Suicide Club

Title: Suicide Club
Author: Usamaru Furuya
Translator: Karen Kazumi Hayashida
First Published: March 20, 2002
Publisher: Ohta Publishing
Pages: 168
Genre: Horror, Psychological
Format: Web
Source: Web
Rating:


Synopsis:

Jisatsu Circle is a manga based on a movie of the same title, written and directed by Sion Sono. At first, the manga was intended to follow the same story, but Sion Sono asked Usamaru Furuya to adapt his own story to it, which resulted in a plot much easier to understand.

The story begins with the same opening scene, where 54 girls commit suicide by jumping in front of a moving train. However, one girl survives (Saya Kota) and opens another Suicide Club, with other victims. Her best friend, Kyoko, fears for Saya's future and begins to search for the strange secrets surrounding the Suicide Club to try and save Saya and the other girls from committing such a tragedy again.

Buy the Book: Amazon

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Review

Suicide Club is a distressing manga that hits the reader hard and fast. A stunning psychological horror thriller that is as difficult to stomach as it is impossible to put down. The story follows Kyoko as she watches the unraveling of her childhood best friend, Saya, the only survivor of mass suicide. Kyoko is pulled deeper into Saya’s world and her involvement with a mysterious suicide cult. The horror in this story is far more insidious than the flashy sex, violence, and gore, which this manga has in spades.

When a person is at their lowest, especially adolescents, they are highly susceptible to people that offer them comfort and acceptance. Kyoko is witnesses to the darkness in her friend’s heart, but becomes too busy with her personal life and leaves Saya alone with wolves.
Saya and the other girls of the suicide club are suffering, but in their shared suffering, there is understanding, they can relate to each other. Curiosity and admiration become veneration, forming a terrifying sisterhood where the girls share each other’s pain. The group becomes a frenzied hive, and their unwavering devotion to the group is sharpened like a blade.

The manga is supposed to be based on the cult film of the same name, but beyond the opening scene there is little in common between both works. What Furuya created was something far more vicious than it’s source material, and I thought it was really great. The themes weren’t obvious to me on my first read, but with time and maturity I was fully engrossed in the story during my second read years later.

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