Volumes: 5/5 (Complete), (Books- OOP but not hard to find, Digital- Available)
Seinen
Genre: Supernatural, Fighting, Ecchi
Summary: A virus is raging the planet and it turns infected people into monsters, called Kamiyadori. Jillead and Vivi are partners as so-called Right Arms of the Sculdra, an organization that kills the infected who have “erupted” or changed. In this cruel world, a medicine exists to prevent the infected from erupting, called Suppress, but it has become expensive as they cannot make enough of it to meet demand. This has led to a widening gap between the rich and poor as the Sculdra frantically try to contain the virus and prevent more infections.
Review: So this is rank 5 because this story is so broken, I can’t imagine anyone actually wanting to read this. The main issue is that the story reads like an exercise in world building, and has some decent character introduction flashbacks towards the end, but there’s no actual story. Each volume raises more questions about the characters and the world, and introduces a ridiculous number of new characters, as there are basically no answers at all. Not even hints.
It’s kind of a shame because there is some interesting stuff in here. For example there is a prison for the infected called the Temple of Isolation, which no one has ever returned from alive. We know they watch for outbreaks and kill any who erupt, but we don’t even know if they are supplied with Suppress or treated humanely or not. Similarly, there’s a fake Suppress street drug that only delays the monster transformation, which the Sculdra are hunting down the drug dealers. But again this arc has zero resolution as they kill a drug dealer, the ones who got deprived of it erupt immediately, and they’re all killed. There’s zero followup and no one questions whether this is a good idea or not. If nothing else you’d think it would be smarter to trace all the buyers before killing the dealers…
There’s also plenty of questions around the main two characters. Vivi, in particular, is a feral child who can barely speak, urinates in the street and digs through trash, but somehow possesses amazing fighting abilities. She also bears resemblance to the girl who was the mysterious origin of the virus, who was also a feral child who didn’t speak. But again, no answers. And Jillead, who is a symbiotic carrier of the virus, can use boosted Kamiyadori abilities without turning into a monster, but this is barely explored at all. There's also a small arc about him refusing to use his right hand and special abilities as he accidentally killed his infected sister with it. But all that happens is he loses his resolve and never finds it again.
Anyway, literally this entire series is nothing but questions. There aren’t even any hints to go on that someone might be able to guess what the author was going for. And then the ending is absolutely terrible, as the author wraps up the series in an extremely rushed way, with two of the characters speculating on the fate of the world. They insist that somehow humanity will win, even though as far as the story was telling us, humanity is losing terribly. There is a sequel in Japan but that was never licensed or even scanlated,
It's really hard to believe that somehow this manga and Testarotho are both from the same mangaka as the popular series Erased, but yeah... I double checked...
Not Recommended: I can’t imagine who would want to read this broken story that has zero resolution and no answers whatsoever to any of the plots that start but never resolve. Similarly, none of the character arcs go anywhere and there is no ending either. Go read Erased instead.
Age Rating: Older Teen: quite a decent amount of monster transformation related gore and killings, and a bunch of young women including Vivi who inexplicably fight half naked or sometimes completely naked sometimes.
Other works in English from this mangaka (from most to least popular): Erased, Robot (1 story in an Anthology), Testarotho
