Shuuen no Shiori

To start of with, Shuuen no Shiori is NOT for everyone. Not just because of the gore and "horror" images but because of how it's set up. You constantly have to reread the same events but in a different character's prospective. I personally didn't hate it, I easily read through it. (A few spoilers here and there. Nothing word breaking if you've read it or like novels or listened to the song series.)

Story: (8)
The story isn't anything "outstanding" the "day/week repeating" is pretty common. Another popular Vocaloid song series, Kagerou project as does this. The "horror" isn't particularly scary. I did get a few shivers (May be added I was in a silent dark room at 3 am.) The story does get a bit interesting when the Film club is added as well, although it may feel sudden to some people I think Suzumu tried their hardest to make it smoother. It defiantly could've came out worse. I never cried about the characters's situations while reading it. I only ever tear up while listening to the songs in the Re:Write Album for example. Songs like "repeat tragedy" and "Ending Melody" or "Schrodinger's cat" are terribly sad when you know the context of whats happening. I don't feel utterly depressed over the hopeless ending but that could also because of the songs like "Common Heroes" or "Bookmark of Demise" Which gives hope that maybe one day they'll escape the time loop.
I think the concept of their repeats always ending when all four died made in unique. And how who kills who or why may be different but it's always the same outcome. The thought they repeat the "game" over and over hoping they can win is so sad.


Characters: (9)
The characters are highly enjoyable, at least to me. The manga doesn't show of their complexity as well as the songs or novels do. The Occult kids and E-ki and E-nori are indefinably more interesting then the film club but I still liked both casts. This can be explained as though the occult kids are not sane at all. The most sane being B-ko. But even then all four of them have some loose ties which makes sense as they were written just for pure horror one shots by E-ki. For example (Which I'm pretty sure this isn't in the manga.) A-ya finds out about C-ta's cameras but says "Well we're childhood friends, right?" and doesn't find it weird so yeah... definitely got some lose strings.. But I still managed to feel bad for them even though there not the best of people. There pretty bad ass though, even though they constantly kill each other they still manage to forgive each other and try to beat the loop. Which does make the repeating much sadder than just insane people who kill and hate each other.

Art: (8)
The art can sometimes be stiff looking. And it has some chubbier character models then most anime models but it's of course not awful. The coloring is kinda bland but it gets the point crossed. The expressions are amazing though!! There was so many moments no words or very few were spoken but what they thought was so clear in their expressions.

Enjoyment:(8)
I indefinably think sns inst for everyone, I probably enjoyed it more then a 7.60ish it has right now. In fact it goes to my top favorite 5 manga. You could say I haven't read hundreds of manga only around 40ish but it still was very meaningful to me. It also could be my love for the first five songs when they came out in 2014 but it font think thatch it.I highly enjoyed sns, I love the connections the characters have with each other it seems realistic.. I truly felt sad about their time loops but them being aware of them and trying to stop it but still somehow repeating the same end is such a sad feeling.
I also like the fact it feels as though everyone isn't completely in the wrong.

Overall: 8
I hope it'll get physical English copies one day, I'd love to support Suzumu, 150P, and Yuki amino more than just buying their Albums.

(I have read the first novel as well as part of the manga so there'll be spoilers.)

Shuuen no Shiori, or Bookmark of Demise, was originally a Vocaloid song saga which got turned into a novel and then became a manga. The Vocaloid songs are really good, but after reading the first novel and a few manga chapters I was completely letdown.

STORY: 4

The setting is simple: A group of four boys and girls get together in an old classroom and talk about urban legends. They find a book which is said to have killed five people in the past and decide to perform a ritual which makes a survival game starts. They must obey the fox's orders and kill them or they will die.

It starts like your everyday survival game story, but I liked that since I'm a fan of this kind of stories. However it bugged me how they would be able to pull off an interesting survival game with only four characters. Usually, this kind of stories are presented with a big cast (from 10 people to a whole classroom) so you can speculate who the traitor is while everyone dies one by one.

There is no such thing as speculation in Shuuen no Shiori. Each one of the characters is given an urban legend as an order and they're supposed to "carry out" said order. If they don't, they'll get killed by the fox.

Each few chapters focuses on one of the four victims, and all of them end up getting killed. A-ya and B-ko are killed by C-ta and D-ne respectively, and then C-ta and D-ne are killed by the fox. By the time I reached the end of the first novel and realized everyone was dead, I was very confused. How can everyone be dead? Every chapter is told by one of the characters and none of them showed any signs of being the traitor, so what is going on?

When I reached the answer I felt absolutely betrayed. It's like Suzumu had only planned on writing a bunch of plain characters, have them killed, and call it a good story. Since at the end you discover the traitor was you, the reader, this whole time.

This "the reader was the killer" the whole time could've been very good, had it been done carefully. But that's not the case. Through the series there wasn't a single moment when I felt like I was "one of them". There was never a clear intent to make the reader feel close to the characters, and it doesn't help that the characters are plain and face no development at all.

CHARACTER: 3

I think out of everything, even with the terrible writing, the characters were the worst part of the entire series.

The character's names are A-ya, B-ko, C-ta and D-ne, and they're all basically the same.

A-ya is an occult freak who doesn't like people, and the one to suggest they perform the Bookmark of Demise ritual.

B-ko is a popular girl who acts sweet to hide her tsundere personality, and although she fights with A-ya they share a love for the occult.

C-ta is A-ya's childhood friend. A cool and popular guy who isn't interested in the occult, but joins A-ya because he's too possessive to allow his friends to have other friends. He has cameras hidden in A-ya's room because that's so edgy.

D-ne is a quiet girl who doesn't talk to people, but has a crush on B-ko so she joins her and the boys. She's just as possessive and yandere as C-ta.

I did like these characters at the beginning, but I soon became bored. C-ta and D-ne are all too similar, A-ya is the most generic nerdy character, and I only liked B-ko because she was the most believable character of them all. But as I said before, none of these characters face any kind of development at all.

A-ya starts an occult nerd and dies an occult nerd. B-ko starts scared of the ritual and dies scared of the ritual. C-ta starts obsessed with A-ya and dies obsessed with A-ya. At least D-ne turns into B-ko... or something, right?

ART: 6

The artstyle for the manga was good, though maybe not my favorite. The art is probably the most enjoyable thing of Shuuen no shiori

ENJOYMENT: 4

I only read 6 chapters of the manga because I knew what was going to happen after reading the novels. Had it been a more interesting story, I wouldn't have minded, but I had no intention of reading such a bad-written story over again.

OVERALL: 4

Shuuen no Shiori was a wasted opportunity. It took four characters with the same four traits mixed up, killed them one by one and called it a day.

It could've been so much better if the characters had a bit more of development, if there had been a character or two more, or if at least the fox's orders had been somehow clear. But it seems like suzumu preferred to play it safe and have two unstable kids kill their same-sex love interests. Because that's so edgy.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS AND SPOILERS-FREE ZONES. BE WARNED.

First of all, I should say that I've only read the first three volumes of the light novel and some chapters of the manga. This review will only cover the first two volumes at all.

SPOILER-FREE ZONE:

"Due to a single traitor, the game has begun. Those that wish to escape must abide by the terms and reach the end. Now, let this fun Demise Game begin―"

Since the sinopsis, Shuuen no Shiori (or the western name, Bookmark of Demise) begins with the rules of a so called survival horror "game". Just like any other story of this sub-genre, the rules are made to create some type of consistency between reality and fiction, trying to make characters don't kill each other without consequences.
The Book of Demise contains the description of all urban legends ever known and the legend written on the page where the Bookmark of Demise is set will turn real.
Our four protagonists, Boy A, Girl B, Boy C and Girl D (also known as A-ya, B-ko, C-ta and D-ne) are enthusiasts with occult themed things and got really interested with the idea of taking the Book on their hands. On the process of summoning the Book, they get stuck in a game of demise, where one of the participants is a traitor and an assassin. The game will only finish if the traitor die, else, everyone of them will die.

The series, just like KagePro, started as a vocaloid series, having lots of songs with important plot keys that, sometimes, are missed in the novel. The novels are REALLY better than the manga (the manga actually cut almost everything that made the novels great).

I should say that the story is nothing new, but is done so greatly (especially at the second volume) that it really catchs you.

SPOILER ZONE

I really can't say what I liked on the series without giving some spoilers of the surprising and anti-climatic final events of the second volume. I should say that I really love well done anti-climatic endings and the final chapters of the second volume totally nailed it, at least, in my opnion.

Without further explanation, what I really like in this series is that it REALLY remembers you that all the things that happened to our protagonists looks like fiction. It is like the rules for their game was written by some B-grade novelist (and this is reality). When they finally understood who is the "fox", I could hear my mind blowing. Before everything is brought to screen, I was really mad at the bad writing with lots of plot holes and mediocre situations, but when A-ya's gives his final veredict (that he, the character, was also bored with all the unrealistic setting) everything begin to fall into place.

The plot holes, the mediocre written situations... Every writing tool is actually... A foreshadow. It all make sense in the end. And that's all you need to know.