Omori Manga Ch. 13 Review - Broken Home

Written by Rei Caldombra 11/10/25 Video: TBD

Previous Chapter: Omori Manga Ch. 11 + 12 Review - Approaching the Depths — Blog Under a Log

Hello everyone, Rei Caldombra here. We’re now on chapter 13 of the Omori manga, with this chapter focusing on Sunny and his fractured mind hanging out with Kel and Hero as Aubrey suffers in her broken home. It was really interesting to look into this deeper view of Aubrey’s situation and discuss the meaning of it. As usual, be warned that my reviews contain spoilers from the entire story of the Omori video game and that this series contains very heavy and potentially triggering topics such as self-harm and suicide.

This chapter starts with Omori being swallowed up by Mari’s hair, which serves as a cool and chilling entrance into Blackspace. In chapter 12 we saw Omori approach Blackspace while being confronted by The Stranger aka Shadow Basil. In that scene The Stranger is unbound and uses his Something to try to restrain Omori. This time The Stranger is the one bound, showing the effects of Sunny’s subconscious trying to suppress him after last time.

The Stranger remarks that despite his attempts to continue suppress The Truth, his grip is weakening. Just like in the game and as we have seen throughout the latter chapters, Sunny’s dreamlike Headspace is having more and more events that are breaking down the facade. He even calls him Sunny rather than Omori like the Headspace versions of all of the characters are meant to do. After telling him to wake up and that the collapse is inevitable, he gets chomped. Then this segment ends with Omori throwing up, falling to his knees, then getting surrounded by hands as we go from black to white.

So I believe these could either be the white hands we see in Whitespace or the red hands. It is hard to tell for certain by the color, as while they are darker than the white parts, the lighting is intentionally darker in those areas. I am thinking these are the white hands as the context of this scene makes me think that in this moment, they are preventing Sunny from embracing The Truth (therefore they are white rather than the bloodstained hands). This theory also makes sense as we immediately go back to the real world following this. But it could be meant to represent moving towards the moment of Omori fully taking over, like the scene in the game with him on the throne. But if you think I am interpreting this incorrectly feel free to give me your takes! I love Omori but will not claim to be a perfect expert.

Back in the real world, the gang spends some time at Kel’s house. I won’t go into too much detail here on all of it as it is just like in the game and doesn’t have a lot to it. But I do like Sally giving Sunny her pinwheel. It is cute for obvious reasons but also can serve as a minor moment of positivity for Sunny. We know that he is filled with self-hatred so this moment could be a little helpful boost to remind him that he isn’t as awful as he thinks he is. This could end up being notable since Sunny has more agency in the manga versus the game, so maybe this moment could be returned to down the line while he tries to forgive himself. I believe getting the pinwheel from Sally is original to the manga, but the pinwheel does have significance in the game. During 1 Day Left Aubrey puts a pinwheel on the stump of the tree Mari was hung from.

The moment of Kel saying he is a big brother is also super sweet and precious. I love that Hero looks at him proudly. This is another great showing of how they have a strong bond now.

This scene ends with Hero and Kel deciding that they will have a sleepover at Sunny’s house that night so they can spend more time with him before he leaves in 2 days. This directly puts us in the 2 Days Left section of the video game, specifically at night. This is another reminder that the manga has not been following the Days Left system for breaking the story into sections like the game. I haven’t had a problem with this, not that I don’t like it though. It works great in the video game but does not fit with the more fluid story and passage of time that the manga has been using where we see Sunny jumping back and forth between Headspace and the real world without sleeping.

This also shows how the sequence of events in the manga has been different from the game. When you go to sleep at the end of 2 Days Left, you go to the Last Resort portion of the game. Which is what we went through already in chapters 10 and 11. I don’t think this is a big deal, as they can still end up at the same place in terms of Headspace content. That Headspace section of the game also includes Underwater Highway all the way to Humphrey. If Sunny goes back into Headspace immediately after this, we can still end up at 1 Day Left at the same point. We end off this part with Hero echoing his sentiment that things can be just like before. Which is his naivete that I brought up previously. Things cannot just go back to the way they were because all 4 of them are back in their town. The scars of the events over the past years won’t go away that easily. This makes Sunny happy, but we know this isn’t the way things are right now. Especially because of the situation with Aubrey, who will be the focus of the rest of this chapter. Which is my favorite part of the chapter.

Seeing Aubrey’s scared face hurts me so much.

We start with Aubrey in her home on a phone call with her Father. In the game we did not get any dialogue from him, and little about him in general. All I am aware of is that during their childhood he took Aubrey out for a haircut at one point, then at some point after Mari’s death he left them. Here he is encouraging Aubrey to leave the town to live with him. Aubrey is reluctant to leave as her Mom needs her. This leads to him insulting her Mom, which you can see from her expression hurts her. When her Mom hears this, she flies into a rage, arguing with Dad back and forth and throwing an empty bottle at her. As Dad and Mom continue to argue, Aubrey runs out of the house.

There is a LOT to unpack here. This is a very real and serious situation being discussed here that has a lot of complexity to it. Try not to have polarizing thoughts like blaming only one side or oversimplifying abuse and how people can respond to it. Let’s all just keep that in mind as we discuss things.  I’ll be sharing some of my thoughts as well as bringing up possibilities for how we can interpret things. Feel free to share your own thoughts in a constructive manner, I’d love to hear other perspectives.

In the game it was not presented as an option that Aubrey could have lived with her father. In the game I believe most of us assumed he was more of a deadbeat that up and left. But here we see that she chooses to stay with her Mom. In the game the impression I was under was that Dad was the deadbeat who ran out on them, and the Mom fell apart after that. I’m thinking a possibility for the story of Aubrey’s parents is that initially the Mom was the one on her feet while the Dad was more of a deadbeat. But eventually they switched standings as the years went on. Aubrey’s Dad is currently successful enough where he is that he is able to provide for himself and pay whatever Aubrey and her Mom have been living on since their separation. While it is clearly not a lot, it has to be enough to cover any housing related payments they may have (which the Mom had been missing), the bare minimum amount of food to live (Aubrey and her Mom are definitely malnourished but they have survived for years), and whatever the Mom spends on booze. While Aubrey’s Mom seems to do nothing other than drink and watch TV. Leaving the town would take away all the social stigma she has been facing as well as the severe abuse and neglect she has been facing. I personally believe moving would be the best option for her. But Aubrey has chosen to stay in their town, which is her decision to make. Which actually paints the Father in even more positive light as he would easily have the grounds to get her legally in his custody due to the abuse she has been facing from her Mom. This shows that he is respecting her feelings to a degree. Overall the Dad is the one who appears in a better light in this chapter between the parents. Abuse is an extremely wide and complex spectrum, but Aubrey’s Mom is unarguably extremely abusive. And while we have some implications of what she is thinking, the series does not give us a ton to humanize her. She was argumentative even before Mari’s death and his departure, and obviously everything we see from her in the present day is horrible. But Dad does reveal here (that I don’t think we saw in the manga), is that she tearfully begged him to not take Aubrey. Maybe then she truly meant to be better to Aubrey, but we see how that went. What we see from him here and implications are not as bad. He is encouraging her to leave her abusive mother and has been providing for them even after he left. I do believe that he genuinely cares for her. It seems like he does not call a lot, but he does call. And you could argue that him not calling often is safer for Aubrey, based on how this call went. It’s not like the Mom leaves the house and they have a landline phone rather than smart phones. But he is not faultless. The arguments between them that Aubrey has been suffering through are a two-way street. We see in this chapter that he will jump into harsh words towards his wife even with Aubrey on the other end of the phone. Notably, Dad says absolutely nothing about Aubrey once the fight starts. The glass bottle Mom threw at Aubrey shattered right next to that phone. We get a panel specifically to emphasize the weight of this action. That bottle hitting Aubrey could have killed her.

Aubrey’s Dad definitely would have heard that and could have asked Aubrey if she was okay. Instead, he just continued yelling at her Mom. That is not showing the same care towards Aubrey’s wellbeing that we saw before. You could also make the argument that him not forcefully taking Aubrey away from Mom is actually a negative rather than a positive, as it means he is knowingly leaving his child with an abuser. Respecting people's agency is important, including with children. But it is a dangerous overgeneralization to say that children are capable of acting in their best interest at all times. He does mention here that he should have taken her from the start, which means he definitely has been thinking about it. But it is hard to say exactly what is spurring him to say that. Whether he truly regrets what he has done or if he is just saying that because he is angry at Mom again. He chose to let her keep Aubrey, which could be him respecting both Aubrey and his wife, likely promising she will take care of her and he chose to believe her. Maybe he was naive and in this final moment of their in-contact relationship did not want Aubrey’s Mom to suffer more. Or he did it because he did not want her at the time. This could be a situation of not realizing what he had until it was gone. Or perhaps he was more so the one in the wrong and like I considered, maybe he matured as a person while she regressed. We don’t know the reason why he left. You could argue that he was selfish for leaving his wife and child (I think it implies he was the instigator of the divorce). But he also is his own person with his own needs. While the manga does give us a lot more details, just like with the first scene we got of Aubrey's home, there is still a lot left up to interpretation. We don’t know all of the details, but they both played a hand in breaking that household. But each side only blames the other and gets so consumed in their bickering that they neglect Aubrey. Aubrey is stuck suffering alone in the middle, being hit with the toxicity of both her parents as she watches her family crumble. I thought the game already did a good job making us feel for Aubrey, but the manga makes it hit so much harder with the additional context. Even years later this series continues to make us cry.

So why would Aubrey stay in this dilapidated house with an abusive mother in a town of people that mostly ostracize her or has a difficult history with? She stays least in part because she does not want to leave her Mom alone, fearing what the outcome of that would be. One conclusion to draw is that without Aubrey, she would have less of a chance of living much longer. She is obviously not properly feeding and taking care of herself already. If Aubrey was gone and she truly was alone, one part of her that may have motivated her deep down to survive could disappear. Aubrey genuinely may be thinking that, as her big trauma point of the main story is that she thinks Mari committed suicide. So it would make sense for her to think her Mom could as well, and be afraid of losing another loved one to suicide. It is important to keep in mind for these situations that feelings are extremely complex, even for victims of abuse. As abusive as her Mom is, that is still her Mom. Someone she wants to love and feel love from. Some people can more easily cut ties in situations of abuse, but some people struggle to. As tough of an act as Aubrey puts on, she cares deeply about people and having connections. If she didn’t, she could have just left the town without much issue.

Aubrey probably also worries about leaving town because she would have to try to make friends again. I think anyone can relate to the fear of losing your friend group. Now consider it from the perspective of someone who already lost one but through far more sad circumstances. The Hooligans helped her cope. If she left them now, she would lose that lifeline. She would also sever most the chance for her to rebuild a friendship with the main group. Deep down that is what she wants. I also like the idea of Aubrey having a choice to leave the town because that further mirror her with Sunny, who is of course moving away.

Aubrey’s Mom seems to get hurt as Aubrey leaves and slams back against the wall. Maybe she destroyed the phone and that was the krash we see there? It is also possible she is harming herself out of guilt. We also see text boxes with unintelligable text, likely to represent them still arguing. Aubrey doesn’t want to hear it and in the heat of the moment could be blocking it out.

Aubrey runs out of the house, mirroring events from the past.

While running, Aubrey thinks back on Basil finding her crying alone and introducing her to the rest of the original friend group after she ran out of the house during another argument. When Aubrey trips and scrapes her knee, she thinks back to a time Mari patched her up and comforted her. She still remembers and cherishes these memories, but what truly hurts is that these warm moments can’t happen anymore.

Now alone outside, Aubrey can see both the Hooligans and Sunny, Kel and Hero. Aubrey can now see both her friend group of the past and the present at the same time. But at this moment, she is afraid to face either of them. Aubrey continues to cry by her lonesome as we cut to Kim entering Aubrey’s house. She sees Aubrey’s Mom crouched by the wall, likely reeling over getting in another argument. She is very likely not in her right mind in these scenes we see of her (some combination of under the influence and mentally unwell), but she is likely aware enough to know that this was another argument that hurt her daughter. Kim finds Aubrey’s jacket with a flower stitched on it that either wasn’t there before or she never noticed. The game uses plants such as flowers a lot for their thematic representation, particularly with Basil’s garden in Headspace where he has a flower representing each member of the group. The flower on Aubrey’s jacket looks to be the lily of the valley, which Basil attributed to Mari. I assume that Aubrey stitched it on her jacket as a way of remembering Mari and the positive impact she had on her (like helping her stay positive). Kim wonders where Aubrey went as we cut to Aubrey walking in the woods alone. The way she has one hand on her other arm could represent how she is emotionally harmed right now (it does not look like she is covering a wound from the bottle) or could be representing how she is cold. In the figure sense that she is alone and feels left out in the cold. Also because she doesn’t have her jacket, which warms her physically but also is also a comfort item for her. And that is where the chapter ends.

The main reason I titled this “Broken Home” is because of the powerful portrayal of Aubrey’s broken home. But broken home can also refer to how Sunny’s mental state is completely broken. I think you can make the argument that our head is one of our homes, it’s the only place we can truly be alone when you are mentally sound. And Sunny’s head is basically broken in two between reality and his dream world.

This was another great chapter! I love how much the manga has continued to elevate Aubrey as a character (but also Kel and Hero). Her experience is all the more heart wrenching now.  I really hope more Omori fans will read the manga so they can get the new scenes with these characters which combined with the game makes them so much more compelling characters. Not that they were bad before though. But this is the single point that I have been enjoying the most in the manga, and is why I still recommend it. Thanks for reading!

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My first article on the Omori Manga: I'm so hyped for the Omori Manga — Blog Under a Log