga that has some of the same issues. They're both great series, but you can tell they were written during the experimental phase of manga when they were just beginning to find their way into mainstream entertainment. Though certain aspects of The Drifting Classroom haven't aged that well, it was surprisingly ahead of its time in other ways. As the story progresses, it begins to tackle the themes of overindulgent consumerism, industrial pollution, and the greed of one generation causing major issues for the next generation. It goes into dark detail about how every little action we take that harms the planet hurts future generations of children far more than it hurts any of us.
June 16, 2023
Momen menyeramkan yang ada di volume ini, salah satunya, adalah ketika beberapa siswa memakan jamur mutan yang tumbuh di kebun sekolah. Efek setelah memakan jamur tersebut adalah mereka jadi bertingkah aneh dan bahkan ada yang mendirikan sekte untuk menyembah patung si mata satu yang mereka anggap dewa.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2024
I think there are 4 more volumes left before I finish this series.
Sho once again tries his best to keep almost everyone alive.
I read the reviews and most found this series amusing.
I found many of the kids' behaviors annoying but I understand.
If I was stuck in their situation, I would've gone insane in the first volume.
Sho once again tries his best to keep almost everyone alive.
I read the reviews and most found this series amusing.
I found many of the kids' behaviors annoying but I understand.
If I was stuck in their situation, I would've gone insane in the first volume.
April 12, 2020
I think I've finally burned out on this series. Just the way the girls are treated and the violent ways adults treat the kids, along with the lack of plot is just not enough despite the interesting monsters.
February 12, 2022
As if this couldn’t get any more bizarre, now all the mushroom eating students have turned into a zombie-like cult who worships an one-eyed monster. Sekiya, the deranged cafeteria worker is now back to terrorizing the kids.
June 16, 2023
The manga just keeps finding ways of making the problems the kids go through and the solutions they find believable and interesting.
The whole stuff with the mushrooms, the cult and the one-eyed God was just... so good.
The whole stuff with the mushrooms, the cult and the one-eyed God was just... so good.
June 9, 2018
This is lord of the flies but more twisted
September 8, 2019
Must buy all volumes
August 11, 2020
3.5 ★
October 18, 2020
Definetly the most interesting park of this story so far!!
February 13, 2021
"Our mission is to convert everyone to the church of the cyclops! Now kneel and pray!"
June 27, 2022
4.5/5
January 14, 2024
scary shit
July 25, 2011
Here we go! After a couple of... I hesitate to say "lesser" but maybe kind of same-y installments, we get crazy mushrooms, weird cults, and mutant monsters, all in one volume! This may be my favorite volume of this series, which has basically been incredible from the word go. That may be because I love weird mushrooms, but I also love mutant monsters and weird cults, so I win on every level here!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 3, 2015
I obviously don't hate this series but jeez I just want to know how it ends at this point. It's not my favorite but the story is compelling enough for me to continue to grab at the library.
September 25, 2014
A tiny sign of hope brings disaster and seeds mistrust and body horror. One of the better volumes so far.
August 27, 2016
The plot never stops and only thickens in this series. Love it.
September 26, 2016
This books's summary: The students get high on mushrooms and they worship a deity in the shape of an eye 10/10 would not read again
Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews