REVIEW: Doubt (vols. 1 and 2) - Yoshiki Tonogai

• Year first released:  2013
• ISBNs of the editions I read:  9780316245302 and 9780316245319
• Publisher of the editions I read: Yen Press
• My rating (out of 5):  4

Doubt begins normally enough: a group of high-schoolers who play an online game together - Rabbit Doubt - decide to meet up in-person for the first time. They have a good evening together shopping and eating and singing karaoke, and then suddenly wake up in a creepy, abandoned warehouse with bar code tattoos, the corpse of one of them hanging from the rafters, and the idea that they have to kill one other to flush out the murderer. 

I guess I should say: Doubt begins normally enough...if you're a Saw movie or an Agatha Christie novel.

I loved the premise. It's not really a spoiler to say that, of course, each of the kids has his (or her) own secrets he's hiding which sure makes him seem to be the guilty one. These secrets and red herrings roll out over the course of the books - as the corpses quickly stack up - until the person behind the game is finally revealed. 

There's a very Agatha-Christie-like conceit to the entire set up (think especially of And Then There Were None) which Tonogai pulls off brilliantly, and without making it feel as though he's simply rehashing the ground she started nearly 80 years ago.

The art, too (which Tonogai himself does) is fantastic. He moves deftly between scenes of warmth and humanity, and scenes of shocking violence (and/or the aftereffects of it). Doubt certainly isn't for the faint of heart, though it never comes close to crossing into grind territory - this is definitely a thriller, through and through, with nothing gratuitous or supernatural in play. There is plenty of violence and gore throughout, but it is always meaningful to the story as a whole.

The premise (of high-schoolers being trapped together in an abandoned building to play a twisted, murdery game) worked so well in Doubt that Tonogai repeated it almost exactly for his two other series, Judge and Secret. To his credit, he was careful to fill each series with a different host of secrets and clues, and even a different approach to who the game-maker is behind each. If you like any one of the three series, there's simply no way you won't like the other two. 

That said, though you're certain to like all three series, there's no getting around the fact that they all feel highly correlated, for better or worse. The twists and secrets are unique to each series, but the overall type of twists and secrets remains largely unchanged between the three (except, importantly, for who the ultimate villain is behind each - having read one won't give you any sort of clues or logical patterns that you can use to guess who the villain is in either of the other two).

Also, in reading just any one of them all of the characters look and feel distinct. When you begin in on another of the series, though, you'll quickly realize that these are basically the same personalities and quirks, just re-skinned and renamed for the next story. It's not so bad if you allow a gap between reading each of the three series, but a haze settles over them if you read them too closely together. 

It's an interesting idea, though: this recycling of personalities feels like a misstep on Tonogai's part - and yet, if I'm only reviewing one of the series for you (which, technically, I am), it's not as though it affects this one series on its own. This isn't a problem you will notice by only reading Doubt (or only Judge, or only Secret). I suppose, then, it's more of a warning for you if you decide to keep up with Tonogai beyond just this one series, rather than something I can fairly hold against just this one series.

These small inconsistencies (actually, ironically, I suppose I should say these small consistencies) don't keep Doubt from being what it attempts to be, though: a fun, solid, intricate thriller full of twists and personality, with interesting plotting and a clever ending. It has everything you could want from a manga thriller - and, I would venture, would be a good starting-off point if you're into thrillers but haven't yet approached the wonderful world of reading manga.

(Note: If these books sound familiar, I’ve actually already mentioned them once before - along with Judge and Secret - in my list of books to read if you’ve played certain games. Specifically, I mentioned that these books are great to read if you've played any of the three games in the Nonary Games series: 999, Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward, and/or The Zero Time Dilemma.)

On Ryukishi07’s Higurashi: When They Cry Manga Series

You’ve guessed by now that I’m a fan of manga (though I haven’t yet reviewed any for you). I’m actually a bit picky about manga, though. There’s a lot to like - and a lot to not like - in the average manga.

The 27-volume Higurashi series is no exception: it falls into some of the same pitfalls as many other manga series. Certainly it isn’t perfect. Despite this, though, it’s easily my favorite series (though not my favorite single-volume manga). And, since it’s such a great example of a psychological horror series, it’s finally time to talk about it.

Though the overall plot, for what it is, is highly fascinating - and I could easily rave about it for awhile - what actually stands out to me the most is the way the entire story is arranged. Throughout the 27 books, we're given an abundance of pieces that all point at the one, ultimate truth of the Higurashi universe. Along the way, though, the story continually "resets," so to speak, in a sort of give-and-take format.

Sounds odd, I'm sure. And until you get the hang of how the series works, it can be quite confusing at first. I can only explain so much without getting into spoiler territory, but I'll do what I can - the arrangement is worth discussing (since it's probably the most clever aspect of the entire series).

In order to explain the setup for you, let's start with a couple of the book covers:

 

The most obvious difference between the two are that the first one (which is the cover to volume 1) has a black background, and the second (the cover to volume 11), a white. This fact is important.

The series is separated into smaller sets of books called "arcs" - volumes 1 and 2 comprise an arc, 3 and 4, etc. (The arcs are anywhere from two - four books long each, with a couple single-arc exceptions.)

The black-backed arcs are known as the "Question Arcs" and the white-background ones are the "Answer Arcs." And, importantly, there's a direct correlation between a Question Arc and its Answer Arc. You read through all of the Questions first, before diving in to the Answers - which are continuations of their accompanying Questions.

(Each new arc is where the plot "resets," as I mentioned. Each takes you back to the very beginning of the ordeal to show you a new - and often contradictory - angle to the overarching story.)

As for the two books I showed above: the black is volume 1 of the Abducted by Demons Arc (again, a Question Arc), and the white is the first volume of the Eye Opening Arc - the Answer to the Abducted by Demons Arc.

Whew. Sound confusing? Probably. Once you have the pieces in front of you, though (and especially once you finally start in on the Answers), everything becomes much more clear.

- much more clear, that is, and absolutely phenomenal.

The series paints (and repaints, and repaints...) an incredible picture of the horrifying incidents in a rural Japanese village. All throughout, Ryukishi07 maintains a deeply unsettling, disturbing atmosphere that is psychologically gripping. Both the imagery and the plot twists are downright shocking, driving all the way to the incredible finale which will leave you in horror and disbelief and utter confusion until the penultimate volume, when the deepest truth is finally laid bare. You'll be shocked. More, you'll be electrified. (At least I was, and if you enjoy even the faintest whiffs of Japanese horror, you certainly will be too.)

...yeah, I know: sounds amazing, right?

It truly is.

Guilty Pleasures, pt. 1.5 / REVIEW: DEATHNOTE: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases - NISIOISIN

• Year first released:  2006 (Japanese), 2008 (English)
• ISBN of the edition I read:  9781421518831
• Publisher of the edition I read: VIZ Media LLC
• My rating (out of 5): 4.5-ish. or maybe 2ish. hmm... 

Now I want to explain to you one of the reasons I’ve been thinking about guilty pleasures recently:

Just last week, I read the Japanese light novel DEATHNOTE: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases by NISIOISIN. As usual, after reading it, I sat down to write a review of it for you. I found that I was rather stuck, though.

First of all, I absolutely LOVED the book. But when I tried to discuss the book’s style, I had to admit that it’s, frankly, pretty badly written. (I believe that some of this was bad translation, but definitely not all of it.*) It had a constantly shifting POV that was more than a little distracting. To add to this, the first-person narrator played a rather confusing role in the story, one that I don’t think I can definitively explain for you. This is largely because I don’t think I fully understood who the narrator was supposed to be – in fact, to be even more blunt, it felt like the author made a mistake in who the narrator, as a character, is in the overall DEATHNOTE universe. Oops. 

Perhaps, then, I loved the book because it had such great content (even though the form was bad) …right?

Well, partly yes. The plot was great, and had a killer ending. (No pun intended – I mean, it’s a serial-killer mystery, after all.) But what I certainly loved most about the book was the character L (who you’ll know if you’ve read the DEATHNOTE manga or seen the corresponding anime). Revisiting his character – and in prose, instead of only manga or anime form – was an absolute delight. He’s every bit as fantastic and hilarious and genius here as he was in the manga/anime. Very possibly my favorite character to have come out of the genre as a whole.

So then. When I tried to give a numerical score to the book, I wanted to give it a 4.5.

I realized, though, that this score is actually rather misleading. This book doesn’t really deserve a 4.5, for many of the reasons I already described (amongst several others). 

Yet I totally loved the book. It was an absolute blast for me. And so calling it anything less than a 4.5 feels wrong, too.

It turns out that the book is great, but it's not actually good.

Weird, I know.

Another Note was not high-quality. But dang it if it wasn’t one of the funnest books I’ve read recently – and, therefore, worth every minute I spent with it.**

* * * 

*This is actually the second book I've read by NISIOISIN in the past couple weeks. Each had a different translator. Both translations were fine - nothing entirely remarkable or entirely egregious - but overall I think the other book, Decapitation, flowed a little better as far as the translation is concerned.

**By the way, if you’re thinking of reading this book, it’s highly advisable that you read the original DEATHNOTE manga or watch the anime first. This is because:

1. Even though this book is a prequel to the manga/anime series, it actually contains spoilers for the series. 
2. The series is a better “jumping-off-point” to getting a grasp on L’s character. This book itself doesn’t do much of anything to help you understand his personality; it’s better to come to the book with a good feel for it already. (And, again, since L is my favorite part of the book, approaching the manga/anime first will almost certainly increase your enjoyment of this book.)

All that said, if you are familiar with the tropes of DEATHNOTE and are considering this book: Yes. Absolutely. Read this - just know that it's not as "high-quality" as many other great books you could be reading. (In fact, I might even say it's not as "high-quality" as the manga itself, even though it's still totally worth it - especially if, like me, you realize how amazing L is.)