DEATHTOPIA (Rank 3)

Publisher: Kodansha

Volumes: 8/8 (Complete), (Digital only)

Seinen

Genre: Horror, Ecchi, Fighting, Police, Scifi, Conspiracy

Summary: Koh Fujimura (19) thought he was an ordinary guy until one day he was involved in a mugging that turned into a hit and run accident. His eyes were injured, and he was sent to the hospital. But while he was there, he was attacked by a serial killer woman posing as a nurse, who tells him he needs to die, because he is a threat to “them.” He is saved by 3 beautiful cops, but bizarrely enough the serial killer woman, who was shot and fell from the fourth floor, got up and walked away!

After he recovers and leaves the hospital he discovers he can see something no one else can see- bizarre looking people who look like their heads are dark clouds of scribbles. He is soon forcefully recruited by the group of women who saved him before and discovers he has the ability to see what they call “Cheaters,” who are mutants. While not all Cheaters are violent criminals, those who are, are exceptionally dangerous because they possess superhuman abilities. The 3 women, Maya, Yui and Saki are part of an elite squad that investigate and take them down. As he joins the special squad to discover more about his own special ability, he discovers that someone is targeting him and his family specifically, under a mysterious plot from a man named “UD.”

Review: As the group of Maya, Yui, Saki and new rookie Koh take on new missions and aim to keep notorious serial killers from striking again, it becomes increasingly clear that the Cheaters are organized and in communication with each other. They are taking orders from a mysterious man code named UD who has a particular interest in Koh’s abilities, for some unknown reason. Meanwhile, Maya, Yui and Saki who were recruited with their own special skills, all have their own reasons for joining.

That being said, while the central plot was alright and kept my interest in finding out the truth behind Koh’s ability, I found the level of Ecchi to be way overboard. It starts off normally enough with your usual underwear shots, cleavage, skimpy skin tight outfits, and Koh accidentally walking in and finding the women naked after a shower more than once. But it ramps up to 11 as basically every single serial killer they fight are all rapists, even the women. One of the women cops gets raped as well, (although by another woman, which apparently doesn’t count, gross). They also practically continuously get their clothes cut off them until they’re fighting naked quite often. It ramps up around volume 3-4 and then thankfully drops off to a more typical level. If you have a strong stomach for this stuff, then I would only rate it moderately worse than average, but honestly I found a lot of it to be pandering and in poor taste. 

Overall, I had mixed feelings about this series. There were parts of it that I liked, including parts of Koh’s and the other main character’s story arcs. Some of the villains that they take down also had some interesting powers. On the other hand, a lot of the series felt like it was trying to make up for the lack of writing ability by giving the readers extra naked women, instead of trying to create more compelling reasons to convince the readers to keep reading the story. Also, the main plot line I found somewhat frustrating as the main characters know they're being manipulated for the longest time, but aren't able to finally turn the tables on those behind the scenes until the last volume. But at least the ending was fairly solid.

Recommended: TLDR; Overall this series about the good guys trying to take down psychopathic serial killers with superpowers before they kill again, while uncovering the truth of a dastardly plot behind everything, is not bad. But you need to be able to tolerate a lot of rapey behavior from the villains and quite a lot of gratuitous fanservice to be able to enjoy this series.

Age Rating: R for both violence, gore and sexual stuff. The gore is kind of inconsistent, some parts are fairly tame, and some parts are literally tearing people’s faces off or cutting them in half and so on. The sexual stuff is like that as well. Sometimes it’s tame underwear shots and cleavage, and other times it goes full on rape. But thankfully there’s only one actual rape scene, but it has also some other weird rapey scenes that are dreams and otherwise not real.

Other Works in English from this Mangaka: Cage of Eden (Shounen)