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Dystopia
Mangaka: Tsutsui Tetsuya Genres: Mystery, Sci-fi, Seinen
This is Tsutsui’s first published manga, unlike Duds Hunter which he made available for free on the net.
It’s an interesting story that discusses how virtual reality may affect our life in the future. If a game was so believable, that made you think it was the real world, what would happen when you died in that game?
The story is mainly about a game, Dystopia, not commercially sold, that someone made using a really powerful source engine (hence the realism) and made available in a lan where he lived.
People from that apartment complex, where the lan is established, begin committing suicide for no reason. Nakajima is dragged into it when her husband dies too, Yoshioka has a student attempt suicide and Shunsuke is an hacker purposely trying to find the connection between the game and the deaths.
But, how to prove someone’s purposely killing people using the realism of a game, the way it is setup and subliminal messages?
From there, I can’t say much more without ruining the plot, even though it wasn’t it’s strongest point in my view.
Well, this manga was really cool, there’s a bit of mystery and some action but, nothing much. It’s short but, it works well. I didn’t like it as much as other Tsutsui’s works, because it didn’t have as much of that "dark/scary" feel his mangas normally have, because the overall mood was lighter. The plot in itself wasn’t something too much out of the ordinary but, the characters were cool enough and the ideas about psychology and reality were really interesting.
I specially liked the whole death/awakening thing. If you’re so immersed in a game that you take it as reality on your subconscious, what will happen to you when you die in that game and suddenly "awake" in your own body again? And more, after something like that happening, you may start to disbelieve true reality for yet another game. And how can you know if you’re in a game or in reality? Well, kill yourself, if it’s a game, you will "return" to your body.
Of course all this is based on the idea of a person totally 100% immersed on a game, almost like the Matrix. Something that seems well unlikely to happen in our age. Still a frightening idea of what the future may hold.
Overall, nice read, really cool art. Was expecting a little more, like some romantic development at the end lol. It will also please game and pc purists, in the way that terms and names are all well used with it’s true meanings.
- Personal Enjoyment: 4/5
Might check this out if I liked Duds Hunt xD
Comment by Sapphire Pyro — August 29, 2009 @ 11:43 am