Omori Manga Ch. 3 Review - Meaningful Gestures
Written by Rei Caldombra 8/26/24 Video: https://youtu.be/oH3Yw827Buw
Previous Chapter: Omori Manga Ch. 2 Review - Devil in the Details — Blog Under a Log
This chapter gave us new interpretations of existing scenes that greatly elevates the characters and emotions surrounding them, while continuing to make the manga a more unique experience. We got a lot more depth to all the characters featured in this chapter, with Sunny being a much more proactive character. This chapter nails the strong mood and emotions of this part of the story. I’ve said every review so far that I think the manga art is great and it continues to be stellar in this chapter. This is definitely the best chapter so far in my opinion. I will primarily be focusing on the two main scenes, which are Sunny and Kel getting Aubrey’s location from Kim and then their confrontation with Aubrey in the church. As usual spoilers for both the manga and game.
One clear change the manga is making is having Sunny play a much more active role in the real world segments. In the real world segments he is much more of a bystander, while here he is still following Kel’s lead but takes more action on his own. This scene also shows a lot more emotional depth for all the characters.
Sunny and Kel work together to get the information about Aubrey’s location in a different way than in the game. In the game, Kim gets kicked out of the candy store for shoplifting, and Kel gets the information by trading a bag of candy for it. In the manga, Miss Candace is chasing after the hooligans for shoplifting.I’m glad we at least got one shot of all the hooligans, as I expect we will likely not get much more of them. When Kel and Sunny see her, they try to stop her by hitting her with a can. Sunny does it first and misses, then Kel makes the hit.
This is the first instance of Sunny taking action, showing more agency from him and also provides a bit of comedy. This stops Kim from getting away, with Kim initially refusing to help them, reminding them that they’re the ones who abandoned Aubrey. This scene conveys well how close Kim is with Aubrey and how she truly supports her, getting mad in her stead of them only now starting to care about her.
Another new element is Miss Candace really laying it on thick about punishing the hooligans, wanting to send them to juvie. This is a good addition to the scene of the townspeople bashing Aubrey in the church. This terrifies Kim and leads to Sunny and Kel feeling bad for her despite everything they know has been going on. This scene takes the reality of this situation very seriously. Which is one reason why the tone of this chapter is excellent. With the character’s actions as a result of trauma being a focal point of this story, it is great to see a repercussion of the hooligan’s actions also being portrayed in a heavy manner. Kim is another scared kid who doesn’t want to face what they’ve done just like the main characters. This goes into the second moment of Sunny being proactive, with him offering up his money so that they can pay for the candy Kim stole. Kel then asks Miss Candace to forgive Kim, which she does. And this act gets Kim to give up the situation. I loved seeing Sunny and Kel both take serious action to protect Kim. It does give Kel the opportunity to get the information they need, but I feel that it was a secondary benefit. This scene accomplishes the same primary goal of getting Kel and Sunny to the church, but does it in a way that is far more engaging and dense with characterization. I love this scene and consider it far better than the original. I have no issue with Sunny being a more proactive character, as we already see him completely taciturn in Headspace. This is showing more of who he is as a person, which I think has benefits compared to the game’s more taciturn Sunny.
Now onto the church, which is also excellent. It mostly plays out the same but with a different resolution and handle of Sunny and Aubrey.
A big emotional focus of this chapter is how the characters responded to Mari’s death. Everyone was hurt and coped with Mari’s loss in their own ways, but all of their actions drove the friend group apart. The very first page of this chapter features the 3 characters' different ways of coping. This is a good addition to help make this point clear.
Aubrey started acting out and this led her to the hooligans who gave her the support she needed. Kel threw himself into basketball, which worked as a distraction from what happened. Sunny became a shut-in, refusing to acknowledge reality. None of them were properly there for each other when they really needed each other.
This chapter does a great job of portraying everyone’s conflicted emotions, both in terms of the dialogue and the stellar artwork. Kel seems the most stable and acclimated of the 3 so far but here even he is getting rocked with Aubrey’s accusations. The manga portrays Kel’s conflict well. He genuinely is a supportive person, he had been trying to reconnect with Sunny, helps Kim and defends Sunny in the church. But you can’t deny that he didn’t support Aubrey. She feels both of them acted like Mari didn’t exist, which you can understand. But you can also sympathize with them struggling to deal with something as traumatic as having a friend (seemingly) commit suicide when you were a kid. Both Kel and Aubrey are failing to look from each other’s perspectives and acknowledge the complexity of the situation. Aubrey delegitimizes Kel and Sunny’s coping mechanisms as selfish and uncaring despite her own actions, and Kel does not understand that Aubrey making up with him and the others is not as simple as suddenly showing up and trying to do better now. Everyone has actions they regret and complicated feelings that leave them unsure of what is the right thing to do. The intensity and emotional complexity of this part is portrayed wonderfully in my opinion.
Now onto the Aubrey and Sunny stuff, with Sunny’s third act of agency being the most impactful. There were implications in the game that Aubrey could have liked Sunny and vice versa, but it was not clear cut. Headspace Aubrey clearly has a crush on Omori. But this is Headspace, an idealized version of the past influenced by Sunny’s biases. Maybe Aubrey really loved him in reality and that is why she loves him in Headspace. But it's also possible that was purely Sunny’s own feelings towards Aubrey creating a version of her that had a crush on him. He is unable to express the feelings himself, so he expresses his desire for her affection through her. There’s also some moments in the real world you could interpret as implying a crush from Aubrey. But in the manga it is being laid on a lot thicker that they could have mutual romantic feelings.
It is a bit hard to tell with the gray and patterned background but Sunny is blushing more on the left side than the right as he looks at her laughing. This is a very clear sign of infatuation from Sunny to Aubrey. The idea of feeling love for someone when watching them laugh is also a common one, laughing is a beautiful expression that makes many people feel especially attracted to that person. It's also noteworthy that both of them have the smaller blushes on the right then bigger ones on the left. This matching can be a visual representation that the feeling is mutual.
Sunny takes that feeling he had in that memory and turned it into action in real time, which materialized as him holding her ears.
This is a beautiful moment and is likely my favorite thing in the manga so far. We can interpret it as a loving gesture from Sunny or something he knew calmed her down in the past. This very easily could have been a hug but they intentionally went for something different. That could reflect Sunny’s unstable and physically unhealthy state. Maybe he meant to hug her but this is what his awkward self was able to make happen. You could say there is a disconnect between his emotions and what he can put into action. Which fits perfectly with his character. His face after doing it also supports this, he just acted on instinct and feeling. But what is also good about this is that you don’t have to interpret this as romantic. The memories during the church start with everyone other than Sunny touching kid Aubrey while she cries. Sequentially based on what Sunny and us see through his memories, she is crying, gets physically comforted by everyone, and then she is happy. He could have simply been mimicking what previously made her feel happier. Even as just a friend he would not want to see Aubrey cry. Regardless of romantic feelings, he cares about her and has the gut reaction to make her feel better. So he clumsily tries to comfort her. The manga is definitely leaning more into romantic implications considering what we also saw with Basil so far, but I don’t think it is going to make any of them canon. I think it is just making the choice to delve more into it as another point of making the manga less 1 to 1, which I don’t mind. I want to see where this goes and like what we got from it so far. As I've made clear, I like changes that provide a different but still well done experience with adaptations. I like seeing these different angles and appreciate what it is adding. I feel this scene and chapter as a whole makes Sunny a much more interesting character, and gives a lot of great pathos to Aubrey and Kel while keeping their characters still feeling authentic. I can understand someone saying that this makes Sunny pretty different, and that it could harm the portrayal of him being detached from reality and cold. This moment is very pure and loving, which contrasts with his only major action originally which was him cutting Aubrey. But as of now at least I do not think it is actively harmful and appreciate the difference.
Another part of this scene I really like is that Kel does not snap at everyone’s degrading whispers until Sunny touching Aubrey brought silence. Aubrey noticed it before but I think Kel’s disposition would have made him tune it out to focus on the argument. While Aubrey has had these words flung at her in passing before and is truly hurt by it, so she is more aware.
Sunny’s move is able to calm down Aubrey. Aubrey pushes Sunny away, apologizes, tells them what she did with the album, and leaves. A notable change is that the scene ends without any proper physical fighting beyond Aubrey grabbing Kel’s collar and pushing Sunny. I don’t mind this scene being an argument rather than a physical fight like in the game. I still think it portrays the emotional intensity of the original scene well, and I appreciate the additional angle of Sunny defusing the situation by calming her down. I like this difference in showing how doing things differently can change the way things play out, even if the outcome is the same or similar. Sunny does not do very much in the game, but it’s not as if we were supposed to assume he was not thinking during these events. I can imagine manga Sunny being a version of Sunny that does not fully hold back on his feelings, while still being conflicted and awkward. I think what we see here elevates Sunny a lot as a character and fits into the theme of actions and repercussions.
As Kel and Sunny run off to find the album, we transition back into Headspace. This picks up where the Headspace story left off previously, with them wanting to look for Basil and heading to the ladder to Overworld.
The ladder breaking through the panels and towering over Omori accentuates Omori’s fear, which is also portrayed very well with his expression. His eyes strongly portray his terror, with them looking very different from the usual mostly black that we see, as they are now mostly white. I also like the detail of him gulping because it is one of the only auditory moments we have gotten from Omori. It is also cool to see a new version of the map. They did bother to include the Orange Oasis, I wonder if we will actually see it considering it has no plot relevance. Maybe in a transition shot we will get a panel of it, or it could be used as a front page or something along those lines.
I totally see where people are coming from with concern for the pacing. I am not saying it is not moving fast, it is. But do consider that we are disproportionately covering the real world vs Headspace. They have not even gotten to Overworld yet, there is still a lot more of the game to cover. There is also the chance that covering all of this in three chapters feels faster than it actually is. These chapters are pretty long. With the first two chapters I was genuinely surprised when they just kept going. So while 3 chapters covering a lot of the real world content is fast, I do not think we need to be terribly concerned considering how good I think it has been overall. With how this chapter ended I am predicting that we will spend most of it in Headspace, which I think would be the better decision. It could be good to have the chapter almost entirely be Overworld, then end the chapter with the barn scene transition back to them finding the album. Having a less equal back and forth than the game isn’t fundamentally a bad thing, but it could become a problem down the line at this pace.
I think this chapter has won over a lot of people, especially the ones that were against new or changed content. The addition of how Kel and Sunny help Kim and end the conflict with Aubrey is very sweet and tender. There are other scenes later in Omori that have that feeling and think these two fit well with those. Omori always had an incredible tone and atmosphere and I think the manga is also accomplishing that very well. It has been improving and I hope it continues as strong as this chapter. I’m happy to see more positivity towards the manga and hope it is winning people over. I’m still thoroughly enjoying this as a unique take on Omori that still hits at the important points. I highly recommend giving this chapter a shot if you gave up on it after 1 or 2, it's the best yet and accomplishing exactly what I want an adaptation of Omori to do. Thank you for reading!
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