Jisatsu Circle is an adaptation of the Suicide Club film released in 2002 written and directed by Sion Sono. The manga was originally meant to follow the film, however, Sono asked Usamaru Furuya to put his own spin on the story, giving the franchise a fresh makeover and a new plotline.

Having not watched the original film, reading Jisatsu Circle was my first look into this franchise and I was a little hesitant. It took me a while to decide if I would read the manga or watch the film first and I finally decided on the manga as it was a somewhat 'alternate universe' to the original creation.

I surprisingly enjoyed this. Following the story of a suicide club with an opening of fifty-five high school girls jumping in front of a high-speed train, this manga starts things off fast and then immediately slows them down. Following the mystery as to why one of the girls survived, we're slowly taken across a story of intrigue trying as Kyoko tries to figure out what is happening to save her best friend Saya.

There is quite a little bit of hype around this in the horror community as one of the best jisatsu genre one-shots, and similar stances, and although I thoroughly enjoyed this, I feel like it fell a little flat. We go from a simple suicide club plot line to an intricate maze of clues and frankly I feel like it was a little bit far fetched for what Usamaru tried to do with the story. The art was well done and the gore scenes definitely caught my attention. I skimmed this more than I read it, looking through the art and not paying much attention and I still managed to understand and get the entire story. It's simple enough to understand, simple enough to read, and it has a decent presence.

I'm not quite sure what was a little lacking in this for me. I believe it was the plot point that Usumaru went for in his work, the overall why they were doing this and it didn't feel as authentic as it could have done.

Still, it's a good seven out of ten for me, chilling to flick through, but not as prime as it could have been.