Jisatsutou

Jisatsutou, written by Kouji Mori (Holyland), is a masterpiece. Once again Kouji Mori captivates the struggles of the being human, through a simple yet effective narrative. Mori's biggest strength however is character growth, and like Holyland, the main character wanders through a psychological labyrinth created by our stifling modern world, trying to rediscover what he lost, and giving hope to what others are looking for. Jisatsutou also has wonderful pacing, where each chapter is filled with something meaningful, and exciting.

Please buy his works when they come out in your language. It is these kinds of magnificent authors that need more recognition in our consumer culture.

Spread the word Jisatsutou is another work that sets the standard of what good seinen should be.

The issues portrayed in this manga are about finding a meaning and value of life by people who already attempted suicide. It's quite interesting in the way how mindset of such persons change in an environment different from everyday comfy life. On the other hand it also faces some of the more universal flaws in humans or human society independent of the environment they are put in.

There is a thought that life should have a meaning, a reason, so that a person would have solid will to live. That is the case in some of the moments you can find in this manga. But it also raises a doubt if what we find meaningful in life is actually all that important and if it's not just self indulgence or deception. Manga is not yet finished so we don't have a clear cut on what the message is. On the other hand that's good in it's own way - leaves some ground and raises some additional existential questions and thoughts for now. Anyway - a great read and a meal for brain!

This is the best manga I have ever read.

At first it might look that this is going to be a really negative and depressing story. Well it indeed might not be suited for people with weak nerves as there are a lot of harsh things such as suicides and killing. But! This manga can offer you a lot of philosophical thoughts about life and show you that even at worst times you can always find a solution to move on if YOU find the courage to do that.
It's not a sweet story where everything goes well every time and that is what I liked about it, because there are always hardships that one has to face. It easily involved me to a story and leaved me stunned because this story is incredible, it feels so realistic.
Also, I can't not mention that I really admire all the work the author put into this manga. Explanations about ways characters used to deal with bows, hunts and etc (oh, and including his own experiences) were very clear, informative and interesting to read.

This is a story of life and death where people try to go through life however they can. It is definitely worth to give it a go.

Coming from a fan of Mori Koji's Holyland (favorite of mine) I expected Jisatsutou to be a great manga, but unfortunately the symptoms that slightly hampered my enjoyment of Holyland (still a favorite) killed Jisatsutou completely. You might as well say it plagued the manga completely turning it into a dying zombie waiting to be killed.

Story 3/10

The story starts with our mc attempting suicide but ultimately failing to do so; He then wakes up in an island with a group around him most of them consisting of people who failed to commit suicide as well. The bad pacing of the story begins at the start of the story with extremely irregular pacing. The story begins to truly shine after chapter 20 all the way until 60. The problem is how the author forgets what to do with his characters and decides to prolong it all the way to 168. The pacing starts to really weigh down on the reader after chapter 60 to the point I didn't even want to continue reading this abomination (rarely happens). Horrible decisions one after another perplexed me. Granted, I read this in one sitting, but I have done the same with many other great manga namely Mori Koji's other work Holyland. Mori Koji's name was the only thing that carried this abomination all the way to the end in my case.

Art 9/10

As expected, the art was brilliant. The art that Mori Koji polished through eight years of writing and drawing Holyland paid off (wish the same could be said for the story and characters). There really isn't much complaints here to be said about the art. Undoubtedly, this is a preference since some would complain about the weird art style.

Character 2/10

Good lord almighty the characters really got on my nerves. You do not know the amount of times I wanted to smash my head with a brick because of how naive or stupid the characters were. The mc is the worst sinner in this category. I don't think I have ever hated a mc more than this one. It is surprising at how one quality could truly make or break a story. Specifically, in this case it is the mc's hesitation. Wow, at times I really felt like the author was doing this shit on purpose. At the story's most critical moments the mc made the worst choices. Naivete and hesitation also affected a few other characters but not the degree of our mc. There was perhaps one notable brilliant development of a character that carried me to finish the story. There were also a few other plot issues which really made me question whether or not a certain decision made by a character was really a choice that character would make.

Enjoyment 5/10

Even though I absolutely German Suplexed the shit out of this manga, I would be lying to you if I said I didn't enjoy this manga at some point. After chapter 20 we had signs of a characters reform which truly made me smile and will most likely be the only thing I remember of this dumpster. After around chapter 60 my enjoyment dipped horribly due to terrible choices by the author. I truly wonder what was the author thinking while writing this. I suppose after eight years of drawing this manga he probably forgot his sense of direction of this story and began repeating the same actions and behavior patterns of nearly all characters.

Overall 5/10

I read this manga, so you didn't need to. If you want something survival or psychological, go read the author's only good work holyland, homunculus, or kokou no hito

Warning: This review contains some major spoilers, PLEASE DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED


While a work can be considered perfect for some people, that doesn't mean it can avoid critiques from others. That's why I will dedicate this review to critique this manga.


Suicide island, is a no man island where the Japanese government decided to forsake their own suicidal people because the gov budget can't support them no more. While it has a simple beginning, the way how it decides to describe the people who were stranded in the island is in a way how majority of suicidal people (or even depressed) think, when something is hard to accept or they can't bear it no more, they end their own life. Thus comes the main message the author wants to deliver through his story is life, and why we must treasure it (or so I thought for half the story).
While the main objective of these stranded people is to survive in this island (they need to hunt, and to make their own food), they must also resist the temptation to commit suicide because they are suicidal people after all. And here the story depart with the mc in his journey for hunting while looking for a meaning for his life.
So in order to survive, people must form a community, in which people divide tasks (fishing, searching for food or veggies, developing tools...) in order to survive, and even protect themselves from danger sometimes.

Some may think the story is good as it is, but imagine having 2 different factions with different ideologies, a faction use sexual activities in their daily routine, enslave woman, and even their leader kill his own people to sooth his own hunger, and even deceive them in a way to make them obey his order. While the other faction use a more logical and somewhat gender equal methods to manage their life without discrimination. It must be clear for you now who's good and who's evil? But hold on, in the author's point of view, all life is equal, so even if the evil faction attacks and kill people, the good faction always will forgive and just use bluffs to make their enemies run away. Trust me when I say that +100 chapters of this story goes like this: The evil faction attack to kill men and enslave women and steal food, the good faction repels them, then the good faction decides to attack them too. When they want to ambush the evil faction they realize they are normal people just like them, and they retreat or they are discovered by enemy so they for run it. this same plot keeps going on for multiple times in 100 chapters.

One of the most disturbing things that just annoyed me the whole time, of how the author use something for the sake of plot development but deliberately throws it when not needed, when you have more than one of these objects, slowly but surely the story keeps making no-sense when these objects keeps adding up.
Taking as example pregnancy to explain my previous statement, while the author deliberately made one of the women in the island pregnant to show the importance of life, and that we don't have right to decide for a baby that has not been born whether he will be born or killed before even seeing this world. The author totally ignores a problem that he did introduce himself. What do you think a group of people that keeps doing sexual activities daily but woman don't get pregnant, you may think that they are using contraceptives, but don't forget that we are on a no man island when they don't have access to drugs, the only left answer is herbal medicine which itself causes a lot of side effects (tiredness, nausea, some organ failures...) which will keep women unable from working, where in the story they seem to be doing fine and hardworking, in fact the woman number grows up as more people comes to the island. That's what I can call a plothole in the story.

Another example is The strange change of heart. ex: Sei's decision to leave his group for deciding to leave one of his friends in the enemies hand, he was probably the person insisting the most to attack the enemy, It was so good of a plot development as to show everyone's intentions. You'll be appalled to knew what comes next. When his friends decides to fight the enemy and call for him. The first thing mc thinks of is to solve this peacefully even though more people were killed when he left and he knews that fully well. Then what was the point of him leaving the group in the first place?

Characters: 3/10
While at the beginning, they look promising, and have room for development. You'll be disappointed of how little the characters can grow other than embracing life. And what will be thrown at you at later stage of the story is how characters are outright stupid, have sudden change of heart for no particular reason, can forge their own justice even though their friends are dying or people are getting raped. Everything that you did like in character early on, will keep you awake the night later on.
Taking the mc (Sei) as an example, while he did grow from a NEET teen with no desire for the future, always doom and gloom, to a happy man looking forward for the future, treasuring life and good at surviving on his own using bow. Anything else in his character feels like it was just ignored by the author, or deliberately made the way it is to keep plot in stalemate that will keep the story going for hundred chapters with nothing new. As far as I am concerned (even some people comments through my personal read), Sei is the most disappointing character or mc I've seen in a while, while he keeps talking of how he treasures his dear friends, or how he is willing to kill in order to save them or take revenge, the only thing that keeps showing while he is trying to shoot his target is hesitation then he misses his target, and in the middle of it he either ends up making more of his friends face danger or die, that's how it has been in the beginning and will continue till the end. People are hypocrite, so is Sei, The only time he decided to pull the trigger is to save his girlfriend. And other than that, I don't think he treasures his relationship with friends like he claims to.
I feel like the side cast that are more decisive (like Cap and Ryuu) are really the characters that need to be the main cast in a survival stories, while they may be rash. At least they are decisive in hectic moments. While mc did fuck up in every moment he needed to be decisive. I get it that hesitation is one of mc's main qualities to show how he treasures life. But what can't be tolerated is to keep going on like this for the whole story without growing up.

Drawing: 5/10
I don't think the drawings were as good as the other works of the author I've seen. Sometimes faces can be generic to the point that you will not be able to distinguish characters if they are naked or they change clothes.
You can follow up the story, but other than gorgeous sceneries (ocean, forest and even plants are fascinating...), characters can be drawn sometimes so bad that you can't feel immersed.

Overall: 4/10
While the story at the beginning was promising. The plot with it's defects just keeps worsening the overall enjoyment as you progress.
Imagine a person that lived in the island for years if not a decade, do you think he will suddenly mess up his crops suddenly in order to show up in front of mc when he needs it? No, while it was such a fortunate coincidence, it also just shows up how author did think little up to nothing of how to progress the story and end it.
If you want to read this when you can tolerate indecisive mc and bad plot development, then go ahead, just don't regret your investment at the end

More lie Suicide Story, as in the story killed itself

The art is not spectacular but the characters have distinguishing features from one another. Depth and backstories are given to most characters which are some of the more i teresting parts of the story.

The story starts out well and is reasonable intelligent despite the absurd plot, however this changes due all of the characters extreme niavete, and outright stupidity. The characters act as if theyare righteous and have high moral values, but actually choose to ignore rape, murder, slavery, cannibalism, and the like.

I initially enjoyed this manga early on but after a while it became unreadable. The characters regularly create thier own problems and fail to grasp the cause and effect of any of their actions.

Suicide Island is a "philosophical and spiritual auto biography"... Please bear with me

The "I don't belong" or "I don't fit anywhere" theme is a cliche by this point, but suicide island executes on it in a way Ive never seen before.

The main character, after realizing he doesn't belong in his social circle and society as a whole, tries to kill himself, and fails (nothing new at this point) but then he is sent to an isolated island with fellow "suiciders"

Every other story would use this as a new chance to find a place to belong, and this is precisely what the main characters tries to do. There's your usual 2 factions, good and evil, and the mc tries to belong to the good faction.
But things start to go south. The good faction is not so good as they think they are, and the bad faction is not simply bad. Dare I say it, the world isn't black and white. And our character finds himself in the same spot where we began, I don't belong anywhere. But then...
Our main character realizes he has some skills for hunting and connecting with his partner dog and this is where he finds his place.
In many of his travels to hunt for food, he finds himself belonging to the "Circle of Life™". He discovers what does it mean to hunt, to consume energy, to respect prey, to be a part of something bigger, Nature. And finds himself on a spiritual level.
I've never seen this done before, and done so well at that. It touched me deeply, and this is what I consider art, very good art. 10/10

Set in a time when the government has given up on saving repeat suicide attempts, the titular island is made.

The island’s purpose is to serve as a dumping site for those who have repeatedly tried to take their own lives. They’re left on the island without any resources. They only have what they are wearing, and all means of communication to the outside is barred.

Kouji Mori, Sousei no Taiga’s creator, is also Jisatsutou’s creator, so a great story line is already a given.

Jisatsutou’s distinguishing feature is how it depicts gray areas. The protagonists aren’t necessarily the good guys, and the bad guys aren’t necessarily the bad guys.

At the end of the day, everybody’s just a cut from the same paper.

Everybody is ironically just trying to survive.

I got across this manga while looking for something new to read and after reading the synopsis I thought it would be worth reading, maybe because of its not too mainstream plot. At first I just saved it in my bookmarks and decided to read it sometime when I have the time. It stayed there for over a few months until I was having a bad night. I opened my pc and thought I'll give the manga a try..and I realized that it was a goldmine that I took for granted.

Story:

The story is a continuous struggle for all the characters especially Sei, the main character. The story is slow phased in an amazing way because it tries to capture every single moment from every situation. Although it is pretty predictable in a way where every single character has their own side story to tell, all were heartbreaks and despair but would eventually be erased by the experience and I guess, friendship they would found in the island. I rate it 10 because it relates to everyone one way or another especially on human's way of life.

Art:

The art is great, it fits the genre and the gloom that surrounds the story line. Can't say anything more about the art since I'm not an artist myself and I have so much respect for artist so applause for the author..

Character:

Somehow cliche' attitudes and life stories but at the same time unique in a way that the story tells their lives in a vivid way. The main character, Sei is so much of an average person yet with a deep mind and great skills. While the others are your typical characters that makes an awesome manga. A team leader with a lonely past, some intelligent guys, selfish trouble makers and a lonely girl with a past yet to be discovered. All in all the characters are well portrayed and detailed by the author. Anyone could relate to at least one of them which I guess is what makes a story worth reading.

Enjoyment:

I don't want to say enjoyment but as much as I would sound weird and uncomfortable to imagine, I guess it's more of the realizations that I found while reading at least 30 chapters. I cried on some parts and learned so much at the same time and for me that's enjoyment. No samurai or ninjas or kick ass martial artist but something more than those things. Something deeper and something that makes more sense.

Overall:

Overall it's a manga woooooooorth reading! you'll find yourselves inside every story and inspires you in a way that you'll think deeper of how life goes. I'm too glad I found this manga and learned so much from it. For me, this is a masterpiece. Thank you and forgive my english guys. :)

Before delving deeper I would like to tell you that this manga is good but due to usual manga misrepresentation of human psyche or my lack of vision (disbelieve that japanese people are that timid) i grew to despise quite a few characters here.

Story 7/10

This a story about a raging problem in Japan and how government decided to deal with it by that i mean suicide attempts. This is a main construct of the story which is flawed by a huge margin even though it is fiction but it was represented in realistic way.... Giving a fertile island to suicide attempters and basically making this island a sovereign state (hey if Nippon was so charitable it would forget about northern islands that Russia owns now).
Next we have a document that they signed (basically renouncing your citizenship but well there are still international human rights that you cannot renounce) is it cheaper for government to do all this than to help citizens or wait it out until they successfully kill themselves? Well by a rough estimate it's far cheaper to do with old system, Btoom!!! - was more realistic in way because it's a private company that was earning money.
Next we have animals...apparently government has introduced some animals for our islanders (a speculation nothing more).
Well after that all prelude the story itself is more grounded and realistic (with occasional quirks). Story goes on to show us how ex-suicide attempters are surviving on a relatively good island with some tattered buildings, wild animals, fish and a lot of fruits and vegetables (well not a lot but considering all factors it's a good island and valuable one if i may say so).
We see how they overcome hardships find solutions to problems how they try to find a reason to live and survive how they try to find value to life. Conflicts between groups and people. If it weren't for killing, delusional fiction and other devious stuff in manga i would rate it better since as physiological manga it went quite deep about reasons for suicides, solutions and our behaviour as for how author made it play out that's a different story he had an ideal chess pieces but his preliminary settings and play style left a bitter taste in mouth.
Character wise he made quite a few unique individuals but he made/placed in different place to a Lawless island and.......well some people acted idiotic and naive as if they are still living in Japan with government over their heads being completely oblivious to surroundings whilst some adapted quite quickly as if author knew and simply forgot that desperate situations change us.
So while author has some knowledge in psychology the darker parts of our psyche was weakly shown(unrealistic response or action) there were many situations that are shown in fiction but are rarely even possible in our world since cruelty brings back only cruelty in the end even if you are all powerful your back is still open for a stab.....
All in all if you don't delve deep it's a good story with some practical knowledge about archery, survival and primitive technology though Translator contradicted authors survival tips (about diet and allowed plants) so be careful do not believe at face value what this author written about survival - double check!.

Art 7/10

How should i put it......Characters are ugly, skinny elves with zombie faces while some were okay and actually eye candy people like Male Lead always made me think about Necropolis........Character drawings were *unique* but mostly a turn off for me while background on the other hand was quite detailed and beautiful to watch, animals were also somewhat good so..maybe author simply wanted to show people in a more ugly light?
Either way characters mediocre at best, background is very good low amounts of blank backgrounds (want to visit this island because of those drawings) as for panel placement and speech bubbles all are up to standards no confusion.


Character 6/10

Like i previously had a rant about characters being out of place like situation wise and their reactions.....was completely un appealing though would they act more like real adult people the story would have ended MUCH faster.
So let's begin we have Male Lead - Sei, support - Ryou, why did i highlight them? They are epitome of my above stated rant of wrong chess pieces, while we really do see how Male Lead grows as a man a person and etc. fundamentally he still is naive so naive that i would argue that it may be a mental disability because of his weak will multiple times he single handedly prolonged series for many chapters multiple times and i think any morally good person would in fact act much more brutal than he did given the circumstances so in the end if author didn't make ML so idiotic, series would have ended much sooner because of that author decided to make ML naive and idiotic while making him ultimately most powerful person on the island so he is oblivious to many things and acts like he is playing an RPG game trying to make only good choices (guilty here!) only at the end of the series we finally see a true growth from bot to a man before that given so many situations......i grew to despise ML even though he had some good char.points but his naivety and indecisiveness made a lot of dead bodies behind.
Next we have support Ryou a same example of personality in a wrong place a walking paragon of virtue to a point of making me puke considering that he had a phase of completely ignoring other people! So he can be cold but when it is needed he becomes a hindrance his naive to the core that may become his undoing. He never learns after multiple failed attempts of diplomacy he did not learn and when he finally tried to wear big boy pants well he threw them away.
As for other well they were far more realistic pieces on this island i could imagine such people existing in real life and in those dire situations their actions were and felt real. Reference for MAJOR IDIOCY chapter 77 and Main Leads decisions next chapter 96 Phrase "We killed them merely because the commited a crime" <---Ask yourselves and look up what crimes did they do i would definitely murder after that.
Next, we have a lot of characters with a bucket of mental problems from rape victims(with PTSD) to psychopaths. This part is quite interesting that we might delve deeper to understand how they think and what motivates them though it is only a surface but considering this manga is mostly fictional it's was nice to learn something new.
Supporting cast besides few morons are people some are weak some are strong some are like children some are pragmatic like machines they differ in reactions and other stuff BUT they are slow on decision making (slower than people would be in realty i think considering situations and threats small communities are much more decisive that big governments they acted like a big government (governments has bureaucratic evidence based apparatus so they need time to go from the bottom to the top, island communities do not need this so after SEEING ANY TRANSGRESSION it mostly becomes an evident evidence but here people are oblivious and ignorant to workings of real world).
All in all besides few characters everyone else seemed in place if not for authors desperate attempts to prolong this everything would be wonderful but he even had to make decent characters slow on urgent decisions.

Enjoyment 7/10

Did i enjoy it ? Yes there were a lot of bumps on the way due to previously stated problems but if you overlook them everything seems fine and engaging, i would definitely want to experience life an island like that for a year for self growth with some prior studying of course. I could full heartedly empathize with some characters especially with one who was a nobody but even though flawed he was decisive and his decision making and thought pattern resembled how i believed normal people would do and react given the circumstances.


Overall 7/10

Did i like it? Yes. Would i recommend it? Well yes...but not to everyone if you are interested in survival in the wilderness, psychology and other similar stuff then please read but do not expect people acting normal - after being slapped multiple times you pull down your pants because why not give your opponent some tolerance lesson?? Ehh....But enough with bashing, read it and make your own opinion and write a review yourselves and tell me would you be timid in those situations?
Spoilers below!







Spoilers--------------------------Alert Spoilers Below--------------------------




So finally i can speak my mind, so we have Male Lead and his supporting cast *friend* Kai a true case of psychopathy (btw edgy to the core) also we have other *friend* Sawada (leader of other community). So our ML had multiple chances to kill those 2.....But he did not have resolve to kill or hurt other people (Kai is a special case since they once talked while in mental institution) but other than that, this Kai is psychopath with edgy dream to kill everyone on this island then to die himself thus proving that he is the best THE ULTIMA! He starts by helping with some decisions at the start then after a while he starts to hate that people are starting to find a reason to live so he starts chipping at weak willed or people in crisis (pushing them to the limits of a suicide also pushing and helping them to die also murdering). After a while people notice that and confront him (he actually murdered too, strangled a girl) they know everything, they decide not to kill him (Sei motherfucker you had one job kill this bastard he is dangerous he killed multiple people c'mon some human instinct turn on ALERT DANGER!), so they let him go and he goes to another camp and helps them with tactics and strategy in order to kill other community and once again they had a chance to kill him but they do NOTHING!
Next we have other community leader a sociopath ex junkie who does everything only to get adrenaline rush, this community is better at start than our main community but they have dictatorship, Sawada is a cannibal and a major rapist so his community has a rule that women can't deny mens desire so chapter 77 we can see how they rape (newly initiated people) and even after seeing that they still are not determined then we have whole case where they attacked and due to Kais knowledge they made molotovs and few people died (a horrible death by fire, baseball bat to they eye (skull deformation)) then our Main grows cajones suddenly when his gay friend was taken as hostage (and raped by Sawada) but when he had a mark on sawada he still could not come through even though he knew his friends will die, girls will be raped and etc.
Next the problem of community they welcomed threats and transgressions against themselves for a while before finally deciding to retaliate after a failed retaliation they started to believe that everything is fine but after a stabbing incident when other community girls screamingly (for help) came to other community asked for help but then stabbed and killed 2 people eventually 3 and ran off. So all in all Main community after being spat on constantly find the resolve to kill (finally understanding that Sawada wasn't joking about massacaring them) as for Sei well only found resolve after his girl was taken by his bff Kai and ONLY then did he manage to finally kill someone even after killing off the edgy Kai he still regarded him as friend after doing so many atrocities (even though as i gather their exchange was brief in the past I mean SeixKai). Ending though was good though and I was happy that Ryou was killed (how he was killed) his naivety was his undoing!