Danica Davidson
February 19, 2025 
Hell Is Dark with No Flowers is a creepy mystery series involving yokai. The main character, Seiji, is a useless NEET who’s about to be homeless, but he has something important going for him: sometimes he sees people as yokai, or monsters. This really scares him, like when he was a kid and he saw a kind man look like a horrible creature. Well, it turns out that man wasn’t really kind — and somehow Seiji knew this. But how will this skill help at work and life?
One day Seiji stumbles into a scary-looking, Western-style mansion and meets Shiroshi, a delicate-looking young man who claims he’s the son of a demon king and that he’s operating a proxy business for hell. Shiroshi needs to find sinners to send to hell, and Seiji can help him locate them through his special vision.
Shiroshi doesn’t exactly have a sign explaining what his real business is. Instead, he says he offers free consulting. People show up for consulting, like a pregnant woman who is receiving frightening messages about hanging herself. There’s something supernatural going on, and Seiji’s vision and Shiroshi’s deductive reasoning will have to get to the bottom of it and figure out who in the scenario is the person going to hell.
It looks to be a situation where each mystery will be its own arc. The first mystery is solved in this volume, and the second ends with a cliffhanger, so that you need to get the next volume to learn what’s going on. Hell Is Dark with No Flowers does a good job of being creepy, having some twists, and showcasing an atmosphere that both shows off Shiroshi’s prettiness and the terror of yokai destined for hell. The art is at its most expressive when it shows the yokai in great, sinister detail. It also makes use of its monochrome artwork for a shadowy feel, like an old black and white horror movie. It’s a successfully moody and macabre manga, and is based on a light novel series of the same name. Yen Press is also publishing the original light novels.
Art: Ruka Todo
Story: Yoru Michio
Publisher: Yen Press
Translator: Christina Rose
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
