What would you do if you could no longer hold the one you love?
Love is supposed to be a beautiful thing, but what happens when it becomes something you cannot let go of?
For this month's manga spotlight, just in time for Halloween, let's talk about a manga that deserves more recognition. Written by Umi Shiina, I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die is a deeply romantic yet deeply unsettling manga–it's definitely a story that can make you stop and think.
Why? It's not just a stereotypical supernatural romance.
Warning: light spoilers ahead!
I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die is a story that explores extreme codependency, childhood trauma, and the lengths people will go to hold on to someone they love, all backdropped by folkloric horror. The art style may be your stereotypical shoujo aesthetic, but don't be fooled; the brighter, more fluid look can really drive home the horror more than you would think.
I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die
Writer and illustrator: Umi Shiina
Publisher: Kodansha
What is “I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die” about?
Yuri Kariya is by all means a normal high school student, albeit she isn't really particularly memorable. Her classmates don't really talk with her, and no one seems to notice her at all.
But Yuri doesn't really care. She's hung up on a recent interaction she had with Ryuhei Aono, a handsome and kind boy from the class next to hers. That one interaction, where he helps her carry books to the library, has sparked the flames of first love in her heart. Yuri makes it her mission to have him notice and acknowledge her–and proceeds to confess her feelings for him right after.
Aono is taken aback by Yuri's sudden declaration, but agrees to go out with her anyway as her boyfriend. The two enjoy puppy love bliss, more particularly Yuri, who realises that her life's purpose is now to love Aono deeply.
However, a sudden tragedy strikes. Aono dies two weeks into their relationship due to a vehicular accident, and Yuri is distraught. She finds she cannot go on living without Aono, and resolves to commit suicide to follow him into the afterlife. However, her attempt is thwarted when Aono's ghost manifests before her, imploring her to continue on living. Yuri refuses if she cannot be with him, so he compromises by staying beside her as a spirit.
Yuri and Aono, one living, one dead, continue where their relationship was cut short. But Yuri's desire for physical connection and affection leads her to suggest to Aono that he should possess her, triggering the appearance of “Black Aono”–Aono's second, more malevolent personality.
What does “Black Aono” want from Yuri, and why does the history of their hometown hide something far sinister and tied to it all?
The horror of love and codependency
At first glance, Yuri and Aono's relationship seems like your typical first-love romance. A girl falls for a kind boy, confesses her feelings, and gets to experience the joys of having a boyfriend. But there's something unsettling about just how quickly Yuri falls for Aono, and how she comes to see him as the centre of her entire world despite only knowing him for two weeks.
Yuri's idealisation of Aono leaves you wondering how Yuri perceives him in the first place. Is she seeing him for the person he presents himself as, or as the person she wants him to be for her? Although this question is repeatedly asked throughout the manga, Yuri's character itself impedes on the discovery time and time again. Her devotion and dependency to his existence, so much so that it sacrifices her bodily autonomy and health, leave little room for his individuality.
Yuri doesn't understand the intricacies of human interaction as one would expect, and as the story jumps into the mystery of “Black Aono”, Yuri's focus of loving her dead boyfriend is split into two ways: finding a way to let Aono move on to the afterlife, and being unable to let go of him at all. Yuri's attachment is tragic, not only because obviously the person she love is already dead, but because the views on her worth as a person worth loving, and her views of people she thinks are worth loving, are skewed by the hardship she has gone through.
But the thing is, Yuri isn't the only one to have an unhealthy view of attachment and love. As the series progresses, it is evident that Aono also has his own demons and idealistic view of Yuri. With this incredibly complicated and messed up situation already hanging above their heads, their bond devolves into codependency. For Yuri and Aono, the both of them give too much and take too much from each other, and the cycle only continues to loop until both of them have almost nothing left to give.
Yet although it is quite evident that Yuri and Aono's bond is dark, there is one thing anyone cannot deny: they truly, deeply, and irrevocably love each other.
Sure, the supernatural occurrences may be terrifying, but Shiina also hones in on something that's incredibly real and just as much horrific: how do you free yourself from something you think you cannot survive without?
It's easy to romanticise the idea of loving someone so much that you'd do anything for them. But what happens when that devotion begins to hurt the very person you're trying to love? When holding on becomes more important than letting someone go, or when being needed becomes indistinguishable from being loved? These are the questions that make I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die more than just a supernatural romance. It asks us to consider whether love alone can sustain a relationship, especially when the people involved are still struggling to understand themselves.
And perhaps the most heartbreaking part is that loving someone doesn't automatically mean knowing how to love them well.
Why you should read I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die
For all intents and purposes, I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die is a shoujo manga through and through. From Yuri falling head over heels for a handsome, kind boy to the sweetness of their first love, the story has all the makings of a typical romance. But Shiina takes these familiar tropes and pushes them into something far more unsettling.
After all, isn't unwavering devotion supposed to be romantic? The idea of loving someone so much that you'd do anything for them is a staple of romance stories, but what happens when that devotion goes too far? What might have been a sweet story about first love, complete with the sparkle and softness of a typical shoujo manga, instead becomes a disturbing exploration of what happens when holding on to someone matters more than anything else.
The horror is effective because it is carried by shoujo conventions and aesthetics. It doesn't simply discard the romantic elements in favour of the grotesque or the terrifying; it uses the very things that make their relationship feel tender and heartfelt to make its darker moments hit harder. The love is still there, but so are the grief, desperation, and possessiveness that come with it. The art, through all its carefully drawn lines, soft shading, and shimmering eyes, also has the power to devolve into something grotesque and disgusting. Shiina asks us to look beyond the romantic ideal of loving someone unconditionally through rose-coloured lenses, and consider what that actually means when love starts hurting the people involved.
So, do you also have someone you want to hold so badly, you could die?
"I Want To Hold Aono-kun So Badly I Could Die" is available to read digitally through Kodansha USA and BookWalker.