Torikago no Tsukai is a death game manga by Toutarou Minami. There's something that sets it apart from the various other death game series that I've reviewed in the past, though.
Something very important.
#It's Actually Good#
Yeah, that's right. Hell hath frozen over. What are some favorable traits of an actual good death game, you ask? Well.
- No rape. Not a single instance of rape. NOT ONE. NOT EVEN ANY ATTEMPTED RAPE.
- In addition to there being no rape, there's really no fan service whatsoever. I don't necessarily hate fan service 100% of the time but GOD is it inappropriate in death games... especially the ones I've read thus far.
- There is a proper amount of build up before the death game begins. It's fine to do a little tease, but don't drop our main set of characters into the death game from the very first page and start having characters explode into blood right away.
- While most of the characters are high schoolers, the entirety of the manga/the death game does not take place at the school. If you have it take place at the school, you immediately have to work a reason into why a death game is being allowed to happen at school. Just... just make it happen somewhere else. Please.
- The level of gore is not ridiculous or nauseating. ~~The more over the top you try to make it, the less likely I’m gonna take it seriously.~~
- There's an actual tangible culprit that is possible for the characters to catch, aka, not a ghost or spirit.
- No purposely obnoxious characters that only exist for the sake of there being characters to die in the death game.
- In addition to there not being any purposely obnoxious characters, there are actual likable characters.
- The game is relatively ground in reality. You could argue the lack of an outlandish element harms it, but this actually combined with 4 led to me actually being pulled into actually wanting to know what was going to happen.
- There's actually a conclusion. Whether or not it was satisfying (in my opinion, it was) isn't even important. There was a conclusion. There was no bullshit where it ended while trying to set up a new game or anything like that. It concluded.
- No death game mascot. AKA, an annoying character or creature that exists solely to explain or be the host of the death game. Rather than a mascot, the perpetrator of the death game merely speaks through speakers and owls throughout the birdcage castle.
Torikago no Tsukai begins with a group of six high school students going off into an abandoned amusement park following one of their classmates' disappearance and a rumor that she was last seen there. But things very quickly go awry as the light goes out and they are knocked unconscious via a strange gas.
They awake with strange metal collars around their necks, chaining them together into pairs. If you go backwards, the collar will immediately kill you. If your collar isn't connected to another one for a while, the kill switch will be triggered. And... that's it. That's literally it. That's the sole core mechanic of the death game.
Which might seem a bit too simple but when the first character dies at the start and our protagonist is left without a partner as the girl he's hooked to quickly (and coldly) discards him to save the other guy, I genuinely found myself actually worrying for the protagonist. As we're shown him looking around at the other characters, none of which move to help him.
Instead of breaking down or panicking, he continues to try and think of some sort of way to save himself. He realizes since he's not friends with any of the group and came along on the search for their classmate for his own reasons, none of them would be willing to sacrifice their current partner for him. He even considers attempting to forcibly make one of them connect their collars to his, but actually ends up deciding that he didn't want to resort to such actions.
Which only made me like Kurobe even more. As it's made clear from this point that as odd as Kurobe initially seemed, he's actually 100% set on seriously finding Shirasagi. But you know as much as I ended up liking Kurobe aside, I like pretty much all of the other characters of our death game cast.
Even while most death games seem to always push the angle of watching relationships between characters break down due to the death game, most of those death games I didn't give a single fuck about the characters. I either rooted for their deaths or if they somehow actually succeeded, I didn't find it really satisfying.
This manga was a huge fresh of air because I actually liked the characters therefore I was invested and thus I actually cared. I cared about and was invested in the plot of a death game!
#Conclusion#
Torikago no Tsukai is proof that a death game series can be done right.
It doesn't have to be annoying, it doesn't have to be stupid as all hell, it doesn't have to be filled to the brim with rape or misplaced nudity, and it doesn't have to be 100% gore. Sometimes, it can just be a very good series about characters being forced to cooperate with each other to solve puzzles and problems or be killed. And really, that's all I've ever wanted from the various death game manga I've read.
For both restoring my hope as well as seizing my attention from beginning to end, I give this death game series an 8 out of 10.
