Omori Manga Chapters 11 + 12 Review - Approaching the Depths

Written by Rei Caldombra 10/3/25 Video: TBD

Previous Chapter: Omori Manga Chapter 10 Review - Coping With the Boys — Blog Under a Log

Hello everyone, Rei Caldombra here plunging back into the Omori manga! This set of chapters focuses on the Last Resort section of the story. 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. 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 use our favorite hobbies like reading and discussing manga to take our mind off terrible things as best we can. And one more reminder that I refer to Sunny in Headspace as Omori.

We start Chapter 11 with Kel and Sunny entering the Last Resort. Omori is pretty out of it, thinking back on his interaction with Mari in the last chapter. This is getting to the part of the game where Omori is approaching the Headspace looping, hinting at what exactly this world is. While Kel is tending to Omori, he bumps into a Gator Guy and Sharleen (one of their friends from the forest). He threatens to send her to Sweetheart’s dungeon if she keeps messing up. Unless I missed it in the game, this is a unique line. If we take it as more than just an empty threat to intimidate her, it implies that there could be some kind of relationship between Jawsum and Sweetheart. They’re both big names in their areas so maybe this is a light bit of worldbuilding to suggest that the bosses are generally aware of each other.

Kel and Omori both notice that the friends all seem to be wearing strange bands and in a weird state (or you could say a weird headspace). We’ll come back to this detail later. While watching the others, they hear Mari confronting a Gator Guy about their friends. Specifically, Aubrey and Hero who are not on the main floor unlike the others. This is also different from the game, as in the game Mari always stays in her picnic area (which for the Last Resort was outside of the building and in an elevator) during normal gameplay. Kel does point this out directly, drawing attention to it. We could interpret this as the first hint towards the looping cycle of Headspace changing.

The shot of Mari standing up to the Gator Guy is really cute. I’ll be bringing it up a few times but this chapter in particular does a great job at portraying the size differences between the characters. As the Gator Guy tells them to buzz off, he bumps into Mari, which sends Omori into a rage. He slices him, then tackles him to the ground and repeatedly stabs him. Kel has to pull him back to stop him. Mari comforts him, assuring him that she is all right. Omori snapping this severely is another hint at how he is repressing the truth while playing make believe in Headspace. He is the one who killed her, and the Headspace he has been in since her death has been made to repress that. So seeing her get hurt reminds him of how he hurt her. I think this is a neat addition and may help make the reveal of The Truth even more painful as we have now seen him directly protect her.

We then move into the rooms further inside the building and hear Mari lay out the slightly different version of the Last Resort story. Like with the previous major antagonists the core is the same but some of the context and details around it has changed. It seems like the friends got taken and roped into the phony contracts, and at some point, that resulted in them getting the bands. The cruel boss at the top took Aubrey and Hero, with Mari not being taken because of Hero. Kel and Omori swear that they will save their friends and take off towards the elevator. Looks like these two end up taking the stairs instead, which leaves out the construction area and inner rooms where you fight a lot of the Gator Guys and see some of the friends. It’s a bit of a shame for these to be left out, but I can understand that it isn’t necessary for the story.

Just like in the game, as they move forward in the building they come across Aubrey, who is stressed out working the phones with a book in front of her. Here they state that she is specifically being a shift manager. This is a bit different from the game where she is a secretary, as she is scheduling meetings and events. In the game, she snaps out of it by Kel telling her to relax and breathe, which breaks her intense focus on the job that was thrusted on her. But the interaction is very different here.

She immediately has a defensive reaction to Kel and Omori, whipping out a baseball bat and threatening them. It appears that Headspace Aubrey is being influenced by Sunny’s interactions with real world Aubrey. This is the events of the real world bleeding into Headspace, a unique part of the manga’s story that I really like. In the game Aubrey always used a toy weapon just like Kel and Hero outside of the Omori route. So here her using the bat further shows the fusing of worlds and is a nod towards the worse of the two main routes. Here what Aubrey says fits the setting but has the emotions of their last confrontation in the real world. Headspace Aubrey would never chastise them like this. The pained face she makes mirrors her expressions from the real world. Her being overwhelmed with work represents how she has been overwhelmed due to her grief. She has been trying her best to keep going, with the citizens of the town hating her for how she has been coping (being a delinquent). She has coped by surrounding herself with people who accepted the ways she was acting out. While she breaks down and cries, Kel gives her a dose of their brand of friendly but angry back and forth via a forehead flick and a headbutt. After which Omori gives Aubrey back the stuffed animal she had been using, which is really sweet while also symbolizing the attempt for Headspace to fix itself back to normal. This is a great different interpretation of this scene! I like that this lets her get pulled back to reality in a way that complements the story and plays into the dynamic between Kel and Aubrey. The latter of which is especially needed since the Manga does not have a lot of the dialogue strewn across the game where we see the dynamics. Another small change is that Jawsum never mentions here over the phone like in the game that they used to have Kel working but was so annoying they sent him away, so I don’t think he was ever an employee in the manga. Aubrey confirms that the bands were mind controlling them into working harder and that Hero is ahead in the VIP elevator.

We then get some pages focused on the gang fighting off the Gator Guys that is pretty cool and fun. I like the shot of the Gator Guy prying open the elevator doors, which is scary, just to have Aubrey savagely whack his hands. And the panel of Aubrey and Omori doing a tag attack made me especially happy. While they manage to make it into the bosses suite, they are overwhelmed by the Gator Guys waiting for them. And that’s when we get the big reveal that the chapter ends on. Hero is not just here, he is Bossman Hero from the console versions of Omori.

I love this, it was totally unexpected and a super exciting way to end the chapter. Bossman Hero looks so sick! I’m sure some of the Omori fans who didn’t play it on console and didn’t know it had added content will have their first experience with him here. I’m super glad to see him.

Bossman Hero from the game

One change to his design is that they gave him jagged teeth, which is a big improvement. Shark teeth on a normal person is a pretty common design trope in anime and manga, usually denoting them as monstrous in a literal or figurative sense and/or more aggressive, intense, hard-headed etc. in personality. Sometimes it can be to make them look more villainous (like here) and sometimes just to give them a unique and charming design detail. Here it works especially well because it fits perfectly with him being under the wing (fin) of Mr. Jawsum. I love all the smug sneers we get from him in this chapter.

Now onto Chapter 12. In the console version Mr. Jawsum tries to get Hero to take over the resort if you return to him on 1 Day Left of the Omori Routew. Hero is given a tie from Jawsum, which the others encourage him to put on and pose with. After doing this, he goes into Bossman mode and has dialogue similar to what he says at the beginning of this chapter. It’s likely that the mind control bands idea in the manga was inspired by the tie. They don’t explicitly state it is akin to the way the bands were described. I interpreted it more as the “suite makes the man” sort of idea where your attire can influence how you think. But that has proven ideas behind it rather than the bands which feel random. But moving on, Bossman Hero is motivated by cold hard cash and offers them jobs, with the gang refusing until our big bad boss Mr. Jawsum appears.

Jawsum looking absolutely Awesum.

He looks incredible. Again, I love the way these two chapters use scale to make the enemies look massive and imposing to our small heroes. I love seeing these two posing and looking snazzy af together, this is perfect fanservice.

Like in the game, he refuses to let them take his best employee Hero. This starts the boss battle, with Bossman Hero heading the fight. I appreciate that this fight, like with the Sweetheart fight, got a lot more time to play out. Like in the game, the bosses repeatedly put up Gator Guys to protect themselves and overwhelm the gang. Kel actually has the intelligence to go straight for Hero rather than the Gator Guys. I like the joke of a Gator Guy being offended at being called an Alligator Man. Overall the fighting scenes we get are pretty great looking and do a solid job of mimicking the way the fight plays out in the game. The gang seems to have the upper hand, but Gator Guys manage to grab Kel, Aubrey and Omori. Bossman Hero goes to choke Kel after he asks for help, again showing the events of the real world bleeding into Headspace. This visually mirrors the confrontation between Hero and Kel when Hero was in his depression. It brings the same emotions too, with him insulting Kel in ways that validate Kel’s insecurity towards being good enough for his family. But this time we are shown Omori noticing the overlap in a cool sequence of the black and white color scheme inverting. Which also hints towards Whitespace vs Blackspace. Hero’s own insecurity also comes through, showing how they both have the same issue of not feeling like they are good enough. Just like in the real world, Kel is in a lower position in the hierarchy than Hero. But Hero still struggles with perfectionism. Kel seems like he is getting through to him by bringing up how a big brother is supposed to protect their little brother. It makes sense for his desire to protect being the thing that wakes him up, as after Mari died, he thinks about how he failed to protect her. While this is going on Omori is stunned due to the overlapping realities. This gives Mr. Jawsum a chance to grab him and try to eat him. Which looks horrifying by the way, love it. Then we get to the big surprise of this chapter, a visit from Shadow Basil / Stranger. This is yet another awesome looking horror sequence.

Let’s discuss this a bit, with me needing to start by clarifying that I do not understand the deeper lore behind Shadow Basil, Blackspace and their related concepts as well as other parts of the game. And with a lot of the lore being abstract and theories. This is Shadow Basil / The Stranger trying to get Omori to embrace The Truth. If Omori had not been saved, he likely would have been sent to Blackspace to confront The Truth or Headspace would have reset due to Omori managing to suppress Basil like he does at the beginning. I love how they have been using The Stranger in the manga, with him seeming to have more of an active role. The thorny tendrils here look to me like Basil’s Something, which is really cool.

Omori is pulled out and saved by Hero, who strikes Mr. Jawsum and removes his suit and tie. Like in the game, he is still appreciative of Jawsum but has to put his friends and family first. With the gang back together, they hit Jawsum with what we are safe to assume is the ultimate attack. But Jawsum gets back up, making the gang worry they’ll have to fight another phase. I like the line about how they don’t have the juice to do this again. I believe it’s the first time they referenced juice, which is the MP mechanic of Omori. I have always loved how the game mechanics are cleverly named after things kids would think about. Thankfully, Jawsum is willing to call it quits due to being impressed with these crazy kids. No one had stood up to him before, reminding him of when he took over from his father who apparently ran it worse than him. Well, vaguely ethical is a step up from fully unethical. Office pizza parties are a step forward but I hope they can get a lot more than that. Also it’s fitting for the mind of a child to put an office pizza party on a high pedestal. It’s likely that a kid his age would’ve heard about them from entertainment media or an adult they know. As someone who has spent 3 years working in a typical office environment, I have to admit that pizza parties were actually a decently fun way to take a break. But that will never replace better working conditions and pay :). 

With the battle over, the gang meets back up with Mari. Them all hugging is really sweet. Like in the game (with the addition of Mari being present), the gang is continuing to forget about Basil. While trying to draw him, we see Omori start to bleed from his neck. With Mari yet again patching him up. The facade of Headspace is cracking. He is now disassociating both in Headspace and in the real world. I love the panel of Aubrey looking scary even though she is acting the same as she normally would in Headspace. The previously comforting face of young Aubrey is not so comforting anymore. The similar look of Aubrey and Mari is starting to confuse him and be a reminder of Mari. The recent real-life memories and the past ones are bleeding through into Headspace and breaking this place that is meant to keep him mentally safe and secure. The last page is also really cool, with me having a hard time knowing how to feel about it. It is both scary and comforting. If that is the intention that makes perfect sense, as it represents his comforting personality of her in Headspace overlapping with his growing recognition of The Truth also terrifying him.

These two are not among my favorite chapters. I like this segment of the game and even had Mr. Jawsum’s battle theme playing while I was finishing writing this. A lot of it is great. But I don’t see the purpose of the mind control bands. I think it worked perfectly fine with it just it being kids who got tricked into signing contracts, ending with those contracts being eaten by Jawsum. Here they do mention the contracts, but they’re not brought up again or shown. The point of the contracts was to show one way a kid can view employment and do some social commentary. It also plays into the commentary about a negative social concept in the weird world of Headspace. It made for good contrast. The bands take away some of that contrast by injecting a fantastical element back in. And just feel like a completely unnecessary complication. I think the story worked fine with just the contracts. This just felt a lot messier than it needed to be and was distracting. When the manga has done so much to simplify and streamline this feels especially strange. It doesn’t totally ruin it or anything, as its fairly minor, but is unnecessary. The usual criticism of the manga can be applied here too, where the fast pacing hinders the worldbuilding. But as usual I do not dock it too much as if they did not condense the video game as much the manga would have to be much longer. Which you have to understand could come at odds with the length they are able to make the manga. The story of Omori is best suited to being a video game. For taking a story like that into manga, I think they are doing a good job overall, creating a different experience than just one that tries to do the game 1 to 1 and use this medium better. Which is why I stand by the manga being genuinely good but best not read on its own. But here’s an omission I am genuinely sad for. Based on how chapter 12 ends, I don’t think we are ever seeing Pluto. I can see why he was on the chopping block as he was not truly necessary, but he was very memorable which makes his absence stick out. I assume for the next chapter we will pick up with Sunny, Kel and Hero in the real world. I’m really looking forward to the sleepover scene. And then after that I think we’ll get to Deeper Well. 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