Jisatsutou

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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.

Heavy incorporation of author's own sensibilities into an already sensitive topic makes this a questionably preachy journey. As far as believability is concerned it suffers from fluctuations; at some points, the raw realism resonates stupendously only to be dulled by the timeworn twists any experienced reader will be able to predict. Ironically, a major positive element is the lack of any sort of unorthodox turnaround, sort of teases one's expectations but always remains down to earth in that respect - as opposed to its philosophical innuendos.

Infamously drawn "clones" offer distinction on a personality basis at least, but more or less are victims of your ... everyday survivalist devices. They do succeed as proxies of the author's own standpoints, even make you ponder over some existentialistic dilemmas and sanctity of life itself. However, their naivety is pushed to the extreme for the sake of convenience and therefore drowns in absurdity. At a certain point, it feels as if they'll free themselves from the author's moralistic clutches, develop autonomy to break the fourth wall, and ask the reader: "Do you really believe this?"

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