Some of us have heard of the King’s Game before, like in Persona 4 when it pops up as a silly, light-hearted game between friends. But as the manga cover tells us (showing Kazunari covered in dripping blood) this is no rambunctious comedy, it’s a horror about how even the smallest towns can leave you feeling trapped.
30 years before the main King’s Game manga began (which I have not read), the game begins in a isolated Japanese village with less than 50 residents. Kazunari and some of his friends feel trapped by their hometown and dislike it, but no one expects the level of horror that sweeps through the village after letters begin arriving in select mailboxes every morning. These are orders from the “king” and tell Kazunari and his friends to perform bizarre and sometimes terrifying tasks in order to prevent some kind of grisly outcome. The orders come so fast and frequently that there’s barely time for Kazunari and his friends to fulfill them, let alone try and solve what’s going on. But as the death toll starts to rise, they’re going to have to try and do both along with the rest of the village.
I would actually be fine with either a supernatural or a mundane resolution for the various going-ons, although I expect it will not be supernatural given a few details so far. To be perfectly honest, the deaths and their circumstances are so fantastical that almost any explanation would feel a bit flat for me, for this series to truly end well it would have to convince me of the killer’s motivations which is where I fear it will fall flat. I already have a few suspicions of who it is but even after the first volume no one has especially poignant motivation for why they would go so far. If it is a human, it’s undoubtedly someone we’ve already met and that is where having such a small cast is a hindrance; you get to know all of the characters so well that any betrayal feels less like a shock and more like an out of character moment. The story is sticking pretty close to Kazunari so far however, giving us no insight into anyone else’s thoughts; that might be the way to keep their story from meeting its own messy conclusion.
If you’re a fan of series like Shiki then I recommend checking this one out, it can be read digitally on Crunchyroll.
