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Chi no Wadachi - Thoughts from a Victim

January 10th, 2023

(Ch1-135)
Chi no Wadachi == Blood on the Tracks

tl;dr I thought it was great. 9/10, an accurate depiction of what it's like to have an overbearing mother. Or, as others have put: domestic abuse.

As Objective a Review I can Muster Up (up to Ch. 135)

I think this manga is a great psychological thriller horror. It's giving me Oyasumi Punpun vibes of family dysfunction and psychological derangement. I think the pacing is pretty slow though, but being able to read through the whole prologue in its entirety in one sitting is actually a pretty nice experience.

It's extremely grounded in reality and has no supernatural elements. Just abstract depictions of the emotional terror that's going through the character's minds at the moment. I think the narrative and the unsettling facial expressions really sell the manga as an experience that sucks you in.

I'd definitely give this one a read if you're into psychological dramas.

From the perspective of someone who's been through this shit - A Tour of Hell

Spoilers ahead!

So much of this is what I've experienced in my life but failed to put it into words. I guess, what's below here is a written testament that this is NOT trauma porn. I've lived through this exact manipulation. (Minus the murder part. Sure, my mother did try to kill me once too, but it was in reaction to something else. And minus the kissing part, fucking hell.)

I picked up on a lot of subtle shit sprinkled throughout this manga because of my experiences. Some of it isn't so subtle, but I'd like to just document it here.

From Chapter 1. She's worried it's hot and her son is going to have a heatstroke (like he's a baby who can't take care of himself.) And re-writing her son's name on a swimsuit? She's invaded and controlled every avenue of his life down to the minutiae. The son doesn't know any better and goes with the flow.
He's been manipulated into protecting an abusive parent. In other words, he believes what his mom does is right. I was the same when I was younger.
These panels are pretty subtle. She's watching every bite he takes of his meal and adjusting her behaviour to it. "Overbearing" is an understatement.

My mother did this to me at the dinner table everyday. If I ate one bowl of rice she'd stop cooking that dish and blame it on me. If I ate two bowls of rice she'd note it down. When I ate restaurant food she'd get depressed. She'd watch every expression I made when eating and guilt me for it. It's suffocating. In my early teens I lost my appetite.
Ouch. He knows that if he speaks his mind she's still going to choose for him. So, to make his mother happy he says he has no preference. She then says it's okay to state his preference to have the moral high-ground. I've been through this exercise a million times before. Don't get tricked by her sweet words!

For me, when I did actually express my opinion my mother would gaslight me into choosing her option ("no, the red shirt is better for you," or "no, you don't actually like that") and if I continued to disagree she'd get upset and start guilting me again. It's very, very subtle and nobody notices (not even myself) unless you draw an abstract horror manga about it.
Again, the control is very subtle. She "corrects" her son's decision by ordering what she wants and projecting that onto him. This applies to everything in the son's life, from the friends he makes to the food he gets to eat. But from an outsider's perspective, she's done nothing wrong.
My mother continued to take me shopping and choose my clothes for me all the way up to university. Pathetic, isn't it?
My mother would violently mood switch like this when reality didn't go her way. She used the same words and intensity. "I don't want to see you." It's actually spooky how accurate this manga is for me.
This panel for me is... validating. After a fight with my mom, she walked into my room while I was trying to sleep and said these exact words to me with the hand brushing my cheek. Again, spookily accurate.
For me and Seiichi, it's a heavy weight when you have to balance your mother's well-being in every decision you make and thing you say. Parental codependency is a really shitty experience to live.

The words my crying mother said were, "Do you want mommy to go away and die?" I was young at the time and had a fight with her. I don't know what to think about it anymore.
And of course, after it's all happened she pretends like nothing ever happened. Our MC should also pretend that nothing happened, because nothing happened after all! Have a nice day!
When I moved to my own apartment last summer, I could still feel my mother eye's on my back. Just because you leave doesn't mean your parent's influence on you is gone. You'll still carry the "normal" they taught you.
Yup.

My mother to this day doesn't see me as a human being. "Make sure you take care of Lanhful, okay? I raised him all these years so please don't let him get killed." She speaks to me as if I were a stranger taking her doll, her real baby. I wish, I wish I was making this shit up. I truly do.
Honestly, I think this everyday.

Personal thoughts

I feel like the author Oshimi Shuzo lived through having an overprotective mother. Even though me and him live in two completely different parts of the world I've not read a work like this one that describes exactly how I was raised to a tee. Guilt. Manipulation. Gaslighting. "Do you want mommy to be sad?" "Let mommy decide for you." "Do you want pork or red bean bun?" (Neither is not an option here.)

The whole manga is very relatable. An overbearing mother that controls everything and gives no privacy. Latching onto a girl as an "out" from a bad reality. Gaslighting oneself until not knowing who's right or wrong. All the little details, like how she was upset when our MC decided not to tell her about the good things that happened that day. My own mother tried to invade my own romantic life too when I was younger, being especially nosey and trying to stop girls from "taking me." I often gave up hanging out with friends to have "family time." I knew that my mother would be upset if I spent time outside. I also hung out with my cousins more than actual friends...

And my father was similar to the father in the story. Not very present in my life, but wished me well. Didn't know how to really connect with his children.

Anyway. It's so, so cathartic seeing how most discussions about the manga are how horrifying it is. Like, it's the worse thing in the world to read. "Someone out there understands me" and "my loser pessimistic lifestyle is sort of justified by a shitty childhood" is how I'd describe my feelings after reading Chi no Wadachi.

And the part where the MC blames himself for making his mother push his cousin off the cliff, that's very relatable. Sometimes I question it myself if it's my fault for making my mother crazy. Maybe I'm the crazy one, and not my mother. Maybe that's it. That's what seals the deal for this manga for me, which makes me able to relate to it very well. To this day, I'm not sure if I'm just victimizing myself against my mother. After growing up with only gaslighting and manipulation, I'm not sure who's the bad guy anymore. Which is why having an unreliable narrator makes this all the more realistic.

Towards Chapter 135 the mother's side of the story starts getting explained with the abuse she endured. It makes sense. My mother also lived through an abusive childhood. It's hard to change the normalcy you're given during the childhood and teenage years.

conclude

When I first read this when I was 17 I didn't get it. I didn't understand what was wrong while reading the first few chapters because it was just so damn normal for me. Now, having been able to distance myself from my mother I can clearly see what went REALLY wrong from the very start.

I guess, why I'm even writing this in the first place is to sort my feelings out. To figure out what's normal. Now I know for certain the way my mother objectified me growing up was domestic abuse. I really relate to Sei, because I didn't know what was happening at the time. Only that "mommy was upset with a lot of things I did" and "I was a horrible son." It feels disgusting admitting it, honestly.

But y'know, having seen this beautiful work makes me wonder if I should start writing a story.

So yeah, that's my review of Blood on the Tracks. Cheers.