Cute girls, meet horror story…will anyone make it out alive?
Creative Staff
Story: Makoto Kedouin
Art: Toshimi Shinomiya
Translation: Alethea and Athena Nibley
What They Say
A stormy night. A harmless ghost story. A silly pact intended to symbolize their friendship. But before the students of Class 2-9 at Kisaragi Academy know what’s happening, they’ve been swept up in a living nightmare that threatens to consume them all. When the spirits emerge, will even their friends be left to hear them scream?
The Review! (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Technical:
This book is massive. Not only is it the larger A9 format size, but it is also a double-volume containing volumes 1 and 2. This book is based on a game, so I’m not sure how the manga art compares to the original game as I have not played it. The art in this book is kind of mediocre. Characters are cute, but often seem a little off kilter and sometimes out of place in their environment. Overall, it is an odd combination of super cute characters dashed across horrific scenes of ghosts and carnage. However, it does succeed at instilling that dichotomy between cute characters and scary ghosts. The art theme reminds me a lot of Higurashi, with everyday life seems normal until things get weird and cute girls start freaking out and killing people.
Content:
Ah, the cultural festival. The iconic setting played out in almost every high school and middle school based manga and anime. However, it is unusual to start a story at the festival instead of having it happen deeper into an established story. That isn’t the only unusual thing about this story. The students in Class 2-9 are losing a fellow classmate that must move, so they decide to hold a ceremony that will keep them connected forever. It is a very odd ceremony, and one their teacher should have thought secondly of instead of joining in.
Wham! Their school is gone and so is their classmates. Two girls from the group of nine that participated in the ceremony find themselves in a strange and decrepit school building. Seiko and Naomi are confused and scared. They decide to search for a way out of the building, but none of the windows will open and they can’t find any of their classmates. They can’t find anyone alive for that fact. Instead, they find broken floors and crumbling walls, sinks with no running water and not a hint of food anywhere. It takes some talking up their situation to not immediately panic at the risk of starving to death before they get help.
Things quickly go from disturbing to frightening when the girls fail to find anyone else from their class or any windows or doors that will open to the outside. Even worse is the rotting body they find in their attempt to explore their rundown surroundings begins speaking to them! The corpse explains that Seiko and Naomi are trapped in another dimension with no hope of escape. They will never again see their old friends and the evil spirits in this old school will stop at nothing to kill them.
At this point, I would expect that two teenage girls would completely meltdown and give up all hope. But lucky for them, Seiko is an overly optimistic and happy girl. She can put a good spin on anything which at least for the time being, stops Naomi from unraveling. However, as more ghosts confront the girls, their bond of friendship and Seiko’s upbeat personality take a beating. Will the girls survive once they get separated? Will the angry spirits kill them or will they starve to death?
In Summary:
This horror story has a unique premise by combining a couple different urban legends. The spirited away component to the student’s transportation to seemingly another world or dimension is obviously Japanese. However, the setup where the students chant a specific incantation like the American “Bloody Mary” legend is interesting as I’m not sure if that is an old Japanese urban legend or a newer one that has been adopted from another culture like our Bloody Mary story. The other aspect of this manga, which is based on a video game, is the contradiction of cute school girls and horrific scenes of corpses and gruesome ghosts. Those familiar with Higurashi will see a correlation between the art styling of these two series.
Overall a decent start with plenty of potential and the larger format release from Yen Press is much appreciated by this manga fan.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: C
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A-
Age Rating: Mature
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: May 24, 2016
MSRP: $20.00
