horror manga: maid bell
summary: molly can see ghosts, and she's a social outcast because she keeps trying to warn people about them. flora is the most popular girl in her school, but she's recently found a bell that's part of the local town's haunted mansion myth. if she rings the bell, the broken-necked maid who died in that mansion will possess her classmates to fulfill any wish. to thank molly for describing the maid ghost, flora starts using it to protect her from bullies.
thoughts on the plot: the first thing i will say is that it's a one-shot, so i can forgive a lot of fast character work that's less interesting to me. the cat ghosts around flora immediately reminded me of the girl who can see them and the teacher who was surrounded by cat ghosts because his abusive mother kept killing them. i wasn't surprised when we hit the obligatory twist because it's basically required for the last few pages of a one-shot to try a rugpull, and the cat tails gave it away. i thought the possession was cute enough and actually unexpected enough that it pulled the clumsy evil popular girl reveal back.
thoughts on the art: the artist carries this and i won't pretend otherwise. the ghosts are standard creepy fare but drawn well enough that you remember why that's the standard. the girls are cute in a way that transitions well to creepy as the story goes on, but they don't start it by looking creepy which i appreciate. i find a lot of horror suffers from "start of the hentai when they're clothed" disease, where you can tell that this isn't a skill the author has tried to develop because they only need to draw it for three panels before they get to what the weird anatomy is actually intended for. in this one the humans look humans while the ghosts look ghostly, and the intersection of the two works so well because the base was so normal. i liked the little touches, like flora getting a lipstick effect with the shadows as she became more and more cruel. the shot of the maid smiling was lovely, and flora's "death" was unexpectedly beautiful.
final score: for horror manga in general, 3.5 stars. for one shots specifically, 4 stars.