Manga Digest: 60% Yandere, 40% Blood

Theme 07: 60% Yandere, 40% Blood

~Warning: Do not read some of these titles while you’re A. eating, or B. all alone in your house with your aunt’s dark, creepy room with the door wide open behind you. TRUST ME (-inserts “Trust Me” song- SORRY. BAD PUN, BUT I HAD TO).

I thought it was time once again to unleash my love for the Horror genre since these past manga posts I’ve been writing have been filled with cute, girly, or comedic manga. Deep down in Hoshi’s black heart there is a disturbing soft spot for creepy, psycho, bloody, horrific, and extremely  disturbing manga, but it’s been constantly overshadowed by my willingness to try new genres, by which I can’t help but get into that new genre I’ve discovered and leave my previous love behind. My reputation as a strong lover of Horror has died down, so every now and then I try to redeem myself with something like this; to remind myself why I love this genre, and why it brings a smile to my face.

I couldn’t think of a proper theme at first, but after scavenging the Horror and Psychological genre tags, I managed to find three that had two things in common: blood, and yanderes. Yet, two of the mangas had yanderes and blood, while one had no yanderes, but only blood, hence the odd percents x’D (Oh I’m so clever huh?).  Anyways, care to take a look into some of these odd and horrific worlds?

Aphorism
Author: Kujo Karuna
Genre(s): Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, School Life, Shounen, Supernatural
Status: On-going
Volumes: 6
Year: 2008
Summary: Naraka High School, is a seemingly normal school. However, unknown to the public is the cruel truth of what really goes on in the school’s halls. Rather than studying, students are forced to struggle for their very survival. And the strong bonds of friendship may be the only difference between life and death.

Thoughts: For some reason, stories like this that have those you-can’t-escape-this-hell kind of settings scare me a lot internally because in my mind I’m like, “I have no idea what I would do! I’d probably be killed!”, especially in this manga’s case. It’s pretty horrific what they have to do already on their first day, and trembled a bit thinking about it (Yes Hoshi has a lot of strange fears…). At first when I started reading this, I got kinda bored because the beginning is a bit cliche with the boy and the girl blah blah, but once you read more into the second chapter it gets interesting with blood, a little gore (as you can tell by the third thumbnail to the right), and some good, old-fashioned battling XD

I’m afraid some might find this a little boring though because it does kinda seem that way after a while. Yet I’m an extremely nice person when it comes to manga so I always find a reason to cling onto a manga and claim it’s good. For Aphorism, it’s that horror of having to constantly worry about getting killed and see your friends dying that makes me cling to it, no matter how much it scares me. I also love a lot of the character personalities and their powers as well, so I don’t really have an absolute favorite character. As for the art, it’s pretty decent, nothing too spectacular, but it’s enjoyable as you read it. Anyways,Aphorism is a good read if you need to calm your brain after reading the next two titles on this list~.

Doubt
Author: Tonogai Yoshiki
Genre(s): Drama, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Shounen, Tragedy
Status: Complete
Volumes: 4
Year: 2007
Summary: There’s a game going around Japan called ‘Rabbit Doubt’. The premise of the game is that all of the players are rabbits in a colony, and one amongst them is randomly chosen to be a wolf that infiltrated the group of rabbits. Every round, the wolf kills off a rabbit, and every round, the group tries to figure out which of the rabbits is actually a wolf in disguise. Sometimes the kids who play this game decide to meet up in person, and Yuu, Mitsuki, Rei, Hajime, Eiji, and Haruka have done just that. Unfortunately, one of them has decided to take on the mantle of the wolf and has already killed once. Who is the wolf, and can they be stopped before everyone meets a very unpleasant end?

Thoughts: I had contemplated bringing this manga up for one of these posts before, but I ended up shying away because of the art. Luckily, I came back and forgave the art (because my policy is to NOT judge a manga by its art) and I actually got quite a good mind-bender from this! I won’t lie, the culprit is a bit predictable if you think hard enough, and the story is a bit cliche. It kinda reminded me of Saw once I saw the setting. Yet, as you get closer to the ending, it totally whips away those doubtful thoughts about ditching it with this sudden twist in the story that leaves you going, “Wait, WHAT?!” Then it fully…molds your brain into mush as it ends. Okay, I may be exaggerating but that’s how it felt to me since I’m a pretty slow thinker |’D

I absolutely LOVED the ending, and I don’t care what anyone says about it. I love those cliff-hanger, you-have-no-idea-what-the-fuck-is-going-to-happen-next endings because they leave this lasting impression on me that I don’t get from complete closure endings. I’d rather be biting my nails anxiously forever than have a good sigh and say ‘Well that was fun to read’. Plus, this kind of story NEEDED an ending like that because otherwise, it would have been a typical horror, who-dun-it manga, and would not have been on this list~.

Mirai Nikki
Author: Esuno Sakae
Genre(s): Action, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, Shounen, Supernatural, Tragedy
Status: On-going
Volumes: 11
Year: 2006

Summary: High school 2nd year, Amano Yukiteru, is a boy who has problem making friends. He thinks of himself as a bystander and will always write down everything he sees in a cell phone diary. Tormented by solitude, Yukiteru began to imagine things like a friend called Deus Ex Machina who is apparently the Lord of Time & Space. Seeing Yukiteru’s miserable state, Deus gives him a new ability. His diary will now record events that will happen in the near future. Yukiteru is then forced to participate in a game which the winner will become Deus’s successor.

Thoughts: After the complete FAIL that was the “OVA”, I knew I HAD to read the manga, and folks, it is ten times better than that nine minute overview. The “OVA” actually skipped a whole chapter before going to the bomb-girl, and when I read it, I was like, “WHEN WAS THIS?!”. Anyways, the instant I started reading it, I couldn’t stop, seriously. It gets quite addicting because already into the third and fourth chapters there’s action happening and I desperately want know what’s going to happen next because it ends in such cliff hangers! I even got in trouble for staying on the computer for so long because my brother needed to do homework |’D The only thing I’m a tiny bit worried about is that the story will get repetitive since Yukiteru is in the game to become Deus’s successor and has to kill other Diary owners. Now I haven’t read much, only up to the third volume, but so far the mangaka actually keeps all these battles interesting and even intertwines some of them so I haven’t gotten bored yet with this!

Yukiteru annoys the hell out of me though. He’s always crying and complaining about being a failure and such; MAN UP!! He’s a typical wimpy character who has his shining moments, and cries in almost EVERY panel. Now Yuno…Oh Yuno, you psycho yandere~. I love her to bits, no matter how crazy and murderous she is, because those are the reasons WHY I love her (Yeah I’m more of a yandere fan) xD There are other diary holders that I’m also very fond of, but I’d rather not give names since it’ll spoil it if I do. Mirai Nikki is definitely my top pick out of this post for so many reason; it’s got action, twists, violent twists, and one of the best yanderes in the manga world. I’m extremely excited to keep on reading this, and maybe, HOPEFULLY they’ll actually make a decent anime for this~!

~Well, it looks like this manga post is my final manga post of 2010 so I’m glad I get to finish this year with a genre that, as I said before, is near and dear to my black heart.  *throws confetti* Let’s hope the new year not only brings us some good anime, but some good new manga series as well! Until next YEAR then~!!

About Hoshi

A tired, over-dramatic 20 year old college student who likes manga and cheesy Korean boy bands. Prone to succumb to laziness and refuse to work for hours on end.