I... I just... I just cant even... process what I just read. 440https://i.ur.com/WJcgwNB.png THIS REVIEW IS GOING TO BE A FULL SPOILERS REVIEW. THIS MANGA IS RIFE WITH BOTH GORE AND MOST LIKELY UPSETTING CONTENT. I DONT EVEN KNOW IF I LIKE IT OR NOT. I DONT EVEN KNOW IF IT MAKES SENSE OR NOT. PLEASE ASSIST ME IN LOCATING THE NEAREST INSANE ASYLUM. I NEED HELP. Everything is Rotting Until Your Bones Rot is a horror... psychological... thriller... mystery manga by Yae Utsumihttps://anilist.co/staff/120583/YaeUtsumi. Its about five high schoolers and their super deep friendship They are the best of friends And all of them are happy and this is a happy manga and that is the end 440https://i.ur.com/rAxxww1.png ...No just kidding. Their friendship and bond is continued to be upheld because they all kind of played a role in murdering one of their dads. He was abusive made his son crossdress because it would remind the father of the kids mother who died but he was still sometimes capable of being a good dad. 440https://i.ur.com/mYrmXgA.png 440https://i.ur.com/Co8un8X.png Except wait did I just hear you talking shit about me to your little shit friends? ITS TIME FOR ANOTHER BEATING. 440https://i.ur.com/oSjcKRL.png So basically the protagonists friends arrived at a certain conclusion. They needed to murder the protagonists batshit crazy and abusive father. To be fair to them they did attempt trying to go to their parents but they of course just told them to stay away from that fucking weird kid and his batshit crazy father. 440https://i.ur.com/0efqAYe.png Wouldnt be a horror/whatever manga if the adults werent fucking useless And what a surprise they actually manage to pull it off. With a meaty thwack with a hammer to the skull the dad is successfully murdered. GOOD JOB TEAM NOW I HAVE NO PARENTS. But the truth is all the friends are completely fucking rattled by the fact they all just kind of committed a murder. Main protagonist kid just sorta blurts out we should come back every year and dig up my dead dad and look at him and see how much hes rotted each year and we can have a blood pact and everything. Its not a real friendship unless we have a blood pact 440https://i.ur.com/EDJb0vy.png 440https://i.ur.com/bduDxFk.png And like right out of the gate as some giant asshole who likes to nitpick every single plot detail that happens to nag at me I have immediate and intense problems with this. Do you really want to tempt fate like this? I mean Ive heard that criminals return to the scene of the crime but this is ridiculous Like Im just now thinking about it and... they go to the cave with the dad corpse dig it up look at it like reconfirm that theyre still friends and are gonna keep doing this and then put the corpse back. They murdered him at a festival. 440https://i.ur.com/omfVQEl.png Like granted they led him off into the wilderness away from everybody and then when he was dead they dragged him into that cave but... people saw him at the festival. Hell he bumped into a guy 440https://i.ur.com/9USTOrh.png There wasnt a search? You know around the area? Five kids dragged the corpse of an adult off into some fucking random cave. Oh I dont know he just disappeared 440https://i.ur.com/tArSjsG.png Thats just what happens Kid goes to the festival with his dad and.... his dad just disappears. Just like that Whoops Okay kid since your dads gone you can just live on your own...? Theres like a timeline following one of the volumes and it says he went to live with one of his grandparents but he did just eventually end up living on his own. Anyways like five years in doing this stupid ritual of visiting dad things go wrong. Somebodys found the bone cave. The mystery person has absconded with the skeleton left a phone behind to be able to call the group and threaten them into doing something for them. Namely cutting up a corpse. Fun And also pretty rude. 440https://i.ur.com/x7bye9q.png You murder one person and then people come up to you and start asking hey man can you please do me a solid and dissect this corpse for me? Doing something once doesnt make it a hobby They freak out a little bit but then they do calm down and get their priorities straight. Going to jail sounds pretty fucking bad so of course they chop up the body 440https://i.ur.com/so1NKNc.png Wait no hold on. But why? At the end of the manga the time most of them get is two years in juvie. TWO YEARS. And this is what they got AFTER they started dissecting corpses 440https://i.ur.com/UoREQC8.png Like over and over again the idea of turning themselves in pops up and the characters always end up shooting it down. But honestly they should absolutely turn themselves in. Two years is a pretty fucking light sentence when you take in consideration that the weight of the murder is really starting to wear away at them. 440https://i.ur.com/ZNboYeG.png Especially one character who eventually is so desperate to get out of the situation that he tries some bullshit and it leads to him... ...you guessed it... 440https://i.ur.com/84KpHX3.png GETTING MURDERED AND HAVING HIS REMAINS CHOPPED UP BY HIS OWN FRIENDS. And also at one point phone guy who straight up just officially gets named by the characters themselves as Telephone Guy has them all come over to the apartment where he had them dissect the first body and just straight up tells them all to strip and immediately I am just like oh for fuck sake 440https://i.ur.com/pBjiHpk.png GOTTA INCLUDE THE REQUIRED HORROR MANGA NUDITY And honestly I was already getting real bad vibes from this manga as it was. 440https://i.ur.com/2GFL171.png As theres a flashback scene where one of the girl characters comes over to the main protagonists house while its raining and she... ends up having sex with him and afterward he tells her verbatim that hes never going to have sex with her ever again. Okay first of all why would you say it like that? 440https://i.ur.com/dICoQdA.png Secondly why? Everything about the main protagonists character has indicated that he strongly likes this girl and also she killed your dad for you. Took a hammer to his skull and became a murderer for you. 440https://i.ur.com/cfICAPv.png And like later on after one of the largest and worst revelations of the series that I immediately predicted he says some shit like oh I actually said that because I felt bad because the only reason I slept with you was because I was lonely. 440https://i.ur.com/QWWTQiQ.png ...I fucking hate this protagonist. But speaking of unfortunate sexual content theres also this random homeless woman who somehow becomes a major player in the plot of this manga. 440https://i.ur.com/OS7qZwN.png And her price for giving the group for information is... kissing the... main protagonist. A high schooler. He is underaged. She is an adult homeless woman who later in the manga is shown to have been prostituting herself to the rest of her homeless community. 440https://i.ur.com/nSrDcHC.png Even when the groups dealings with this woman are concluded she straight up floats out the offer that if the protagonist ever wants to have sex with her he can always just stop back by whenever he wants. Nothing wrong with this. 440https://i.ur.com/ru9M1gk.png 440https://i.ur.com/n1ZevVz.png Nothing wrong with this. Nothing wrong with this. Nothing wrong with this. Nothing wrong with this at allllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll. Also when she had them tied up with like bondage rope while she was verifying the somewhat false information the group gave her about one of her homeless friend who they dissected a couple of other homeless guys materialized from the darkness because they saw two female characters tied up and you already know where this is going. 440https://i.ur.com/WOwCG9p.png Yep. Had a whole extended scene with these assholes verbally confirming whether or not the girls are virgins and basically threatening them that if they dont earnestly request to be raped theyll just beat the male characters to death. 440https://i.ur.com/7n4cG52.png Thankfully the batshit insane homeless woman character returns and has the would be rapists executed offscreen. Literally. 440https://i.ur.com/lOsO5At.png Even insults their dying screams. You would of course hope that this would be it for... the unfortunate sexual content. Following the almost rape the other female character shows up at the protagonists house. You know the last time a female character showed up at the protagonists house alone sheoh god no. 440https://i.ur.com/7ytGSKV.png How many times am I going to have to say it? How many times? DONT FOLLOW UP AN ATTEMPTED RAPE WITH THIS. 440https://i.ur.com/YHy3DmC.png Like sure she already clearly liked the protagonist before this point but no. No to every single thing about this scene. This is awful. But apparently the author doesnt think its awful enough because when the protagonist refuses she pressures him into doing it by saying shell turn herself in for the original murder from five years ago. 440https://i.ur.com/EaRvjjt.png Because shes rightfully tired of dissecting corpses having to shoulder that original murder and also she was almost raped by homeless men earlier. Maybe the protagonist is going to talk with her? Point out that this isnt a good idea to be doing right now and try to comfort her in a differentnope he just straight up has sex with her. 440https://i.ur.com/amM8LWl.png Okay so hes had sex with both female characters. One he liked but had a fake boyfriend and then rejected and then one he straight up just did not like but he didnt want her to get arrested and face up to TWO YEARS OF JUVIE and Im not even shitting you after this her entire character basically becomes at least temporarily I want to have more sex with the protagonist. This could be excused because she herself straight up said shes using it to forget about their current situation which is understandable. All of them are a bit stressed and 440https://i.ur.com/KJ33g2W.png the protagonist has his dad skull out and hes having a conversation with it. 440https://i.ur.com/hF9TK1r.png hes talking to his dad skull. She came over to try and have sex with him again and HES TALKING TO THE SKULL OF HIS DEAD FATHER THAT THEY MURDERED. SHE SHOULD BE CONCERNED WITH HIS CURRENT MENTAL STATE INSTEAD SHES ONLY TEMPORARILY SURPRISED AND THEN REMINDS HIM THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE SEX. 440https://i.ur.com/WYrNm5k.png And he very angrily points out that he was in the middle of a conversation with his father WHO IS A SKULL and then oh for fuck sake 440https://i.ur.com/fKdefqA.png ...Everything Ive described to this point so far is pretty bad right? Well what if I told you that there is also... like theres a point where their investigation or whatever the fuck its supposed leads them to a teacher they had when they were in elementary school. Hes hanging from the ceiling dead but that doesnt even matter. What does matter is that in his apartment they find photographs... A photograph... of one of the female characters... when they were still elementary students... and plenty more... 440https://i.ur.com/WdTzDMP.png NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. I didnt even go into the ending of the manga. How obvious who the culprit was. Didnt talk about how pointlessly convoluted their scheme is and how their goal is completely opposite of what they end up achieving but yet in the end they get everything they ever wanted anyways after serving FOUR AND A HALF YEARS OF PRISON TIME for everything they did... Hey they were supposed to have eight to thirteen years. They got let out so early because of good behavior and a willingness to atone. You know. For multiple murders and also having others literally dismember corpses. Doesnt matter. Doesnt fucking matter. I liked the gore I liked when the characters were beginning to crack and become broken and this genuinely worked for me as a page turner... But you know... when I saw that photograph. I just immediately fucking knew exactly where this was headed. I was just struck with an immediate sense of dread and as it turns out I was right to be. 440https://i.ur.com/sav9lph.png ...Lets just say I did not feel that aspect of the plot was handled appropriately nor was it fucking necessary. It was already convoluted as it was. This entire manga was supposed to be about the original murder of their friends father but it so quickly becomes the least of anyones concerns. Hell when the culprit gets caught when asked where the rest of the goddamned bones aka what theyve been scrambling around to try and get back pretty much the whole manga were they just nonchalantly go oh well I just kind of threw him back into the cave. You know where they were the whole time before all this shit started. be warned the following image gives away who the culprit is Are you fucking kidding me? Conclusion When I first finished reading this manga and before I immediately started writing this review I set this series as an 8 out of 10. 440https://i.ur.com/B89kbYE.png Upon thinking longer than a second about the series I just read I had to ponder if I myself had suffered someone hitting me in the back of the skull with a hammer without me noticing it prior to the act of writing this review. Like just because it was a page turner does not mean its good. And I think in the absolute bewilderment this series left me in I temporarily forgot that. Again I did genuinely like some parts of this series and some of the scenes specifically the protagonist talking with his dad but hes just a skull were cool. Everything else though? Absolute trash fire and I hate pretty much everything about it. 440https://i.ur.com/0OjwPKV.png The maximum level of growth that any of these characters receive is that realization that pretty much everything theyve done in this entire manga is probably illegal or at the very least wrong. And this is an exact quote directly from the culprit after having redeemed themselves via FOUR AND A HALF YEARS: You really shouldnt kill anyone after all. 440https://i.ur.com/TZWYve3.png ...After four and a half years thats all you got? YOU DID WAY MORE THAN JUST KILL SOMEONE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU ...I give this manga a 2 out of 10 with a disclaimer of I could probably see myself putting it even lower than that. Its a roaring trash fire and now that Ive used it to warm myself Im leaving it behind and I hope I never think of it ever again. Would I recommend it? Yes but only if you like trash fires. 500https://i.ur.com/DtVWC6H.png