No.1072
Kasuga is connected to Baudelaire not just by his obsession with the latter's primary work, but in a deeper more symbolic sense, he represents Baudelaire himself.
His attraction to Saeki as an "ideal love". The traditional muse, the "angel". In the way he narcissisticaly imposes these preconceived notions onto her, a normal girl. Refusing to see her true self
In his relationship with Nakamura we see Baudelaire's attraction to the darker, perverse love that Baudelaire often wrote about. Mising feelings of desire, passion, fear and annihilation.
"There are women who inspire you with the desire to conquer them and to take your pleasure of them; but this one fills you only with the desire to die slowly beneath her gaze."
-Charles Baudelaire
Kasuga's feelings mirror many of Baudelaire's. The feeling of alienation from his peers, the persistent desire to go someplace far away, the constant, overpowering feeling of guilt and self hatred. But the most meaningful is his connection to the Flower of Evil.
Nakamura is the titular Flower of Evil. For Kasuga, the desire for meaning outside of normalcy. Finding beauty in the perverse and "ugly". Extracting art from sin and suffering. She awakens all of this within Kasuga, mirroring how the Femme Fatale muses of Baudelaire would awaken new eras inside of Baudelaire and his poetry.
How will his Baudelairean journey end? For Baudelaire himself, he felt that he was damned for all eternity the moment he was born. He died an early death, destitute and unaknowledged…
Read the manga to find out.
No.1074
interesting. thanks
