Creative Staff
Story/Art: Yoshiki Tonogai
Translation: Alexis Eckerman
What They Say
Envy, lust, sloth, wrath, gluttony, pride, greed.
A group of sinners who bear the guilt of the seven deadly sins has been gathered in an old courthouse to face judgement. To leave this place alive, they must offer up a sacrifice – one of their number. As the trial begins, who will the gavel fall on first?
The Review! (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Technical:
The cover of this large trim book is shifted to a landscape layout so it is supposed to be viewed sideways. This allowed the mangaka to draw all nine characters lined up for their crimes. Kind of like a police lineup, only missing the height scale behind them and everyone is wearing a huge (creepy) animal mask. The back cover has a synopsis and a single character with the bunny mask, who seems to be the main character for this first volume. This mangaka has an interesting style with highly varied panels (sizes, shapes, number per page). I also found it interesting how the first portion of the book was very normal with lots of dialogue in most panels, but once the characters are locked in the courtroom by their kidnappers, there is very little dialogue across many panels and pages. That lower ratio of dialogue per page really adds to the starkness of their prison and to how bleak their future appears to be. The art is good with nice character design and some full page art and even a few two-page spreads, and good use of solid black panels to emphasis portions of the story.
I love the trim size on this book. It is larger than a B6 and just slightly smaller than A5, so it made holding the book comfortable and easy as it is a larger manga at 240 pages, but only a dollar more than Yen Press’ standard manga price. The printing is perfect from start to finish and there are four color pages. The translation reads just fine and the original Japanese SFX and sign text remains with smaller English translations nearby or notes in the panel gutters. Very un-intrusive compared to some methods employed by publishers.
Content:
Hiro was a typical high school kid; went to school, had a crush on his childhood friend, wasted time just hanging out. But all that changed when he rescheduled a meeting time with his brother which caused him to work later and killed in an accident. Hiro feels at fault for that because he had is own best interest in mind when he changed their meeting time. It really was pretty messed up.
Two years later, his life is kind of crap; but it gets even worse when he wakes up handcuffed in a strange room with some weird mask on his head. He can’t remember how he got there and doesn’t know why someone would put him there. Eventually, he learns that he is in a decrepit court room attached to a hallway with other rooms or holding cells, but there is no exit door or any windows. The other people with him all have similar animal masks and none of them seem to know why they are there either. Not surprisingly, they argue with each other over why they are there and accuse each other of setting up this sick joke.
Unfortunately for the nine animal people, this sick joke is deadly. After watching a tape they found, they learn that this elaborate setup is called Judge. It is a game, or at least a game for their kidnappers, but for Hiro and his fellow captives this game is a death sentence. Each captive is there because they have committed one of the seven deadly sins. The game proceeds at twelve hour increments. At each twelfth hour, the captives must meet in the courtroom and vote to kill someone. The person with the most votes will be killed by the captors. If a single person doesn’t vote then everyone will be killed. This twelve hour voting will continue until there are only four people left; supposedly those four will be allowed to go free. Think of it as the TV show Survivor meets a game of Russian roulette.
I have my doubts about the premise that the last four standing will get to go free. I don’t believe there is any real guarantee that anyone will be allowed to live. I don’t think the kidnappers would want their secret getting out. Who knows how many times they have set up a Judge game before and if they want to keep doing it. Either way, it makes for a good story and would make a great horror movie too. Now we just have to get to the second volume so we can see how these captives try to survive from round to round.
In Summary:
Good premise with lots of potential. Judge has an interesting concept; lock strangers in a room and make them vote for the death of one of their number every twelve hours until four remain who can go free. Jeesh, that is a pressure cooker scenario that is going to make people snap in any number of ways. Some will probably just shut down, others will try to be slick politicians and befriend everyone in an attempt to stay alive, while some might take it into their own hands and just kill the others to avoid being voted for death sentencing. There are many ways this story can play out, so it will be interesting (fun?) to see where Tonogai’s characters take the readers. Not to mention all the mystery behind the unknown kidnappers who are watching everything through surveillance cameras. I get that the strangers are all sinners in some way, but what is the kidnappers malfunction? Guess I’ll have to wait for the next volume for a chance to find out more about the weirdos behind this judge game.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: August 20th, 2013
MSRP: $12.99
