It’s probably redundant to provide a warning for this manga considering the translation of the title is literally “Suicide Circle” but I feel the need to do it regardless. This series is centered around the topic of suicide and contains other likely uncomfortable subjects such as self-harm and teenage prostitution… so, if you’re not in the market for reading something unpleasant, I would recommend looking elsewhere.

#Suicide Circle#

I’m reviewing this manga from the perspective of a person completely unfamiliar with the movie that this was originally based off of. Instead, I approached it solely as a fan of Usamaru Furuya’s other manga. I think at this point I definitely do consider him as one of my favorite mangakas. I really really like his gore and I also really respect the almost bizarre variety of ideas for series.

Every single time I pick up another one of his manga, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. And in this case, I mean that in a positive manner. Course, as I've already noted, this manga is a tie-in adaptation of a movie.

But apparently, the director of the movie insisted that Usamaru Furuya put his own spin on the manga rather than follow the script of the movie as he originally planned. So apparently the only thing ripped straight from the movie wholesale was the opening scene of over fifty high school girls jumping in front of an incoming train.

Which to be fair, if you're looking for an attention grabbing opening to your movie or manga...

...there's really no going wrong with that. He doesn't pull any punches either. The next page shows the tracks afterward and they're just littered with bodies and blood. Plenty of them are just in pieces. But of course, of the fifty four that jumped, there was one girl who somehow managed to survive completely unhurt. Many would consider such a thing a miracle ~~because I think even if there were fifty four, a full speeding train would likely kill all of them~~ but not the survivor in question.

Saya Kota was really set on dying.

To make things even worse, not only did she not die, but she also lost her idol, Mitsuko-san. She feels that in surviving, she's been abandoned. And in her depression, she finds a new path to follow.

Mitsuko-san's. She failed in dying with Mitsuko-san's suicide circle... so she takes the moniker onto herself to start a new one to try again.

I think my favorite part about this manga is there isn't just one possible interpretation to take away from it. As long as you pretend the part where an apparition of Saya as a child shows up and starts acting all spooky and shit to Kyoko is strictly in her head, you can go with the "there are no supernatural hijinks going on" interpretation.

I think it works way better if it's just a continuing chain of incredibly misfortunate girls carrying and passing on a suicidal tradition than "spooky ghost shit."

#Conclusion#

It's short, and it's definitely not my favorite Usamaru Furuya manga, but I do like it quite a lot. My favorite bit probably being at the very end where

Still, I probably could have lived without the depictions of self-harm and teenage prostitution which was just... thoroughly unpleasant, but that was obviously the point.

So with the unpleasant stuff factored in, I give this manga centered around high school girls killing themselves and also some murder a 6.5 out of 10 or 65 out of 100.

~~...What a cursed line to type.~~