I want to preface by saying I received Ousama Game from a Secret Santa during 2016's Christmas event. I am so thankful and it feels so great to know that someone looked at the things I enjoy (horror manga!) and picked something out for me. I know my score shows that I found it rather foul and tasteless but I am still grateful that someone offered this to me. It means a lot to me, even if I think this manga was, well, real bad.

So, without further ado~


Story:
Really quite horrid. It's exploitative, abusive, and offers nothing in return to the reader. It's constant abuse on the characters as well as the reader who is left wondering why this was ever created. Maybe the mangaka poorly translated the source material, but I don't think that's the case. This story is absolutely horrible. I mean, it's one thing to have a strong introduction, but it's even worse to constantly repeat the depressing acts of the first few chapters over and over without substance.

So, constant horrid barrages on the reader and then you finally get to the ending and learn there's no resolution what-so-ever. Yes, this is a finished manga and yes there is, in fact, a climax, but no it's not worth it. It was all a waste, and the original writer shouldn't write another story ever again.


Art:
The artwork is overly dramatic. I mean, everyone's screaming and yelling all the time, and the facial expressions are ridiculous. It's hard to tell if it's a parody or if it's a legitimate choice by the mangaka to just go over the top with everything. Perhaps the source material had a lot of yelling? Well, the mangaka doesn't need to interpret yelling as a huge open mouth with beady eyes all the time. Goodness gracious.

Backgrounds are blank and spacious. There's nothing all that specific or special about each scene. It's like reading the funnies on Sunday but worse because it's not funny, it's exploitation.


Character:
Pretty dang bad. I mean... Alright I'm just gonna admit it, I've been drinking 100 Proof Captain Morgan and it's so hard to focus on this. I mean, let's be real here, the manga itself is so hard to focus on because my mind kept thinking, "Why don't I just read some more Dragon Ball?" or "I started 20th Century Boys 2 years ago. I seriously need to finish it. It's great!"

Yet, here I am, sad and tired, hunched over a desk while I type out a review for a present that, while I do appreciate, I question the general morality of the mangaka, the individual who sent it, and myself for finishing it.

I'm not cutting corners anymore, I'm forgoing my normal review pattern of breaking everything down, I'm just gonna get serious here. This manga is disgusting. It throws people into no-win situations without recourse. I don't mind that, in fact I like narratives like that. But, here's the thing, nobody does anything right. Let me compare this to Gantz, a manga that I actually quite enjoyed despite it's depressing and no-win-esque nature.

Gantz starts out heavy and everyone's dying left and right. You don't know who your main characters are and you don't know who the focus will be in the next chapter because everyone will die. That said, everyone fights to survive, and there's something beautiful about fighting adversity with tooth and nail. It's just awesome. And, while every character is at fault and really deserves to die, they recognize their faults and seek to correct them. Sometimes they don't, and that's sad, but sometimes they do, and that rocks.

Ousama Game has characters thrust into equally unwinnable situations and everyone kinda does some pretty nasty stuff. However, nobody is trying to do the right thing. For instance, although this doesn't happen in the manga, this sort of thing fits in well as a metaphor. Imagine your class from High School was trapped in a cave. Only 90% of the students can get out in time before the cavern finally closes. What do you do? This is what Ousama Game is about and each day there's less and less students to basically play this game.

Now, if you've ever played this philosophy game, you've probably heard people say, "Well, I have a family." or "My mother is in the hospital and only I can care for her." although people all have proper and morally understandable answers, the answer people would most connect and almost feel rejoiceful is the answer, "I'll stay in the cavern and you guys go out without me."

Gantz has characters like that. Gantz has characters where people, in the face of adversity, seek to sacrifice themselves. Sometimes it's in vain, but they still sought to do the best for others. Ousama Game has no one like that. Everyone is selfish, disgusting, horrid, and the events that takes place to these characters amplify how gross they are. It's on a degree that is unrealistic and not able to be connected with. I hate it. Not because the story is so immoral, but because it's also exploitative of horrible acts like Netorare and sexual abuse, let alone murder.

That's about all I can say about Ousama Game. There's other issues like the insistence that the police will not get involved despite Death Note doing a great job of convincing the reader that the police could TOTALLY investigate what seems like PARANORMAL killings. If Death Note could convince me, Ousama Game should have, too. I would have loved to read about the police investigating these games rather than watch a bunch of stupid high-schoolers (or, even worse, were they middle schoolers?) try and "solve" this case, even though they don't pursue solving it at all, they just suffer and die and it's miserable and stupid.

Man I hated this manga.


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