My Dearest Self With Malice Aforethought, Vol. 1

親愛なる僕へ殺意をこめて [Shinai Naru Boku e Satsui wo Komete] #1

by Hajime Inoryu, Shōta Itō (Artist)

Eiji the college-age virgin dreams of someday having a girlfriend... until he wakes up one day with his "girlfriend" in his bed with him! Not only that, his buddy tells him he got in a fight... and that three days have passed that Eiji doesn't remember? What dark secrets are being hidden... by Eiji himself?

Genres: Manga, Horror, Thriller, Mystery, Seinen, Comics, Crime

226 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 6, 2018

Reviews

[Fátima Linhares · Rating 4 out of 5]

Não sei bem o que escrever sobre isto, mas fiquei intrigada e vou ler o segundo volume. O livro começa de uma forma um pouco confusa e acho que ainda há muito para descobrir, afinal, são onze volumes

[Urbon Adamsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

PT Já tinha algum tempo que queria começar esta série, mas costumo evitar iniciar novas leituras enquanto ainda tenho volumes em atraso de outras que sigo. Desta vez, porém, decidi avançar — e ainda bem que o fiz.

A obra correspondeu plenamente às minhas expectativas: muita tensão e mistério num manga para adultos (seinen), com cenas de violência e algum erotismo.

O protagonista é Eiji Urashima, filho de um famoso serial killer. Apesar de nada ter a ver com os crimes do pai, acaba por se ver envolvido num mistério perturbador que desafia a sua sanidade e o leva a questionar a própria identidade.

Recomendo vivamente a todos os fãs de Monster e de outros mangás do mesmo género.

--

EN I’d been meaning to start this series for a while, but I usually try not to pick up new ones while I still have volumes from ongoing reads waiting. This time, however, I went for it — and I’m glad I did.

The series fully lived up to my expectations: plenty of tension and mystery in an adult manga (seinen), with scenes of violence and a touch of eroticism.

The protagonist is Eiji Urashima, the son of a notorious serial killer. Although he has nothing to do with his father’s crimes, he finds himself entangled in a disturbing mystery that challenges his sanity and forces him to question his own identity.

I highly recommend it to fans of Monster and other manga of the same kind.

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some big Monster vibes here but more of mystery with some shock horror thrown in.

Eiji is kind of a loser in his own way. Just living his life away, a virgin, drinking with his buddies. Nothing special about this guy. Well that is till he wakes up with a girl in his bed. But wait, they didn't actually SLEEP together but she's half naked in his bed. She says she'll see him later and leaves and then...he tries to recall what happen but can't. Only to finally realize soon after he's missing the memory of the last 3 days!

As the story progresses for every answer they give, they leave you with another question. A Smart way not to pile up SO many questions you feel like you'll never get any answers. Because the story focuses on giving you answers with Eiji and his past, but then once you learn something you're left with a new mystery of why and how something is happening. I know I'm being vague but want to avoid spoilers.

The mystery is the strongest part here. There's a lot of great twist and turns and I was intrigued the whole time. I will say the dialogue sometimes teeters on silly but that's mostly fine with a 19 year olds mindset here. The sex too doesn't feel too forced, in fact feels natural even if the girl seems a little over the top.

I am interested to see where we wind up. I'm big fan of mystery/horror with serial killers so this could be good. A 4 out of 5.

[Kiarash · Rating 4 out of 5]

مانگای "عزیزترین خودم با اندیشه های پلیدش" یکی از عناوین خوب معمایی/تریلر روانشناختی در حوزه مانگاست که تعلیق بالا و پیچش های داستانی زیادی داره به طوریکه مانگاکا به مخاطب فرصتی برای زمین گذاشتنش نمیده. داستان از اونجایی آغاز میشه که پسر دانشجویی به نام ایجی یک شب مست به خونه برمی گرده و صبح که برای رفتن به دانشگاه از خواب بیدار میشه با دختری در اتاقش روبرو میشه که شناختی ازش نداره. این دختر مدعی میشه که دوست دختر ایجی هست و ایجی بعد از قرار به خونه ش دعوتش کرده. اما قضیه به اینجا محدود نمیشه و ایجی خیلی زود متوجه میشه افرادی در تعقیبش هستن و یکی ازش هی عکس می گیره. اینجاست که مانگا لحظه به لحظه پیچیده تر میشه و مخاطب از خودش میپرسه به راستی ایجی کیه؟ افرادی که تعقیبش میکنن چه کسانی هستن و سوالاتی از این قبیل.

این مانگا از پیسینگ و شخصیت پردازی خوبی برخوردار هست و طراحی های مطلوبش میتونه تجربه خوبی برای تمام دوستداران داستان های معمایی باشه؛ به طوریکه هر وقت مخاطب حس میکنه جریان داستان رو فهمیده با غافلگیری تازه ای روبرو میشه که برداشت آدم رو نسبت به کل ماجرا دگرگون میکنه. پایان بندی تلخ و شیرینش هم پایانی درخور داستان هست که سوالی رو بی پاسخ نمی گذاره. تنها انتقادی که میتونم بکنم به برخی جنبه های روانشناختی کار در اواخرش هست که میتونست به عقیده من تمیزتر و با ظرافت بیشتری بهشون پرداخته بشه ولی در کل قطعا ارزش مطالعه رو از نظرم داره

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eiji is your typical shy college student trying to find himself, get a pretty girlfriend and cruise through life with no issues. Unfortunately his father was a brutal serial killer that left a stain on his family that follows him around everywhere he goes, and the emergence of a split personality with dark and violent tendencies gets him wrapped up in a murderous conspiracy where his dangerous alter ego seems to be his own worst enemy. Is he doomed to involuntarily follow in his disgraced father’s footsteps?

I thought this series would be a bit predictable considering I’ve seen this type of horror thriller before, but it ended up throwing dozens of unexpected twists at me, none of them being what I predicted given the premise. The truth behind both of Eiji’s personalities ended up being more twisted and complex than I had originally imagined.

What really won me over with this series is how unexpectedly complex and multilayered the entire cast of side characters ended up being. At first, the side characters all seem very simplistic and forgettable with one dimensional character tropes, but almost every single side character ends up having dark secrets of their own that are even more insane than those of the protagonist. Hardly anyone in this story is completely innocent, everyone is involved in the mass murder conspiracy in some way or another and the puzzle keeps getting bigger and bigger until the very end where everything is finally pieced together.

Don’t be deceived by the predictable opening with familiar psychological horror cliches. The series gets more intense, unpredictable and challenging to figure out the longer it goes on and the payoff at the end hits really hard. Eiji is a tragic character that’s easy to hate at times but incredibly sympathetic, the side characters all have fascinating subplots of their own as well. It has a slow build up but gets significantly better with each volume.

[Curious Madra · Rating 4 out of 5]

So basically this manga is about a goofy guy wanting a girlfriend named Eiji who is known to be a son of a serial killer known as LL and he seems to have Dissociative identity disorder (DID) where he switches to his ego known as “B1” (btw why do alter egos involved in the MC’s have to be so damn badass than their original forms ? just saying). He also has a girlfriend Kyouka who treats him and she has messed up secrets of her own. Man, this manga has a lotta things happening at once that I really couldn’t try to pinpoint the memorable scenes in this horror manga because my brain just literally shut down whilst reading the rest of the manga. I really feel everyone is just going after each other at the end of the day like

I mean I wouldn’t even consider it the “best horror psychological manga I’ve ever come across” but it is still a grand read to binge if you like your Bastard, Pigpen, Death Note or other well known serial killer manga that’s out there. It also shows dead bodies so keep that in mind before you read this manga because it might be upsetting for some.

[Katelynn Pham · Rating 5 out of 5]

UNDERRATED AF EVERYBODY READ IT NOW

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Promising start with a lead who isn't stupid or irritating. I also like the art a lot and am super curious about the mystery. Very gory and mature, which is right up my alley. 😎

[Waldkauzz · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a murderous thriller, so guess the first panel! Yes, a close up of some girl's butt!

There are also other issues. DID (dissociative identity disorder) is more of a plot device than it is ever properly explained or depicted. I don't think even the term Alter is used? 

[Kesa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't wish I could wake up with Amnesia.

[Miray🧞‍♀️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️!
Obwohl ich noch gar nicht von dem Manga gehört habe, bin ich echt zufrieden mit meinem heutigen Kauf!
Der Anfang hat sich sehr leicht gezogen, jedoch wurde es ab der Mitte immer besser und besser.
Ich bin auf jeden Fall gespannt, wie sich die Story im Laufe der anderen Bänder entwickeln wird!

[Jon Ureña · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our protagonist is a college-age kid devoted to man's one duty: that of sticking his penis in as many wet holes as possible. He's been wholly unsuccessful so far. From that introduction, the story could have gone in plenty of directions, but I wouldn't have guessed that the guy is the son of Japan's most famous serial killer from the last fifteen or twenty years, and that he has dissociative identity disorder. Looking back at the first couple of chapters, they are incongruous with what's to come.



We find out that something is wrong with the guy's brain as soon as he does: he wakes up in bed next to a pretty stranger, a female classmate from college. He has no clue how he started dating her, but she seems quite taken with whoever was commanding the protagonist's brain until then. This alternate version of the guy is also violent and much bolder. In any case, the guy is happy enough to let this sudden girlfriend of his believe that she's dating the other version of himself.

However, the protagonist's missing part isn't satisfied with a hot girlfriend: he's also hanging out with members of the worst gang around, one that runs whores and kills people. They idolize the aforementioned serial killer to the extent that they welcomed the protagonist, the serial killer's son, with open arms.

One person realizes that the protagonist is struggling with some ghastly mental issue: an aloof young woman who attends the same college. She has been following the protagonist around and has learned to identify when the personality switches have taken place. Soon enough we find out that she has a personal connection with one of the victims of the serial killer.

A woman gets murdered in what seems like a copycat case of the serial killer's modus operandi, and the protagonist finds himself in possession of that woman's cut-off ear. So is his alternate personality following on his father's footsteps, or has someone framed him? The clues lead him to the nasty gang that has welcomed him. Helped by the weird girl from before, the protagonist will try to figure out if he's innocent or if he's truly the devil's spawn, as he's been called since he was a child.

This quickly turns into a brutal, disturbing tale. At first it reminded me of the most hardcore parts of Minoru Furuya's mangas (a hapless underdog who ends up involved in a life-or-death situation with sociopathic elements of the Japanese underworld), except that this story lacks any humor. However, after a turning point in the story that abandons plenty of the set up elements that came beforehand, the tale turns into a thriller in which anyone could betray the protagonist at any point, and everybody has a secret to hide.



The drawings are detailed and uncompromising. This is one of those iceberg stories in which the author has plotted carefully every character's actions and deceptions. Unfortunately, he resorts to some clichés, and he also pulls his punches a couple of times.

The moment that bothered me the most happened early on in the story, but it announced that some more bullshit was coming down the road: at one point the protagonist finds himself in the club that the gang owns. He's prodded into showing his inborn skills as a torturer with a tied-up guy that the gang intended to kill. The protagonist ends up giving a speech, the details of which I've forgotten (he said that torturing a random guy was beneath him, or something). His audience, a bunch of hardened criminals who idolize a serial killer, just go along with his excuse, and even end up freeing that man. The author had done a great job setting up those guys as extremely dangerous until that point. As far as I'm concerned, one of the worst things you can do as a writer is building up some symbol as something significant only to end up tearing it down out of convenience.

Later on we get a few clichéd moments that we've seen a thousand times: the author makes us believe that a character has shot someone in the head, but that character actually shot into the floor deliberately; X gets shot in the chest at point-blank range by people who could have easily shot X in the head, but X survives because of a bulletproof vest; a murderous bad guy gets knocked unconscious, but instead of finishing him, they good guys walk away, and the bad guy gets back up shortly after; etc.

Although I'm quite sure that dissociative identity disorder doesn't work that way, I found the story quite interesting. You usually don't get these kinds of thrillers in manga format.

[Juushika · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at the end of volume one. This is giving me uncanny Gantz vibes, not in genre but tone, a specific "the 'relatable' misogyny of self-professed pathetic men" vibe. Our protagonist will experience horrors and undergo character growth via some presumably-excessively-convoluted thriller shenanigans that use Dissociative Identity Disorder as a plot device, cool; but Gantz left me once bitten and twice shy about a particular brand of seinen sexism, so I don't need to stick around to see it.

Great title, though!

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bon premier tome qui met bien dans l'ambiance, on s'attache à Eiji qui est attendrissant et on veut savoir comme lui ce qu'à fait B-1, je suis pressée de lire la suite et voir ce que le tome 2 nous réserve !

[Aina · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend suggested this manga to me because he thought I would like it. So far I'm liking it. There are so many plot twist and turns. You can't predict how things will change around the main character and could not put your trust on any characters in this manga after reading it. (￣3￣)

[Tomasz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oceniam na 3,5. Jest potencjał żeby historia rozwinęła się w ciekawy sposób. Mamy trochę tajemnicy, rozwijający się wątek morderstw i manga nie boi się pokazać dlaczego wszyscy obawiają się powrotu legendarnego mordercy 🙂

[Monika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Świetnie zapowiadające się wątki. Czekam na kolejny tom.

[Jorge Schumacher · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 estrelas

[pannasnape · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zamysł tej mangi i akcja jest bardzo przemyślana jednak jak już patrzę na to całościowo po przeczytaniu to nie zrobiła na mnie wielkiego wrażenia. Sama końcówka dla mnie zaskakująca, ale to nie był efekt wow.

[Lena (Sufficiently Advanced Lena)]

Literally every single trope I hate in manga is here so bye bye

[༶•┈┈୨♡୧┈┈•༶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5⭐️

[アレクサ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ej fajne to było dajcie już drugi tom co

[Izabela Noga · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autentycznie mnie to zaciekawiło 🙏

[Kathaflauschi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vielen Dank an den Verlag für das Rezensionsexemplar. Ich war richtig gespannt auf diesen Manga und habe mich auf Spannung gefreut. Man lernt den Protagonisten Eiji Urashima kennen. Auf den ersten Blick scheint er ein ganz normaler Student zu sein. Mit seinen Freunden ist er Abends noch feiern bis er am nächsten Morgen mit einem Mädchen in seinem Bett aufwacht. Allerdings ist der nächste Morgen ein paar Tage her und er kann sich nicht daran erinnern, was er in den paar Tagen gemacht hat. Es kommt häufiger zu den Vorfällen und für ihn ist es unerklärlich was mit ihm geschieht. Bis er der Wahrheit auf den Spuren ist.

Eiji war ein interessanter Charakter. Man lernt seine Gefühle und Zweifel kennen, auch seine Ängste kann man förmlich sehen. Er wirkt wie ein ganz normaler junger Mann, verbirgt aber ein Geheimnis, was nicht wirklich ein Geheimnis ist da jeder von seiner Vergangenheit weiß. Ich kann gut verstehen das er nicht der sein werden will, für den ihn jeder hält. Aber seine Blackouts machen es umso schwieriger nicht so wie die Person aus seiner Vergangenheit zu werden.

An den Zeichenstil musste ich mich gewöhnen. Dieser ist sogar recht dunkel und an gewissen Szenen doch sehr detailreich. Für schwache Nerven oder sogar Mägen ist das nichts. Spannend ist aber Eiji auf der Suche nach der Wahrheit zu begleiten. Der Manga ist spannend, düster, geheimnisvoll und Dramatisch. Man wird in Polizei ermittlungen hinein gezogen. Die Gefühle der Charakter kann man ihnen deutlich ansehen. Ich bin wirklich gespannt wie es weitergeht und was es wirklich mit Eijis Blackouts auf sich hat.

[Helene Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Okay, this manga is wild. I was unprepared for the violence.

[Ayylmaoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es la segunda vez que lo leo pq lo dejé a medias y ya no me acordaba, pero después de varios mangas de mierda que me he estado leyendo por alguna razón que desconozco, ahora me parece más de 4 estrellas que de 3 🙇🏽

Hay que agradecer los mangas de mierda, siempre te dan otra perspectiva de los mid.

PD: RECOMIENDO LEERLO SIN SABER DE QUÉ VA.

[Leoni_csh · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,1⭐️Dieses war mein erster Manga und ich
musste leider feststellen, dass es nichts
für mich ist. Außerdem hat es mir
inhaltlich nicht gefallen, ebenso wie es
geschrieben wurde. Die Zeichnungen
sind dennoch total gut.

[adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is an awesome manga i love the story and the characters

[Read with nana (Taylor version⋆｡ ﾟ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Omg I can't put it down....

[Doc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sins of the father

Just as a warning to sensitive readers this book has some pretty dark elements even though it tempers them a bit with the main character that comes off as goofy but seems to have a dark side. Included within is societal bullying, suicide, murder, theft, torture, sexual themes so use your best judgment if any of these might be offensive before reading.

Eiji is one of those goofy and mostly harmless guys with no luck with the ladies but also has a dark past that he just can't seem to shake though he tries to keep positive regardless of the vitriol cast at him for actions he was never involved with. You see his father was a not only a murderer but one of the most disturbing criminals in recent history leading the scared survivors to lash out at his family. When will enough be enough as Eiji discovers he is suddenly missing days and he not only finds himself with a girlfriend but has been uncharacteristic things he normally would not have the guts to do? More importantly who is this other him that manifests suddenly leaving him with no memories of what has been happening in his life besides the few clues he gets from others?

This volume is a great introduction to a tale of possible Dissociative Identity Disorder where the stresses related to his past create a darker version of the main character who is far more aggressive and unrestrictive than his normal self. Following Eiji's life we see a glimpse into his dark past and how society sees him being the son of a monster. However so far we only see glimpses of normal, goofy Eiji as he tries to figure out why he is suddenly starting to miss days of his life and who this stranger in his own skin is that has been changing his life. The psychological and horrific elements work well within the frame of the story making me curious of what is to come in the future.