Title: Boy’s Abyss Vol. 12
Author: Ryo Minenami
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 201
Genre: Slice-of-Life, Drama
Publication Date: January 27, 2026
The Story
We have officially concluded Esemori’s backstory, returning to Tokyo, where Reiji wraps up his conversation with Esemori. He leaves the hospital to go find Chako; however, as he’s leaving, he runs into NagI Aoe! They have a conversation, get something to eat, but then Reiji continues his search for Chako; however, before he leaves, Nagi admits that Chako tried to call her to congratulate her on getting a part in the movie adaptation of Esemori’s Spring Coffin novel. That conversation doesn’t go exactly as planned, and Chako hangs up on her with anger in her eyes!
Meanwhile, Ms. Shiba is told by Kazu to run away and not come back, fearing that she would be in danger if she left. As Ms. Shiba pieces the puzzle together, she figures something out and heads to a certain location. What she discovers there is the reason behind something Yuko had said. When Ms. Shiba continues to piece things together, she urges Kazu to leave; however, he’s afraid to leave Yuko and his grandmother behind. Eventually, she convinces him to leave and seek out a certain person, and he does so.
The volume ends with a confrontation between Yuko and Ms. Shiba, where Ms. Shiba reveals that she knows everything!
Characters
One of the biggest reveals turned out to be a red herring, and it turns out that Esemori is not Reiji’s real father, although Yuko does hint that his real father is out there somewhere. The game of “Who is Reiji’s father?” has begun.
When we get caught up with Nagi, there isn’t much more to be learned. She reiterated why she wanted to kill herself with Reiji from the beginning of the series, but that was about it. We learned how she got the part in the Spring Coffin movie, but it was mainly a small part, so she’s not going to have many lines. Still, when she and Reiji were standing by a river in Tokyo, she admits that she would still kill herself with him, but she won’t because she knows that Reiji isn’t going to ask her to do so. Nagi is essentially coasting through life at this point, and yet, she seems indifferent to it all.
When it comes to Chako, though. Her phone conversation with Nagi really set her off. I won’t say why, but I do want to touch upon Chako’s parents. Ms. Shiba visited them, and it’s pretty clear that her mother is worried that Chako is missing, but when Ms. Shiba denies that she knows where she is, her mother becomes quite aggressive. Apparently, Chako’s father doesn’t even know she’s gone missing because she just stays in her room and never comes out, so to him, she’s still in bed or something. Sheesh. Wonderful parents she has there, huh? Then again, in this series, if someone isn’t messed up beyond repair, they’re not normal, now are they?
We did get some more details on Reiji, Yuko, and Gen’s past. This history with Gen killing Kazu’s father was revisited, but it goes way deeper into it this time. We know that Kazu’s father is not Reiji’s father. During Kazu’s backstory, he learns all of this, and his attitude changes towards Yuko. Even though Yuko wasn’t his biological mother, he dreamed of tutoring Reiji, the two of them moving to Tokyo together, getting a big house, and moving their parents in to take care of them. When Kazu learned the truth, all of that changed. We learned a bit more about how Kazu’s father became an abusive drunk, and how all of that led to Gen killing him.
To piggyback off of that, we also learned more about Yuko’s past as well. We knew about the fire that got set to her bar, but now we know the reasons why. Makoto Minegishi, aka Gen’s father, was one of the people who followed Kouji Uryuu, the gang leader who stole Yuko away from Esemori. He was passing something around because Yuko had been sold to someone to pay off a debt. When Kouji found out everything, he killed that person and set fire to the bar so that the body would burn. This would lead to Kouji’s eventual suicide from guilt. That’s when Makoto and Yuko became a thing, which led to them knowing one another, which led to Kazu’s father working for Makoto, which led to… I’m just going to stop here because I’ll be here all day, but you get the point.
Final Thoughts
I just need to know one thing. Is there a whiteboard somewhere that Ryo Minenami has which multiple crisscrossing lines all tied to photos of his characters? Because I feel as if, unless you see one of those, it’s easy to get lost in this web. In fact, it’s not just a simple web… It’s more of a multi-layer web that intersects at 3D points. That’s how twisted this story continues to get with false answer after false answer.
Just how many people did Yuko get with? Literally anyone in that town, neighboring town, county, state, or even country could be Reiji’s father with how busy she has been throughout her high school life. To think that Reiji wanted to leave town before knowing the majority of any of this, too. The twists, the turns, the demented characters, the messed-up situations, all of it continues to come one after another with each passing volume, but I am by no means complaining because this is still one of the most interesting manga I have read in quite some time. I’m loving the ride we are being taken on, and with only six more volumes to go, we should be approaching the final arc soon (or we are already in it)
It’ll be interesting to see how all of this wraps up, as there are still so many questions to be answered. Will Reiji find out who his real father is? Will Kazu find what he’s looking for by leaving home? Will Reiji and Chako ever get together? Will Reiji and up falling for Nagi instead? Will anyone ever escape that town? I’m sure there are plenty of other questions that need answers, but this series isn’t making me beg for them. I want to sit back and watch everything unfold because while all of those questions are important ones, the thing this series does best is (and this is going to sound weird given the context of the material) make you feel comfortable without knowing the answers, all because the journey is just that interesting. You just don’t want the journey to end!
But for now… it will. Until Volume 13!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
