Graphic Books Best Sellers: A Teenager's Obsessions The first volume of "The Flowers of Evil," by Shuzo Oshimi, enters our manga best-seller list this week at No. It tells the story of Takao Kasuga, a teenage student with two obsessions: a female classmate and the poetry of Baudelaire. The book's plot sounds creepy: Takao takes home the gym clothes of his crush, Nanako Saeki, but he doesn't get away with his theft. Another girl in his class witnesses the event and blackmails Takao to do her bidding. On its Web site, Vertical, the publisher of the book, describes "The Flowers of Evil" as a romantic comedy, but reviews of the work suggest something more complex. Katherine Dacey at the Manga Critic wrote that Mr. Oshimi "does an exceptional job of dramatizing Kasuga's inner sexual turmoil." She described the book as a "compelling and honest look at adolescent sexuality," and said, "Oshimi uses surreal imagery - a wall of eyes, a funhouse mirror, a giant sinkhole - to suggest that Kasuga's normal teenage discomfort with sexual feelings has become something more powerful and destructive: shame."