Omori Manga Ch. 10 Review - Coping with the Boys
Written by Rei Caldombra 8/20/25 Video: TBD
Previous Chapter: Omori Manga Ch. 9 Review - Guilt and Blame — Blog Under a Log
Please be aware that this article contains significant spoilers for the Omori video game and that this series deals with heavy and potentially triggering topics such as depression, self-harm and suicide. Also, times are very stressful and depressing right now, please take care of your mental health and reach out for help when you need it. We can all get through this, let’s just focus on our favorite hobbies like reading and discussing manga when we can. <3
Chapter 10 is another fantastic chapter of the Omori Manga! This time we go through the immediate aftermath of the confrontation with Aubrey and the boys at the lake, focusing primarily on how Hero processed his grief and how it impacted his and Kel’s relationship. I continue to feel that the manga is enhancing Omori’s emotional beats with its added details and stellar art.
To start: We’ve got a killer piece of cover art for this chapter that encapsulates a lot of the story.
I didn’t make my additions any bigger on the thumbnail just because I didn’t want to cover up too much of it. Omori is trying to hold onto reality but retreats into Headspace as a coping mechanism when he is met with stress or triggers. His repressed trauma holds him back from truly living in the present. He looks like he is falling, which mirrors how often Omori is shown to be falling throughout the story. One detail is that Mari has her Headspace color palette. This represents that she only remains as a living character in Sunny’s head. Her art also aligns very well with SOMETHING underneath the glass, again showing that SOMETHING is a visual manifestation of his trauma and how it haunts him. Try as he might, SOMETHING will continue to be there behind him as long as he continues to repress the past. SOMETHING being behind Sunny also fits with Basil’s perspective on the story. The blood on the photos shows how the memories have been tainted due to the harm the characters have caused and experienced. I believe the expressions are meant to reflect how each person views Sunny at the present time. Kel and Hero look longingly at Sunny, as they do not have any bitterness towards him and (compared to the other characters at least) are fairly well-adjusted people overall. Aubrey is looking away, filled with anger towards Sunny and the others for abandoning her. Basil is looking towards Sunny (and SOMETHING) but is filled with anxiety. Deep down he wants to spend time with Sunny, but because of everything that has happened and his bad mental state, he cannot look straight ahead. He, like Sunny, is also haunted by SOMETHING as he believes it is what compelled Sunny to push Mari.
The chapter starts with our grand introduction of Hero in the real world, with him pulling Basil and Sunny out of the lake. Just like in the game, he focused entirely on getting Basil back to his house. With all of them leaving Aubrey at the lake without another word. He couldn’t recognize that girl as Aubrey, and regrets not saying anything. This scene strongly shows Hero’s good nature, as he focused entirely on helping Basil and does not jump straight to the WHY of the situation. What matters is getting him care, not figuring out why this situation happened in the first place. Kel deflects from talking about Aubrey, and then Hero reflects on how he has not been around for the past 4 years. “What happened while I was gone?” gets straight to the heart of Hero’s side of the story once he got out of his depression. And plays into the theme of the previous chapter about all of the members of the gang not being there for each other. But we can focus on that later.
The meat of this chapter is learning about how Hero and Kel reacted to Mari’s death. It is heart wrenching and made me want to cry. I love the extra details added to this piece of the story and the art that beautifully portrays the pain of the characters in this chapter. Suny, Kel and Hero bring Basil back to his house and Hero instructs Polly how best to take care of him. Kel remarks on how well Hero is acting like the doctor he is studying to be and is living up to his name. Kel looks at a marked-up photo and wonders what parts of Basil and Aubrey’s stories are true, bringing up how much everyone has changed. This leads into Kel recounting how things went for them after Mari’s death. During this scene, Sunny is covered in expressions that I see primarily as shame. Sunny’s primary problem is that he has been blocking out the truth of the past. Here, he is being forced to hear about the consequences of Mari’s death on the other characters. Kel is directly addressing his trauma from the past, while Sunny is avoiding it.
Here is a reminder about the context of Mari’s death for anyone who may have forgotten. To everyone other than Sunny and Basil, Mari committed suicide by hanging herself on the tree in the backyard of Sunny’s home.
After Mari’s death, Hero experiences a severe period of depression. I consider Hero to have gone through a major depressive episode here. You can make the argument that Hero could have clinical depressive depression rather than just experiencing an episode spurred by this traumatic event, though. But that’s up to interpretation and not truly important to the story. Hero locked himself in his room for about a year, barely doing any basic functions like eating, speaking and leaving the house. The fact that he was able to survive for about a year means he was eating and drinking the bare minimum needed to live, but I interpret this as genuinely THE bare minimum to keep himself alive. We do not know all the details, such as if they ever needed to take him to the hospital or anything like that to keep him alive, so we can only go based off of what we have.
Sunny and Hero both had the initial response of isolating themselves due to the trauma making them experience severe states of depression (among other potential symptoms). And both of their sets of parents were not able to help significantly with their children’s struggles. Both people locked themselves in their room and mentally retreated inward. We know Sunny has suicidal tendencies, but with Hero I do not think this was the case. It is not uncommon for partners of suicide victims to become suicidal themselves, but I feel that if they wanted to go into this with Hero’s experience they would have hinted at this. But if you disagree and/or there’s something I’ve missed that could imply this, please do share. The big difference in their experiences is that Hero’s sibling was alive to help pull him out. One night, Kel decides to go to Hero’s room and talk to him. He tells him that he and his parents miss and worry about him. All of this is natural things you can expect a brother to say. But once he says that Mari would not want him to live like this, Hero snaps. Hero has a big outburst, grabbing Kel by the shirt and shouting into his face.
He tells Kel that he could never understand how Mari felt and doesn’t understand anything. That he should stop pretending to care, just keep to himself and play along with a smile. And that he is a clueless idiot. He cries harder and harder, and in that terrifying moment all Kel truly wanted to do was help him calm down. I love the pained expression on Hero’s face, the type of expression that we would never expect to see from him. And Kel would never have expected this from Hero either, he was never the type of person to be hurtful. And hits even harder because in the game we did not get visuals for this scene. Not only did the manga elevate this scene like many others, but this time it turned a very short piece of dialogue that you could miss into a fully realized scene that is beautifully painful.
Hero had been numbing himself for the past year, not properly addressing his feelings. This is what can happen when someone bottles up their emotions until they burst. This is very common with people who do not properly process their emotions, with said outburst often resulting in abuse towards someone who doesn’t deserve it. That’s what happens here, the kind and caring boy who would never intentionally hurt his younger brother does just that. A lot of what Hero says is projection. From Hero’s perspective, his girlfriend who seemed happy enough and normal suddenly committed suicide. Out of nowhere, she is dead and gone by her own hand. Sadly, that is the reality for many loved ones of suicide victims. This eats him up inside and destroys his image of himself. He was her boyfriend but didn’t notice her pain. He is the one who thought he knew how Mari felt, but didn’t. He didn’t help her or protect her the way a partner should. He failed her. In Hero’s mind, he is the clueless idiot who was blind to the warning signs he thinks must have been there. Part of what Hero says is not entirely projection, as many lies or unintended words have a nugget of truth to them. We discussed in the last chapter how Kel can be clueless towards the feelings of people around him. He can be dense and not take things seriously. That’s what most of his scathing words are getting at. Another piece of double meaning is that you could also interpret his line about Kel smiling as him truly wanting to see Kel smile. Because that constant smile was also a comfort to him and would remind him of the way things used to be.
After Hero pushes Kel away, his parents burst in and tend to Hero. Without more than a glance towards Kel. This gets at Kel’s trauma over feeling second fiddle to Hero. He barely felt like he existed, and I think this is meant to convey that even with Hero out of commission he still never got the attention from his parents that he wanted. It seems clear to me that Hero had at least some understanding of the imbalance, but this sad scene makes him truly see it. This made him realize how much his actions were further hurting Kel, and the kind and attentive older brother comes back to the surface. After seeing Kel ignored by his parents, he snaps out of his poor mental state. He goes over to Kel, hugs him, and apologizes over and over. His apology has dual meaning. He’s apologizing to Kel for berating him, pushing him and likely also for failing him as a brother. But this is also after he finally let out all of his feelings regarding Mari’s death. He’s apologizing to her for failing as a partner. We know Hero is an incredibly kind person. For example, the reason he aims to become a doctor like they reveal in this chapter is because he wants to help save lives (like Mari’s). And for many people, caring for others is a lot easier than caring for yourself. I certainly suffer from this; it’s a lot easier to tell people how to help themselves than it is to apply that same advice to yourself. I’m way harsher on myself than I tell others to be towards themselves, it’s one thing I’m working on. I think Hero is one of these people too. During his depression he struggled to care for himself while he was hurting, but seeing Kel hurt woke his caring instincts back up.
After this he returns to a functional state and devotes himself to school. He did still leave cooking behind initially even after he got better, showing that while he has returned to relative normalcy, some trauma does still remain. Cooking was an activity he shared with Mari, so it is understandable for him to not feel ready to go back to that right away. This was directly expressed in the game, but here it’s more so implied. You can see a page from one of the books with Ma. I’m interpreting this as a note Mari wrote in one of his cookbooks. Grief is a heavy burden that does not go away easily.
This scene is centered on dialogue from Kel which we heard in the game when you visit Mari’s grave with Kel during 2 Days Left. Which took place before the confrontation at the lake. I think this shift in placement is totally fine, Kel bringing it up here feels very natural. I have full confidence that we will have a proper scene at Mari’s grave that will hit very hard, we do not need to be afraid of it being taken out just because of this scene. No scene at her grave would be a bafflingly stupid thing to do that would legit piss me off lol. They have not been skimping on Mari, so I doubt they’d do this.
Once he is done tending to Basil, Hero walks over and joins Suny and Kel. He confirms Basil will be okay and gives Sunny some affection. Sunny blushes and I think looks happy, which is cute. But Kel does not have a positive reaction to this, rather than what you’d expect from him normally. Kel still has some lingering feelings about their fight, making him look sad and defensive. But Hero recognizes this right away and this time takes action right away. He goes right over to Kel and shows him some brotherly love. And Kel is happy to receive it. Without mentioning the fight directly, they are both acknowledging the past but showing each other that they still love each other and are moving on. This is the opposite of Sunny, who can’t move past what happened. They have both learned to cope with their past, but Sunny has failed to.
Before moving on from Kel and Hero, let’s talk about parents. It is very easy to hate on Kel and Hero’s parents here. They had not been directly abusive towards Kel in the traditional sense, but from Kel’s perspective they did not show him the save level of love and attention they showed Hero. Hero got better treatment because he was the “better” aka more successful son. And when their golden child was struggling, they were not able to help him. Kel is a relatable character to a lot of people who felt like the lesser child. And many people can relate to Hero for being the child burdened with high expectations. I think everyone can agree that they have had many moments where they felt their parents “don’t get them”. Criticizing them for not doing right by their kids is very fair. This series is full of parents who do not support their kids properly. Basil’s parents were out traveling, leaving their sick grandmother and Basil (who I doubt they noticed was severely unwell) to a caretaker. Sunny’s dad separated from the family at some point after Mari’s death and his mom left him alone for 3 days while doing the move despite him clearly being severely unwell across the board. Honestly I wish we had gotten a little more from Sunny’s Mom in the game, such as why she let Sunny stay inside for years but then also being willing to leave him alone. Aubrey’s dad ditched them at some point, and her mom was directly abusive and neglectful. All neglect and abuse is not equal, but neglect and abuse is still neglect and abuse. I hate when people downplay people’s suffering just because someone else has it worse, so we should not act like Kel and Hero had it easy just because the others had it worse. The parents are meant to play into the struggles of the characters but not be notable characters in themselves. I can understand why they didn’t get more focus and think the story functions well as is, but is elevated a bit for Aubrey, Kel and Hero thanks to the manga. Maybe we’ll get a little something with Sunny’s Mom at some point in the manga, I am very open to that.
We end off in the real world with the brothers and Sunny setting off while and seeing Basil and Aubrey in their current states all alone. We then cut to Omori being attended to and comforted by Mari before waking up in the Last Resort. Mari is wrapping up his wrist, which appears bloody. I believe this is referencing the self-harm that Omori does in between days without directly showing it. This could come down to censorship as this is the definition of legitimate self-harm. I would not say I am for this change, but I can understand it from the perspective of the manga having the restrictions of a major publisher rather than an indie game. It does make that part of Sunny’s character less clear, which can harm the messaging about self-harm though. But on the other hand, I can understand the worry of younger readers replicating it. And I do think that fear is more warranted as just looking at the series, it could seem like its intended for children. But I digress as this is a very deep topic that I’m not trying to get deep into in the middle of this review. Feel free to amicably share your thoughts on it though if you want. Omori wakes up holding another scrap of a picture. That piece of the picture is much clearer this time. I believe this is Sunny’s perspective of Mari lying dead at the bottom of the stairs. Btw since this is the first time her death has been brought up in awhile, I want to make a brief mention that could be elaborated on later. Some people have enjoyed bringing up the dark idea that Mari actually survived the fall but died when they strung up her body, but this is not true. She was confirmed as not breathing when she was on the bed before they strung up her body. Moving on- just like in the game, Kel explains that they are all stuck with jobs at the Last Resort and need to get the gang back together. He also makes the first reference towards the looping nature of Headspace. And this is where we end.
This was an excellent chapter, using great art and excellent dialogue and added details to yet again make the emotional beats of the story ring so much stronger. The expressions in the manga are just so good, they convey emotion so well. I understand some people’s misgivings with the manga and have some criticisms of my own in some of the previous chapters, but I truly do think it is good and well worth the read for big Omori fans. It’s continuing to show how much it has to add to this story. I’ll try not to have the next chapter review out so late, honestly I’ve been struggling with depression myself so I have been struggling to care for myself as well. Which includes pursuing my creative hobbies. But I’m doing my best and feeling better. Thanks for reading!
One last Omori manga related note, WOW they are making us wait to be able to get the translated manga physically. The first volume is listed to come out March of 2026. With how sporadic the latest chapters have been maybe the manga won’t be finished by then, but it is a shame that it’s taking this long compared to the Japanese volumes when we’ve had translated chapters since the beginning. So it feels like the manga volumes could have been simultaneous releases too… Things are way better than they used to be but long waits for translated volumes are still a thing. I appreciate that we at least have the online translations coming up same time, as if we did not this would be the exact type of situation that encourages piracy. I will stress that I do encourage y’all to directly financially support the series you love and care about through the official channels. You can read Omori on Kodansha’s website Kmanga. It does have the pay per chapter system, which is understandably not a favorite to many, but it does tell them that the global audience desires and is willing to pay for translations of chapters available online simultaneously. There are still some companies that don’t nowadays, leaving 1+ year long waits for full volumes the only option. I want to support this series and encourage manga companies to provide translated chapters online, so I am paying for it. Kirara if you are somehow seeing this, please provide translated chapters online, I’ll gladly pay for it. Also remember that indie games getting turned into manga is not the norm, so supporting the Omori manga can also communicate that they should do more things like this. I’d certainly like to see that too.
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My first article on the Omori Manga: I'm so hyped for the Omori Manga — Blog Under a Log
