A Trail of Blood (Chi no Wadachi) | Read All 100+ Chapters of One of the Best Psychological Drama Manga Series

Did you come here in search of one of the top manga from the psychological genre? Well, having sold over 1.5 million copies as of June 2021, A Trail of Blood (a.k.a Blood on the Tracks) surely stands out as a manga series that you should not miss out on.

Written and illustrated by the artist, Shūzō Oshimi, the Japanese suspenseful drama comic series first surfaced in the Big Comic Superior magazine with Shogakukan as the publisher. Read along with the article to know more about the manga along with all of its chapters that have been released to date.

A Trail of Blood | New Releases 

Popularly known as ‘Chi no Wadachi’ within the Japanese Seinen demographic, A Trail of Blood is still running strong. The ongoing manga series has a total of 11 volumes with over 100 chapters released as of the date of publishing this article. 

While having its original run on February 24, 2017, the manga series got licensed for North American release from the publishing house of Vertical Kodansha USA in February 2020 along with releasing a digital print of the same in August of 2020.

Synopsis of A Trail of Blood 

The plot of the series follows the story of Seiichi Osabe and his mother, Seiko. While the storyline seems normal at first with Seiichi being a shy middle school student having few friends and a crush on a girl just like any other regular student, the story quickly shifts towards a darker and horrifying side.

In a series of events wherein the overprotective love and affection of Seiko towards her son takes a dangerous twist on a family hiking trip, Seiichi is left to live in the horror of her mother’s mentally disturbing protectiveness. If you’re into psychological dramas, this series is something you might not want to miss. 

Volumes and Chapters

Here is a list of the tankōbon volumes that have released up until the time of publishing.

A Trail of Blood | List of Chapters

With over 100 chapters being released as of now, here is A Trail of Blood’s chapter list: 

A Trail of Blood | Main and Supporting Characters

Let’s take a look at some of the important characters of the popular Japanese manga series – A Trail of Blood or Blood on the Tracks.

1. Seiichi Osabe

Starting off with the lead character of A Trail of Blood manga series, Seiichi Osabe. While Seiichi is shown as having a gentle persona with mild friendliness, he is also quite susceptible to emotional abuse and manipulation.

Easily influenced by her mother’s disturbing and dangerous protective nature, Seiichi even develops a speech impediment with stutter and stammer. Although he somewhat overcomes this with the help of Fukiishi, the problem often re-appears while facing his mother.

2. Seiko Osabe

Up next, we’ve got Seiko, Seiichi’s mother. While she has a kind and friendly personality with utmost love and affection for Seiichi, her extreme overprotectiveness towards her son soon turns out to be an unhealthy obsessiveness. 

Described as suffering from psychiatric disorders, Seiko can be seen pushing the overprotective boundaries with her manipulations of Seiichi’s memories throughout the whole story of the manga. 

3. Yoko Fukiishi

As a major supporting character, we’ve got Yoko Fukiishi who is our lead character’s classmate. Apart from that, she is also the love interest of Seiichi. Fukiishi’s mother abandoned her at an early age leading up to her bad relationship with her abusive father.

This fact helps her to support Seiichi in his rough times when he develops his speech impediment issue. Yuko is also the first person to make Seiihci doubt and question his mother’s manipulative actions and behavior. 

4. Shigeru

Up next, we’ve got the cousin of Seiichi Osabe, Shigeru. Although Shigeru exhibits a friendly nature at the start of the series, he is somewhat careless and immature. This is evident when Seiichi disagrees to join him standing at the edge of the cliff.

After the unfortunate events of the cliff incident, Shigeru completely loses his old personality pertaining to him being in a comatose state. Eventually, with his mother’s care, Shigeru regains consciousness and even confides in Seiichi of missing his old self. 

Writer and Illustrator

Born in Kiryu, Japan, Shūzō Oshimi made his debut as a manga artist for Kodansha with Superfly. Apart from Chi no Wadachi, some of his best works include Drifting Net Cafe, The Flowers of Evil and Happiness. For latest updates, you can follow his Twitter account – @shuzo_oshimi.

Wrapping Up

This brings us to the end of our article on the Japanese horror-drama comics of A Trail of Blood. We hope that this part of our manga article series was helpful in giving you the information that you came seeking. 

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Feature Image Credit: Geeks in Action