For nearly seventeen years, Kio Shimoku’s Spotted Flower has been a uniquely thrilling and terrifying rollercoaster of a manga. The series defies easy categorization: It’s very much a drama featuring otaku, but even more an exploration of varying sexual dynamics and relationship types. While cheating becomes a major plot point in the series, it’s not the fetishized NTR kind, albeit the series does delve into plenty of fetishes in general. What began as a tongue-in-cheek, off-brand Genshiken romantic what-if proceeded to transform over time into an increasingly complex and sprawling web of a relationship chart that ensnared and entangled its characters.

Now, Spotted Flower has ended—or at least the physical magazine in which it was serialized has come to an end. There seem to be some vague rumblings about its future, but there’s no word yet. And I am going to spoil the final (?) two chapters 50 and 51 immediately, because 1) I bet anyone who’s read it over the years is curious, whether morbidly or otherwise, and 2) it acts as an important preface for the rest of what I want to discuss.

The Finale

When last we left off in Chapter 49, everything seemed to come home to roost for its protagonist, the Husband (i.e. Not-Madarame). His Wife (Not-Kasukabe), fully aware of his act of infidelity, gives him an ultimatum: Get hard or get out. It’s also important to note that despite his getting railed by their genderqueer friend Asaka-sensei (Not-Hato) in the past, the Husband remained flaccid during that act, which is one of the reasons the Wife has even given him a chance to redeem himself. 

Chapter 50 focuses entirely on a conversation between the Husband and the Wife. She recalls in the present the events that first truly brought them together: a discussion over drinks where she brought up the time he was confessed to by a bunch of the girls (just like in Genshiken Nidaime). She admitted to feeling relieved that he didn’t choose anyone, and from there convinced him to get a hotel room. In the present, the Husband expresses his frustration that he honestly wants badly to get an erection, but it just doesn’t seem to be happening. The Wife, rather than getting fed up, tells him they have plenty of time, and goes to sit down. 

However, when she goes to sit down, the moonlight hits her hair in such a way that it reminds him of her younger self (back when she dyed her hair), and something sparks inside the Husband. He even goes as far as having her roll up a fake cigarette, and this image of the past she’s inadvertently presenting gets him to talk about just how much he used to masturbate to her, and that he started since the very first day they met. While the Wife is not a fan of how very detailed the Husband is about describing his past fantasies, the results can’t be denied, and she notices that he’s downright throbbing down there. 

Chapter 51 then winds up being 33 pages of explicit scene of the two going at it hot and heavy, interspersed with scenes of the rest of the old club discussing whether or not they were basically a “sex club” in practice (probably not, but it’s difficult to discuss over the moans of the other two), and then the boys all getting together to play fighting games. I would very much like to share even a single page from this chapter, as the images of sex juxtaposed with dudes having some (actually) innocent nerd fun is quite striking, but I would end up having my Patreon age-restricted. 

Thoughts (and Many of Them)

The Husband has rediscovered his libido and deep lust for his Wife. What began as a pseudo spin-off about a horny pregnant woman trying to get her man hard became a story about feelings of male inadequacy, only to loop back to the original premise. All’s well that ends well, right?

And yet, the journey to get here was so tumultuous that some readers (according to online comments) jumped ship partway through. It became too difficult to continue reading Spotted Flower, as the darkness and betrayal began to ruin Genshiken for them in the process, despite it being “non-canon.” Madarame and Kasukabe was a popular fan pairing that didn’t pan out in Genshiken (Madarame ends up with Sue), at least among Genshiken diehards, and it was like their consolation prize was a poison pill. The fact that Kio kept introducing more character analogues only served to create a sense of doubt about the intentions of the story: What if this is the actual Genshiken canon, and we were all played for fools?

I also believe that there’s another factor compounding all this: We increasingly live in a time when feelings about NTR/cuckolding/cheating in general have become more extreme. I personally don’t prefer it as a genre, nor do I think it should be outlawed or anything, but what I have also seen is that a complicated mix of emotions related to fetishes, fear of emasculation, and moral panic has left us in a state where things like “girl dates one guy over the other” is incorrectly described as “cucking.” While I highly doubt that most of the people obsessed with these labels were reading a manga as obscure as Spotted Flower, and the series literally came out over 15 years ago in a rather different period culturally, it is certainly a manga that doesn’t consider vanilla monogamy to be a sacred cow. 

But as it turns out, Spotted Flower isn’t just a series that inflicts pain, either in a malicious or sadomasochistic NTR sort of way. Instead, it is a disorganized world of adults who all have their own types of relationships where some are monogamous, others sleep around, and others are engaged in some form of polyamory or another. And here’s another messy outcome, where the Husband disastrously cheats on his spouse out of a sense of inadequacy, only to end up rediscovering his lust for her amid social pressure from friends and acquaintances. The Wife, meanwhile, has to actually forgive him and give him this chance in the first place. We see not a defense of cheating or an encouragement of it, but ultimately a marriage that has been rocky. I won’t necessarily say it’s “realistic,” but it’s the kind of relationship you rarely see in manga. 

(And if you want that kind of hurt, read Kio’s Gonensei instead.)

That all said, I understand that most series that bring up cheating—and have it actually happen—don’t finish on a happy note. One can even argue that both Genshiken and Spotted Flower “copped out” by giving Madarame and his doppelganger a relationship at the end, but I don’t see it that way.

Not every plot thread is fully resolved, but I’m satisfied by where they leave off. The Wife’s Ex-Boyfriend (Not-Kohsaka) still seems to have some unrequited feelings for the Editor. Yet, it almost seems like what he was really missing in his life (and what he was trying to find with all his philandering) was that friendship and camaraderie from the old days, given that he was the one who kicked off the fighting game session. Most of the other couples seem happy where they are.

As for Ogino-sensei (Not-Ogiue) and her two spouses, a supplemental chapter released online continues teasing at the possibility of a real threesome—this time by having Ogino suggest that if both her and her Assistant fiancee (Not-Sue) have kids with her Editor fiancee (Not-Sasahara), the two girls can share a connection by having their children be related. Sure, why not.

Closing Comments

A part of me can’t believe that I started writing about Spotted Flower almost two decades ago, and we’re only finally seeing it ride off into the sunset. Sure, a lot of that is due to the very slow release schedule, but so much has happened in my life since that first chapter came out. I literally moved to Europe and back, had multiple jobs, got married, and went through a hopefully once-in-a-lifetime pandemic (during which Kio himself started posting on social media). In a way, I’m more attuned to the maturity of the series than ever before, even if I can’t relate to the specific circumstances of the characters. 

It’s been a wild ride, everyone. Hope to see you for the next nerd life milestones.