Sometimes, no matter how well informed you try to be, great comic series slip past your attention until they’re a few volumes into their publication. I’ve repeated on the blog many times how this happen to me with the manga Death Note. Since reading that series, I’ve been looking for the “next” Death Note, and I think I’ve found it with another series that nearly slipped through my fingers called Ikigami – The Ultimate Limit.

The series Ikigami, created by Motoro Mase, explores a government-instated policy in Japan to kill one random young adult citizen each day to increase the nation’s prosperity. All Japanese newborns are injected at birth. The lucky ones get a placebo. The unlucky ones, every 1 in 1000, get injected with a capsule that slowly makes it way to their heart. Eventually, the capsule explodes on a designated date, instantly killing the subject from a heart attack. The programs mission is: with the treat of random death, all citizens will live life to the fullest and potentially, society as a whole will benefit. The series follows the Ikigami (Death Notice) deliverer who informs the subjects they have 24 hours left to live, and the subsequent story of their last day before death.

The first volume has two chapters. The first chapter examines a young man whose been bullied his whole life and his violent decisions after he receives his Ikigami. Faced with impending death, the tortured soul chooses to seek vengeance on the high school students who bullied him. By the end of the first chapter, the Ikigami deliverer begins to questions the programs affect on society. The second chapter focuses on a street-performing music duo, and the Ikigami the more popular singer of the duo receives. Though in his life the musician struggles to find fame, through his untimely death his career becomes iconic. The government department makes their case for the value of the Ikigami program, yet the reader is left wondering if it is the man’s talent or death that made him famous.

Mase finds a unique balance in his story between Death Note’s examination of capital punishment and Battle Royale’s rail against totalitarian society. His art style also resembles a subtler version of the art by Death Note’s Takeshi Obata. More so, Ikagimi’s dark vision analyzes the realities of a true-life modern Japanese culture, hell-bent on succeeding even at the cost of death. Though this extreme has not actually been implemented, Ikigami really puts the value of life in an entirely new perceptive.

The series has also been adapted into a film. I haven’t actually seen the film, but the trailer gives the story more of a dramatic feel.

Ikigami is highly recommended for fans of Death Note and Battle Royale.

-Jon

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