Omori Manga Ch. 14 Review - Speedy Suffering

Written by Rei Caldombra 12/6/25 Video: TBD

Previous Chapter: Omori Manga Ch. 13 Review - Broken Home — Blog Under a Log

He is not having fun.

Hello everyone, Rei Caldombra here. Chapter 14 of the Omori manga is a whirlwind of suffering. 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.

We start with Sunny, Kel and Hero entering Sunny’s house for their sleepover. I want to mention a changed detail that I missed before. In the manga Kel and Hero tell their parents they are having a sleepover with Sunny directly while they are eating dinner, while in the game they just go to his house to hang out but then decide to have a sleepover while they were already there. We get Hero and Kel’s lines from the game when they first enter, then it cuts straight to Omori waking up in Whitespace. I hope this cut doesn’t imply that we completely skipped over Kel, Hero and Sunny walking through the house reminiscing and setting up their tent. I would love to see a full shot of their setup, plus there is a lot of important dialogue here too. Like Hero apologizing that he couldn’t be here and them talking about Mari.

I’d say this line is pretty important as well.

Let’s talk a bit about the timeline difference. In the game Sunny goes to sleep during the sleepover, we get the cutscene of Sunny vanishing while in front of Omori in Headspace, and then it starts The Last Resort. This section of playing Headspace carries through to defeating Humphrey and going through Blackspace. While in the manga we have already gone through The Last Resort, we go back to real life, then we come back into Headspace to where we are now.

In the cover art we see Sunny sleeping in Whitespace with his real-life attire, but we see Omori jolt awake. I believe this is meant to convey the cutscene I mentioned before. It’s a great cutscene but since it was already fully drawn in game, so I suppose they didn’t feel the need to portray it directly. We will get more into this general idea a bit later.

Omori pulls himself up with a pained expression and notices a mirror next to him that looks similar to the mirrors scattered around Headspace in the game. This should be the first time we are seeing the mirror in the manga. Omori reaches for the mirror while seeing the Headspace version of his friends smiling warmly behind him. When he looks again, his friend’s faces are horrifically distorted like they are in the mirror jumpscare from the game. omori - floating mirror [jumpscare]. This effect is a real thing called the Troxler Effect, where your vision can get distorted from looking at a mirror for too long. It represents how Sunny has spent too much time looking at himself and the others of the past. He stops being able to recognize them. This was a cool visual, though I am a little sad they did not use the line of them smiling warmly behind him before they get distorted.

Hands then come out of the mirror and envelop Omori, which brings a cut to him with the gang as they are in Headspace. The gang reassures him that everything will be okay and that they should go on another adventure. I like the line “the world is our oyster”. There are multiple ways you can read into it, such as that Sunny has created a closed shell around himself, and that the pearl they can find is the true complete self of Sunny. They pull Sunny forward, going first to Orange Oasis. I did not expect to get anything from Orange Oasis other than the shot of it on the map from Chapter 3, so at least they did visit. We first see the pyramid and palm trees along with the area logo. The next panel shows that they beat up the Unbread Twins. It's nice to see them. They probably know that they are pretty popular within the fandom, especially when it comes to optional content. Thanks in part to their theme Bready Steady Go being an absolute banger. I wonder if we could see Kite Kid, since the manga bothered to dedicate scenes to the pinwheels. They also save Hector, who Kel lost back in Chapter 4 as they were climbing the ladder just like in the game. It seems like they just end up going with the original Hector rather than Kel leaving with Hector’s son Hector Jr. instead.

Then Aubrey pulls him along to the next adventure. All of Orange Oasis is 1 page. Keep your seatbelts fashioned because we have already defeated the Slime Girls. My deepest condolences to their fans and everyone horny for them who was hoping for them to get more than a single panel. I love the overwhelmed expression on Omori’s face. This chapter is full of great expressions, particularly with Sunny.

It really sells you on the mental anguish he is going through. The gang is covered in blood after that fight, which we never saw in previous fights. The world is trying to stay normal, but the system breaking down is showing in the form of the violence of a fight coming across. This sort of reverse mirrors the moment of Sunny and Aubrey’s fight, where you use the knife like normal in Headspace before realizing that the real world doesn’t work that way. A Headspace fight is the one that appears real, bleeding wounds included.

As they try to go on to the next adventure Humphrey gets in their way, sealing all the exits like in the game. Omori, rather than gearing up to fight, attempts to stab himself in the chest with his knife instead. Mari appears, stopping him and giving him another bandage. The Stranger aka Shadow Basil also appears, telling him to find him and face the truth. Omori is pulled out of this by Humphrey collapsing on top of Shadow Basil. This is as direct as a suppression of the stress of facing the truth that you can see from Headspace. Omori is still left holding the flower crown, distraught at it fading away.

There are now many competing forces in Sunny’s head pulling him in different directions. Shadow Basil is more aggressively trying to break the simulation while Headspace is trying to keep up the facade. The suicidal tendency of Sunny is affecting him more. Headspace is going into overdrive trying to keep him stress free and buy into the facade.

Omori just can’t take it anymore and runs away. As Omori flees, we get a few nods to side content from the game, including the first reference to Pluto. At least he got namedropped, I guess. This is probably the last chance I have to talk about ones of my favorites, so I will do so. I wish he had gotten an altered role in the story like many of the other characters did. Maybe the Gator Guys could have been the ones looking for him, and after the gang helps him hide, he could have helped hold them back so the could fight Jawsome and Bossman Hero.

Omori sprints towards Basil’s house, where he knows Shadow Basil will be. On the way, he stops running in the forest. Everything is in a state of decay. He hears a shortened version of Basil’s dialogue from the beginning of the game and in Chapter 2 of the manga where he talks about how his flowers represent each member of the gang. 

Omori continues to ignore his friends calling out to him and enters the house. Shadow Basil reaches out to him, but Omori attacks him, which turns him into the hole leading to Blackspace. I really like how Omori slashes at The Stranger when he attempts to touch him. While he is doing this of his own volition, he is still scared. He has an understandable instinctive self-defense reaction to this figure that has been terrifying him. And this also mirrors how he will fight Basil in real life. But he still chooses to go in after him.

This is showing his agency. He is not being dragged to Blackspace by Shadow Basil, he is making the choice to jump in. Omori hugging the gang beforehand is a sweet new moment. He is effectively saying goodbye to his rose-tinted childhood fantasy. The protecting side of himself is begging him to stay safe. But he knows what he needs to do now. As Omori falls down into darkness, we are welcomed to Blackspace. And that’s where the chapter ends.

Alright let’s talk about what we’ve experienced here. I imagine this has to be the most divisive chapter on account of it completely skipping huge portions of the game. We’ve already had very radical pacing, but this takes the cake.

When it comes to pacing, the manga has been extremely inconsistent, and I think is the notable flaw that most of us can agree on. Even someone like me who praises and defends the manga more than I criticize it. While I can enjoy some of the ways in which it has been condensed and think it has moments of competency with this, I cannot deny that it has felt messy in execution. It feels like the manga’s direction and philosophy have changed over time. I am left with more of the mixed feeling leaving this chapter. For example, I like the altered story for Space Boyfriend. I enjoyed what we got with him. But in hindsight it feels weird that he got so much time dedicated to him just for all the Humphrey section of Headspace to get almost entirely skipped. That’s what makes me feel like the manga is inconsistent in execution. The time dedicated to things does not feel balanced. So I’m a little more down on it than I have been recently.

I have to admit though that this chapter was super exciting to read on first reaction. I think this is a very interesting way to do something unique while having it service the story. Speedrunning the game is being used for storytelling rather than just leaving things out. In a way it makes the reader feel how Omori is feeling, seeing events they are supposed to be enjoying just zoom by in a hollow way. A part of me really likes this choice. As it is the manga trying to be unique, and I cannot deny the positive feeling I felt seeing Omori’s false reality falling apart in this way. But that does not eclipse the fact that we skipped a huge portion of the story that also could have gone down in an enjoyably different way similarly to the past.

There is a lot missing here that is strong and important to the story that builds up the meaning of embracing the truth and what this world is. I think someone only reading the manga would not have a good sense of everything related to the past or what Headspace is. While in the game you would have a good idea at this point. I don’t think the true story of Omori and the layered details are conveyed in the manga on its own. Even just in potentially skipping the sleepover, we miss out on learning more about Mari and Sunny. It does not feel like a mystery slowly getting unraveled in the same way. There is so much dialogue in Headspace that give you little bits about what is going on. There is so much build up to whatever it is that is being repressed. In the manga it is just not there at all. I am excited to be entering Blackspace, but not because the manga made it feel like a monumental moment. It’s primarily because I already know what is coming next. I guess you can say that on the surface on enjoyed the speedrun, but not on a deeper level.

To be honest, the Underwater Highway through Humphrey are not among my favorite sections of the game. I was not consciously looking forward to seeing this part of the game adapted the way I was for everything that came before. Those parts aren’t bad, but not as interesting to me from the standpoint of what they provide narratively or the actual gameplay compared to the rest of the game. If you had to cut anything out, the Highway especially feels like it could be absent and not change much. But maybe there is stuff I am not remembering and didn’t find preparing for this. There is also an argument for avoiding the part of the game inside Humphrey to make the game more friendly to a wider audience. The vore aspect of Humphrey could not only be difficult to portray in the form of manga but also put off more people. I know some people just find the Humphrey section unpleasant and gross. Which to be clear is different from most of the horror elements of Omori. There are variations to being uncomfortable and not all of it is appealing in the same way for everyone. Just because someone can stand self-harm imagery doesn’t mean they have to be comfortable with things like being inside a body. I think they wanted to limit imagery of more traditional fears. That theory also explains why King Crawler the bug boss was completely skipped. Though we got spiders before that probably could have been skipped too, so it’s hard to say. But I understand that other people love these parts of the story more than I do, and I think they have the right to be very disappointed. I really like Pluto, so I am a bit sad we did not get anything with him. If I loved the Slime Girls or Humphrey, I could see myself being angry that they got barely anything while Sweetheart got a full fight. I can’t help being dissapointed we didn’t get anything with Pluto, even though he wasn’t truly necessary. Skipping multiple fights does also mean we missed out on what could have been some cool action scenes. Most of the action scenes we got before this were solid. But that’s not a high priority for me the way seeing moments of horror and real-life scenes are. 

My biggest fear with the manga is that someone would read the manga and let that be their only OMORI experience. It’s important to remember that many people are not as dedicated as I and most likely you are when it comes to media. Many people don’t go out of their way for analyses, reviews, etc. after experiencing something. Some people just get the basic experience and then move onto the next thing. I hope anyone reading the manga as their first step into OMORI doesn’t do that. The experience of manga first then to the game may not be bad because they would notice a lot of the foreshadowing and appreciate the finer details, but I still think it is best seeing it through the game first by far.

I can more confidently say now that the manga is best as supplemental material rather than something that can truly stand on its own. I believe it was said that the manga was intended for both new and old fans. So if it sticks to that, maybe the new fans are getting a bit of a disservice with this chapter in particular. But maybe that was the original philosophy and that changed. It is hard to say due to how the manga has not felt super consistent. I’ve mentioned before that I think the manga is better for people who have played the game before and should not be the entry point. 

With the way the story has been condensed, tons of great scenes and the substance they bring to Sunny is absent. I think you can argue that Kel, Aubrey and Hero have more substance in the manga than Sunny does. While I would have loved to have seen more of the content that is parsed throughout the game about Sunny, if you understand the game that wouldn’t be new content. While getting to see Aubrey’s home life is entirely new. Sunny is already a fantastic character with tons of layers and details to dig into. So if we look at the manga from the perspective of it being an accessory, I don’t think it needs to give Sunny a lot more with its limited runtime. I like some of what they’ve changed with Sunny, but I wish some of the more necessary details in service to him and the story were included.

I think it needs to be understood that the manga is not just trying to be the game in print. I hope anyone who has stuck with the manga for this long gets that by now. I love that the manga has given more substance to the side characters. I would rather have that than get more of Sunny honestly. I would rather see new interpretations than see the game played out 1 to 1. I’ve wanted the manga to bring new things to the series, and that’s what I have been getting. This is a way in which the manga is appealing to me and what I want from new OMORI content very well. So even though I think the speedrun of the story is very flawed and a crazy move, I can find the enjoyment in it. The manga overall still works for me, but I get it not working for others. I hope this wasn’t too much of a bummer for you. For the people who have been very on the fence or dislike the manga, this probably hurt you more than it helped. If that is the case, I am sorry to hear that, but that’s totally valid. I am not devoid of my optimism now, but I am a mix of nervous and excited to dive into Headspace. At this point I don’t feel like I can predict anything. I’ll keep going with the manga though and I hope you’ll continue with it along with me. 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