Omori Manga Chapter 1 Review - A New Day Begins Again

Written by Rei Caldombra 7/22/24 Video: https://youtu.be/Gz6aZ6pSc8I

My post on the manga reveal: I'm so hyped for the Omori Manga — Blog Under a Log

As I promised in my post about how excited I was for this, here I am talking about the first chapter of the Omori manga. I have been eagerly awaiting this and am so happy it has the makings to be as great as I hoped. 

You can officially read chapter 1 in English for free on the Kodansha Kmanga website. It’s very much appreciated that they had the smart thinking to make it available in other languages right away, as it has a wide global audience. And for free. Thank you for letting people enjoy this at the same time through a proper channel. 

There will be heavy spoilers for content that takes place after chapter 1 in this review. I am approaching this manga as someone who knows the full story of the game and is very invested in this series. I highly recommend playing or watching the game yourself before reading this. If you haven’t, know that I am going to spoil the main story of the game in this post and you would have a far better experience if you are not spoiled. You have been warned.

One more thing before getting into it, remember that while Omori and Sunny are technically the same person, they represent two separate sides of Sunny that are different entities for most of the story. So I will be referring to Sunny as Omori when in Headspace like in the game. 

I’ll start by walking through what happens in the chapter, then get into my broader points about the changes compared to the game, my thoughts on it as an adaptation, and the visuals of the manga. 

The chapter starts out the same way as the game, with Basil telling Sunny that everything will be ok in front of the black door and asking him to promise that they will be there for each other. This is right after the traumatic incident that caused this story- Omori accidentally killing Mari by pushing her at the top of the stairs, which Basil witnesses. Both of them work together to string up her corpse to look like a suicide so they don’t get in trouble. But we know Sunny does not keep this promise to Basil. He sequesters himself inside his house for the next 4 years, reliving a fantastical version of the time he spent with his friends before Mari’s death. 

Skipping forward chronologically a little, but it’s fitting to put it here since we are talking about their promise. There’s much feeling in seeing these two’s first interaction like this. The clear part in the background between them, accentuating how separated they are, but still mirrored because of the secret they share. The expressions that convey the shock, fear and anxiety they have towards each other. Beautiful.

After the door scene is when we see the first instance of information being presented differently in this adaptation. The introduction ends with Omori waking up in his house at the start of day 3, skipping over the prologue section of the story. We get straight into the events of real life day 3, where Sunny opens the door for Kel and they spend the day together. Eventually they run into Basil and Aubrey, with the fight ensuing. 

I’ll get into my praise of the visuals later, just look at how badass Aubrey looks. 

But it ends right after Sunny slices Aubrey with the knife, cutting to the start of the Prologue. From there the manga follows the start of the Prologue in the game, with Omori waking up in Headspace, meeting his pals, and then going to the playground to meet Mari. Here it showcases another flip, where we see the main character be called Sunny before he is referred to as Omori. And this is where chapter 1 ends. 

Let’s talk about these changes. In the game you have the surprise of going from cutesy Headspace Aubrey who fawns over Omori to seeing the real world Aubrey with a delinquent look who bullies Basil and the others. It made you wonder what made her turn out so different. This contrast is still here, but it is flipped as we see irl Aubrey first. For a new viewer of Omori this would still leave them wondering how they turned out so differently, but they get implications of why way faster than in the game. We have the tragedy of Mari’s death presented before we meet Mari in Headspace.

I’ll need more time to see how things play out before I make any big decisions on if I think these changes are harmless and/or good ways of making the Manga a more unique experience or if it hampers the impact of the story. But I do think it's very possible that seeing both Aubrey’s and the info of Mari’s death so quickly would hinder a new viewer of Omori from getting the full shock you get in the game. There was much less time to process things, as the game has a lot of gameplay between the start of the Prologue and irl Day 3. But on the other hand, having more of the story presented right away could give newer viewers more to be interested in from the get go. With the game, it's black and white whether you have it or not. Maybe someone plays it, doesn’t like it, and returns it really fast but most people won’t. The cost is pretty much fully sunk from the beginning, so people are more likely to continue playing even if they aren’t strongly drawn in right away. But with manga it is piecemealed, with the reader needing to repeatedly come back to it and spend money to get the full experience. This change is an understandable one when you look at it in the context of wanting the first chapter to be a stronger hook. I do think the game has a decent hook, but this could be viewed as stronger to a wider audience. I see positives and negatives of these changes- as of now it does not make me highly concerned and still think this is a good start to a story, both for a newer viewer and a veteran like me. 

I am not fundamentally against adaptations making changes. The original will always be there in all its glory. As long as it works out in an interesting and valuable way, I don't mind changes. I see the value in making the manga more than just a difference in visual medium. This can make it more appealing to the less hardcore fans who would need more from the manga than just visuals to be interested. Fans like me would happily re-experience it again even if it was 1 to 1 but some people don’t want to go through the same story a second time. And that is understandable. I hope that these changes will still give the same overall experience and essence of the game while giving us an experience that makes us approach things from a different perspective. Like seeing real life first.

Now onto the visuals. Holy crap I could not be happier with the art. I love how the game’s designs came out in Nui Konoito’s style. Aubrey looks absolutely badass in this chapter and the action visuals look great. The confrontation between everyone is excellent, everyone has great facial expressions that sell the intensity of the scene. The manga does not have the incredible soundtrack of the game which excells at heightening the emotions of the scenes, so it has to rely more on the visuals to dop the same. I really hope we can get some awesome fights out of Headspace combat, I assume we will be getting the fight with Boss next chapter. The horror imagery is absolutely terrifying. I love the way shading and lighting is used, it looks excellent and fits with the visuals of the game.

Something looks so imposing in this scene, it’s imposing look and very deep and bold coloring in the upper body conveying the fear Sunny is feeling. Plus Something being in his eye is clear but great imagery. The scene of him on the stairs is also excellent.

One opportunity to get a different experience with manga as a medium is more expressions. And we already see that here to good effect, such as getting awesome imagery like the above and comedic opportunities like below. We already got some good physical comedy in the game but in manga form we can see comedy be done differently. 

Manga as a medium gives new opportunities for the story to incorporate visuals for various effects that the game didn't, so I am very glad to see that those opportunities are being taken. 

I am completely blown away by this first chapter and am absolutely ecstatic to get more. Thank you for reading and I hope you are looking forward to the next chapter with me!

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Next Chapter: Omori Manga Ch. 2 Review - Devil in the Details — Blog Under a Log