Omori Manga Ch. 7 Review - A Strange Castle

Written by Rei Caldombra 3/23/25 Previous Chapter: Omori Manga Ch. 6- Things Left Behind — Blog Under a Log

I’m back with Omori, sorry for the wait! Let’s get right into it.

We pick back up with Omori still agonizing over what happened with Basil in real life. The friends notice and worry about him, which is sweet. 

At the front of the castle they run into two mole sprouts who yell at the gang to help. This is referencing the game sequence where you help the sprout moles with preparing the wedding. Look at these absolute cuties.

I wanna pick them up and hold them.

One thing to note is that the gang acts as if they have seen sprout moles for the first time. This gives us reason to believe that content from the game that the manga has not shown is most likely not canon to this, rather than them being events that happened outside our view. This short bit with the sprout moles is all the representation we get for the segment where you act like sprout moles and help out with the wedding. It's a cute little scene on its own, but it's a shame the pacing has led to this being all we get from the sprout moles. I’ll get more into this issue affecting this chapter as we continue.

A big deviation is that the SOMETHING IN THE WALLS encounter is moved to inside Sweetheart’s castle. Aubrey steps on one of the heart shaped switches that you have to interact with while traversing Sweetheart’s castle, which triggers a pitfall filled with spiders. I’ll get my one compliment in and say that SOMETHING IN THE WALLS looks super gross and offputting as it should. It looks exactly like in the game.

I think this part is a bit forced and overall is a blunder of a scene. There are traps in her castle in the game so that in itself is not out of nowhere, but bringing in the spiders feels like it, I guess. I would’ve preferred this happened in Pyrefly forest (which as we know was skipped) so it’s within a more fitting location. This scene is also lame because the gang is not able to fight them off on their own. Omori does not really overcome this fear in my opinion. So if this is meant to feel like a win, it doesn’t succeed for me. If they don’t re-confront SOMETHING IN THE WALLS, then Omori’s growth will feel less earned by the end.

Buddy, a member of Captain Spaceboy’s crew, saves them from the spiders and explains what is going on in the castle. This is specifically one of the space pirates that chases after Pluto in the game, with his design being on point to the game. It is neat that this one is actually an existing named one rather than a newly named one (I forgot one of them was called Space Pirate Buddy until I went back to the game to research for this). But this is a double-edged sword. Because if you get the reference to that scene, then you’re also getting a reminder that Pluto is absent from the manga. It was an interesting choice to have a character take the lead here rather than have the gang stumble through on their own like they do for most of the story. I don’t think Buddy’s inclusion is a bad one, as I do not mind differences fundamentally and can totally buy this premise of Captain Spaceboy having one of his crewmates keep an eye on Sweetheart post breakup. We saw how mentally unwell he was in the game and sort of in the manga; this is a realistic thing for someone with underlings to do.

Reminder that the Captain Spaceboy sequence is different in the manga, with the gang helping him put together a love letter to give to Sweetheart. I liked this addition and am glad it is used in a satisfying way here to keep the plotline more cohesive between these points than in the game. I think this is evidence of some good long-term planning and awareness of needing to make the plot fast, as it gave them a motivation without needing to spend more time building up one in this chapter. The letter gives the gang a proper motivation to stop the wedding, as they want Captain Spaceboy to have his chance at getting back together with her. We have another scene like I’ve pointed out previously where Omori is more of an active character than in the game. Omori remembers the scene of Spaceboy thanking him for their help and silently tells the others that they should stop the wedding. Again, I like the scenes we get where the gang shows off their personalities and motivations, it’s sweet and cute. I just wish we had more of them.

With the gang in agreement, we go straight everyone (including Buddy) busting in to prevent the wedding. I love the design for Sweetheart’s wedding dress! She looks gorgeous and is super cute.

I can hear that HO HO HO ojou-sama laugh in this image, glad they brough attention to it at multiple points and in great ways. It’s literally the first thing they hear from Sweetheart in the previous page. And later they take damage from her laugh, with it being drawn bigger and more jagged than before.

The wedding crash condenses the plot from the game, with her starting out marrying herself rather than looking for a suitor. So we skip over the very funny Quest for Hearts show and the gang getting thrown in jail and subsequently escaping and helping with the wedding preparations. A lot of fun moments that would’ve been nice to see drawn in detail, even if it was a collage across a single page. Like baking the cake, helping with the singers, and fighting the Sir Maximus family. She does still swoon over Hero until he rejects her, which prompts the fight. One moment I like here is that we see Omori be emotionally shaken when Aubrey mentions that he is already with someone. It could sound weird to remind someone that they are in a relationship, but with future context of the game we are aware that Hero has trouble saying no. So Aubrey reminding him makes sense for their characters given what they know about each other. And any reminder of Mari would make sense to stir Omori.

Everyone’s reactions to her proposal are so cute, I love these faces.

I want to bring attention to the small panel that shows Mari’s hair while Omori is emotionally shaken. Based on the perspective making her hair look like it is on the ground, I feel very confident that this is Mari lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. For a new viewer of Omori, this is a tiny hint towards the context of her death. For us old fans, this is a chilling reminder of what’s to come. I am still not a huge fan of how they’ve handled her, but I do like this small moment.

Hero rejects her, leading to some pages of Sweetheart breaking down. I like these pages, it does a solid enough job at portraying Sweetheart’s misery beneath her self-worship in a short amount of time.

Finally we get another proper action sequence, with the Sweetheart fight. I hope y’all listened to her battle music as you read this part like I did, it’s an absolute banger and imo the best battle theme. This fight is cool but a mixed bag in my opinion. Visually it is pretty awesome. It’s easy to keep track of how it plays out, and everyone looks great. Especially Sweetheart, with her attacks and the damage they do looking sick.

Maybe this is a reach but the shape of her chain as it loops around back to her looks a bit like a heart. If intentional, cool detail.

Buddy distracts her so Aubrey can land a hit, then Kel and Hero keep her weapon down so Omori can land a major hit. I don’t care for Omori for some reason being in the air to land his blow, it’s a stereotypically cool action thing but doesn’t fit here imo. Like how did he jump so high in the air? And if they already had her weapon locked down, which prompted him to go for the attack, it’s not like he would have jumped to avoid it. And when he actually does the slash, he is already back on the ground. Idk I’m probably overthinking it but I’m one of those people who doesn’t want “cool action thing” just for coolness sake if it doesn’t fit. Here I would’ve rather seen him go for one of the attacks he has in the game. The attack lands but does not take her down. Sweetheart does an AOE that knocks out everyone but Omori, with him not succumbing like he can in the game for the first deadly hit you take. It feels like a shame that the friends weren’t “toast” though. Omori goes to attack her again, going ultra instinct as well apparently. It does also feel like a stereotypical action thing to have, but at least it can be justified as her attack missing like most attacks can in the game. And in her confusion, she accidentally breaks a pillar that nearly falls and kills her. Captain Spaceboy swoops in to save her from dying.

Overall, I think the fight is cool and competently displayed, but it doesn’t feel as “gamey” as I would’ve liked. The teamwork we see is cool, it’s a concrete plan that makes sense and is executed well visually. But it does not really fit with how the game plays and again takes away the victory entirely from the gang because they get helped by Buddy. And speaking of Buddy, I didn’t really feel anything with his fake out death. I feel like I was suppose to feel for him but I didn’t think he would’ve died. I actually think him dying would have been a cool sudden tone shift fitting for the game. But overall, I think the tone of the manga has not been as well balanced and favors more towards lighter than heavier. But back to the fight. Within the context of Omori, I would’ve preferred it have more of a gamey feel than just referencing Omori’s survival mechanic. Like maybe the follow-ups from the game could have been involved to make this teamwork remind you more of the game.

Captain Spaceboy makes his proposal to her, which Sweetheart accepts. Censoring the kiss is a cute gag continued from the game.

He is Space Husband now, and the gang is able to get the happy ending for these two that they wanted. This is a mission accomplished, even though I am not crazy about it feeling less earned than in the game. But I still like that the plotline between Otherworld and Sweetheart’s Castle was more cohesive. Like many things in this manga, Sweetheart’s Castle is a mixed bag of great new additions and questionable changes.

This chapter ends with Omori and friends falling into the hole that you jump down at the end of this sequence. The context is slightly different with Omori falling down rather than choosing to jump down the hole. I don’t necessarily think this is damaging, as we have plenty of scenes making Omori have agency. I just wanted to point out another difference. I’m curious to the point in which we pick back up with Sunny. Is he going to be facing Basil again, or will it cut to the point after he leaves Basil behind in the bathroom.

One broader point to make before we end things off. I want to bring up the satisfaction we get watching the characters progress throughout the story. This chapter is substantially weaker on this front as a result of the sped-up story. The game is very deliberate at making you spend more time with certain things. Like when you look at the photo album at the beginning of the game, then look through it again when some of the photos fall out. Most players wouldn’t have forgotten about the album by then, but its reinforcing that these memories are important to him and Basil. The drawn-out fights with the SOMETHINGS (aka fears) help to illustrate how serious of fears they are, that they can’t be overcome instantly. But in this chapter, Omori’s fear of spiders is not dealt with in a satisfying manner. I don’t think Sweetheart was done poorly necessarily, but instead of learning about Sweetheart here and there across the game and then a lot in the castle, we just get a few pages before the main confrontation during the wedding. I think her core personality was portrayed enough to be understood, but again less effectively because we don’t get that buildup. With the introduction of Buddy playing a big role in their success this chapter, it took away some of the agency from the main characters. We still have them make the choice to stop the wedding, but it feels a little worse since they didn’t do it on their own. In the game the gang felt like they were in their own world in a way, which was effective for the story of them playing through Omori’s fantasy. Here I think they feel a bit more grounded in the world. Which has some perks, but also some negatives to the cohesion. Perhaps I am just overthinking and nitpicking because this is a series I really like. But I am still enjoying this manga for what it is, ups and downs. I’ll take the good with the bad and be thankful for the existence of the good. I may not like all these changes but I really don’t get people saying this somehow ruins the original game. It doesn’t, just ignore it if you don’t like it.

Thanks for reading!

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