This review will not contain any major plot spoilers for the manga “Among Us.” ~~~
#PREFACE

We’ve come a long way. What started off as a little game for people to interact together from afar due to social distancing has been adapted into a funny little Chinese comic, the kind the weeaboos enjoy.

Well, that’s a bit of a jest. In a more serious tone, the insanely popular indie video game Among Us received a manga adaptation, and about a month after its release it finally got translated. And, for what it was, it’s really good. Similar to This Gorilla Will Die in One Day, it’s already being held in high (comedic) regard, but unlike Gorilla, it follows a slightly longer plot.

I don’t want to be one of those people who do nothing but make Amogus references, but Among Us is actually rather well-written, following themes that correspond to their game equivalents (albeit taking a few liberties with the game’s mechanics) and reflecting reality.

I’m pretty sure everyone reading this knows what Among Us is, but in the highly unlikely event that you don’t, Among Us is an indie game where a group of 4-15 people are divided into Crewmates and Imposters. Imposters have to pick off the Crewmates one by one while the Crewmates try to finish their Tasks and potentially guess who among them is lying. Only the Imposters know who they are, though, so for a Crewmate, anyone could be subject to suspicion.

Anyways, let’s take a look at who our characters are.

#CHARACTERS

Among Us has rather simple characters and character designs. It doesn’t need to have very complex characters though- after all, there’s only so much customization that you can have before you just look weird. The characters are also where the story shines, though- it’s the beautiful simplicity of these little colored beans that allows the manga to impose a psychological veil over itself; what starts off as beautiful and innocent becomes tormented and hideous. Not only does this demonstrate the harsh truth of the source material (your best friend could kill you when you do tasks together), but this is surprisingly reflective of real life. Children are innocent, and they tend to lead happy lives, but when they become adolescent and adult they see how ugly the world is and tend to become disenchanted with life. This, in turn, also shows a bit more insight towards the intended nature and actual nature of the game: it’s really meant as a game for family fun, but 95% of the lobbies are controlled by perverted players with inappropriate names who just want an e-date.

Anyways, here are the characters.


King

The first Crewmate we are properly introduced to, King. They wear nothing but a crown, to indicate their status.
King seems to be very passionate about the game. They tend to lead the discussion, and try to deduce who the killer is. However, they also give up rather easily and tend to drift off into other unrelated topics. They’re overall just someone to have fun with.

King seems to be the kind of player who doesn’t really take the game that seriously, but in a good way. They just want to have fun, and mess around with their friends to do so. I think that this is realistically written, especially in the earlier stages of Among Us the game, before people made it weird.
King also has a personality that lets him mess around, which is noted by his name being something of ‘importance,’ so to speak, while it isn’t necessarily true.

The next crew member we meet is


Glasses


Yet another modestly-dressed character who wears nothing but a suit and some glasses (their namesake). Glasses is a bit of an intellectual- they take the game much more seriously than everyone else, talk in a formal manner, and try to suggest tactics that would actually be paramount to winning the game.

They also always seem to be adjusting their glasses, which reflects their high IQ (everyone knows that the higher your IQ, the more your glasses fall off… well, not nose in this case, but you get the idea).



Glasses reflects the serious players- the kind (like me) who aren’t really there for small talk or roleplay. I just want to actually play the game man, not deal with predators.

Anyways, the third member of the crew is


Delinquent

Delinquent is the hotheaded angry person of the group. They wear the pompadour hairstyle (more on that in a second) and try to boss everyone around.

Delinquent reminds me of two different player types. Firstly: the roleplayers. Hop on Among Us right now and I can guarantee you at least three different lobbies are headed by people named after the My Hero Academia cast. Why does Delinquent remind you of this, you may ask? You see, Delinquent bares a pretty similar look to two specific anime characters…

img45%(https://static.jojowiki.com/images/thumb/4/49/latest/20211117015857/Josuke_DU_Infobox_Anime.png/400px-Josuke_DU_Infobox_Anime.png) img45%(https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/danganronpa/images/5/5a/Danganronpa_1_-_Mondo_Owada_Sprite_Sidebar.png)
Josuke Higashikata and Mondo Owada

While these two are not from My Hero, one could argue that Delinquent bearing a similarity to popular anime characters in general is a reference to the fact that people like to roleplay in Among Us. While this is not bad in of itself (I confess I’ve named myself after a certain Mad Scientist in the past), roleplayers tend to be annoying as they kick out anyone who does not have a related name from the lobby and make it harder to find a lobby in which you can actually have fun in.

The other type of player Delinquent reminds me of is the one they actually have a direct link to: the, well, delinquents. These are the people who spam the chat with swear words and/or try to e-date, or generally act as rude as possible to the other people (who unfortunately are sometimes kids). Delinquent was not really shown to be this type of person, since the manga was published in a kids magazine; however, if the manga was written for an older audience, they would most likely act like this.

The penultimate member we meet is


Cap

Donning nothing but a cracked visor and a backwards cap, Cap is the Gen Z player of the group. That is to say, Cap acts as if they are bored of the game but have nothing else to do while simultaneously injecting slang into their speech bubbles.

Cap is, like everyone else, realistically written in the sense that I could see a player be like them in real life. Cap would be the kind of person who says “bruh” and “cringe,” because while Cap did not specifically say this, they said a few things that meant the exact same thing.



Cap acts like a bit of a veteran too, since they seem unamused and bored with Delinquent’s antics, presumably having seen it all before.
That said, Cap was a bit of a boring character. We didn’t see much of them honestly, but that’s fine.

Last (but not least) we have


Egg

Nothing but a fried egg on their head, they are the optimist and fun person of the group. Essentially a healthy mix of King and Glasses, they simply want to have fun by winning.

While the characters are all simple, if you really think about it they reflect several real-life values of the fans of the game.

Anyways, this manga is pretty short. It takes five minutes at most to read, so surely it doesn’t have a convoluted plot, right?

Among Us has a realistic take on the game, for the most part, so while it’s not complex, it remains deep.

#STORY

Among Us can really be summed up in this one panel:



We follow Among Us through the eyes of the imposter (won’t reveal who for sake of spoilers) as they try to kill off the four crewmates and win the game.

What Among Us does really well is that it’s entirely based on real concepts. There are temporary alliances, meaningless and unhelpful side chatter, and towards the end there is a devastating and heartbreaking betrayal from what originally was a brotherhood bond. These are all things that happen both in the source material and in real life: people talk about stuff that doesn’t matter. People pretend to help each other. Brother turns back on brother, son turns back on father.

This, believe it or not, says a lot about our society. Who knew that such a little story could contain such adult and depressing themes?

What makes this better, however, is that the manga still manages to convey these messages through a comedic and kid-friendly filter. If you read this to a kid of, say, ten years, they would enjoy the story, surely. But ten years later, they’ll remember when you read them this story, and they’ll connect it to their actual life. They’ll become depressed when they realize that life, much like Among Us, is full of betrayal and unhappiness.

The only real issue Among Us has is the liberties it takes. There isn’t really a lot of lore in the game, so this is to be expected, but we learn some… interesting facts.

The most important thing we learn about Crewmates?



They are capable of eating, brushing their teeth, using the restroom, and watching television. They lead lives very similar to ours. It’s astonishing that such an odd colored bean is so similar to us.

What’s even more shocking, however, is the fact that apparently crewmates are capable of suicide. We see one unfortunate member kill themselves in despair, in a moment that makes you question the age rating of the manga.

Other than these liberties, however, the manga is exceptionally well-written with themes that reflect both the game and real life.

#CONCLUSION~~~

Among Us takes less than five minutes to read, so you should check it out with your little siblings, they’ll probably love it.

I think this manga is pretty funny, while still dealing with serious themes that you don’t see very often due to censorship for the sake of the audience. With its heartbreaking betrayals and depressing depictions of mental illness, it’s quite a ride when you realize this was actually just meant as a little gag for kids and probably shouldn’t have been analyzed so seriously.