Reviews

The Drifting Classroom: Perfect Edition, Vol. 1 by Kazuo Umezz

quartz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

4.25

wrenwreads's review

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

cosmic_nova_'s review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

kkeraunos's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

this manga was SO GOOD?!2? much better than i anticipated and im so glad i finally picked it up. i will say it was so sad when students would die or teachers would kill or act out on the students cause theyre KIDS, but it shows how sick ppl can rlly get in tense situations. ALSO THE PART WITH HIS MOM HIDING THE KNIFE OH MY GOD I LOVED THAT IT WAS SO TENSE THE SCENE WAS PERFECT!! i was hooked. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Child death, Gore, Physical abuse, Death, Child abuse, and Murder

juulingrights's review

borrrrinnngggg

nolansmock's review

5.0

This had been sitting on the shelf for almost a year before I finally decided to read it. It's the largest manga I have and also from the '70s, so I think I'd been intimidated or worried it would be tough to get into. Anyway, I picked it up around 2PM yesterday and read 600 pages in basically one sitting. I just finished the last 200 after waking up today. I guess I had nothing to worry about! I knew the premise behind the story, but didn't realize how completely unhinged it was going to be and the sort of madness these elementary schoolers would go through. Just nonstop insanity until the end, or at least until it begins setting up the next volume.

kirstenariel's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.0

strategineer's review

3.0

The Drifting Classroom is a Japanese horror manga series published from 1972 to 1974 that follows a school (and its students) that is mysteriously transported through time to a post-apocalyptic future.

Everyone knows about Junji Ito but not many people know about the work of Kazuo Umezz and that's a shame.

This manga falls into one of my preferred manga sub-genres "kids suffering greatly and no one knows why" (Bokurano by Mohiro Kitoh is a great one of these). The story takes place in a classroom that's drifting... If you're a fan of Junji Ito's work like Uzumaki then you should check this one out too.

djshire's review

4.0

This is the first volume of three. Incredible, this book combines violence, friendship, cowardice, strength, love and determination in order to create an extremely satisfying fantasy/thriller/horror graphic novel. Just begging for a proper television adaptation.

ercksn's review

dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5