Volumes: 6/6 (Complete, Unfinished by Author’s Death), In Print
Seinen
Genre: Sadistic Horror, Life or Death Games, Strategy, Ecchi
Summary: Ryouma lost his parents when his father murdered his mother. All he has left is his little sister, Yukina, as they live ostracized from society for being the children of a murderer. But he may lose his sister too, she’s very ill and needs an expensive operation to save her life. An operation that costs 1 Billion Yen! (about $9 Million USD) A strange woman approaches him and asks him if he is willing to risk his life for money. In exchange for playing a game, he can win any amount of money he desires. He accepts and promptly dies in a car accident, and then wakes up in Limbo in the body of a girl.
An “Angel” appears and explains the rules of the game. They must hide their identities and use fake names as anyone who’s real name is spoken aloud in Limbo dies. Each game must have players eliminated, and those who lose die for real. The final winner of the game can come back to life and keep all the money they won in the game. Can Ryouma win? Is there something more going on here?
Review: This manga is really hard for a vast majority of readers to stomach, having not one, but 3 very long graphic torture scenes. And while normal people can watch someone like James Bond getting tortured, this manga’s story appears pointlessly sadistic as the losers of this Life or Death game are killed slowly and cruelly and while appearing to be schoolgirls at that. And then, for those readers with stronger stomachs out there, there’s the fact that this manga was discontinued by the unexpected death of the author, leaving the story permanently incomplete.
This manga is actually not as pointlessly sadistic as it seems, but most readers dropped this title and never found that out. My initial impression of this manga was a hard to stomach manga about the potential for cruelty that humans can have when their life is on the line. It didn’t seem particularly deep or interesting to say that humans super desperate for money can kill for it or that people can desire to kill to save their own lives.
But then at the end of the first game round (about halfway through volume 3) there is a big twist: the reason for the fake schoolgirl bodies and fake names is because nearly all the participants all know each other! And what’s more, Ryouma’s sister, Yukina is playing the game too! But only Yukina suspects her brother is also in the game, Ryouma doesn’t know his sister is also a player. The game then turns into hoping that both of them win the game (which conveniently allows two final winners) without killing each other, and hope for Ryouma to avoid becoming a monster as well.
The winners of the first round then play a twisted game of tag that disallows direct violence but involves a lot of trickery as only those who are “It” know that they are “It.” As well, two “Safe” players can join hands and become invincible to being tagged, but they have no direct way of knowing who is Safe and who is “It.” The game is actually really interesting as players lie about their own status in an attempt to trick others. Also, the game allows use of special skills, with each player being limited to skill uses based on the money they won in the first round. Skills include things like “Nightmare” that forces the target to relive their greatest trauma, as well as “Change” that can swap two person’s “It/Safe” status in the user’s line of sight. And etc. The game itself is pretty interesting but perhaps the most interesting was the twist at the end- as the story switches from killing others to save yourself, to asking what/who would you sacrifice your life for?
In the end it’s hard to say what was going to happen because the series was prematurely ended by the death of the mangaka, but there was revealed to be a special player, a “Messiah” who can stop the game and possibly even bring dead players back to life. I suspect this game was going to be either a contest between heaven and hell over the true nature of humans. Or possibly an elaborate punishment for a certain number of sinners using their relatives and others they care about. In the end we will never know, which is such a shame, because it ended when it was getting interesting.
Recommended: If you can stomach some extremely sadistic torture sequences, and manipulative cruel plotting of the characters, then there is some very interesting strategy in the second game, as they play a deadly game of tag. As well as some very interesting reveals of the true purpose of the game. Unfortunately this manga was prematurely ended by the death of the mangaka, so the series was only about halfway done, and it is permanently incomplete.
Age Rating: R+ This is some extremely disturbing stuff, I don’t I’ve ever seen a manga with 3 torture scenes in it before. Also has quite a LOT of graphic gore, killings, manipulation, sexual perversion and overall this isn’t something most people would enjoy. Oh and it's got a lot of female nudity and cleavage etc.
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