I liked this manga for a few reasons, but also had my reasons to dislike it too. In my opinion, it was a good time killer and decent manga, but failed as a thriller in many ways. I will write some pros and cons.

Pros

Very great concept, and succeeded in being very psychological at times. Really gave insight into the emotions of those who have taken a life, which I am sure most could not actually relate to. But somehow, it worked here.

I thought I had predicted the culprit, but it was actually somebody different. Some of the twists and turns were quite good.

The art suited the mood and atmosphere of the story, while not being my favorite style.

Cons

The first four volumes were quite slow in my opinion. Considering that is over half of the series, I have to dock some points for that. I couldn’t get really into it until volume 5 or 6. I do believe this could have been shorter by a couple volumes.

The romance in the story just didn’t work for me. I have heard of a love triangle, but here, there was kind of a love pentagon. Characters’ reasons for liking another character sometimes made no sense, or their reasoning to sleep with a character they had no feelings for were nonexistent. I think the author was going for emotional disturbance in a sense, but I wasn’t buying it, and much of the story was wasted on these romances.

The characters were somewhat weak. Everyone kept calling Shintaro brave and Akira charismatic, and the boys were all over Tsubaki and Haruka for reasons that could have been better portrayed. Ryu was my favorite and the most relatable by far for me. This was a very character-driven story, so this is where it really falls short.

Overall, a decent read. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I wouldn’t tell someone to stay away from it either. I wouldn’t read it again though.

6/10