Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit (A series about delivering death letters)

[informationgeek]

Viz Media has brought over and translated a lot of good books, though I would say some of their best and most mature books they bring over often fall under their Viz Signature. That's where all the of adult, smart (well usually anyways *coughTerraFormarscough*), and dark books usually end up under. Let’s spotlight one of these mangas, which actually ended just last year. Meet Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit!

13 out of 44 Pages




Our story opens up at an elementary school on the first day. Some school administrator is cheerfully welcoming all of the students to their first day. However, the mood quickly changes for the first graders when they are given some sort of vaccination (which none of them certainly look happy about). Once the shot is given, the doctors write down the kid’s name next to the needle’s serial number. While this happens, we get some narration about a law that was enacted by the government to ensure the welfare of the people of the country called the National Welfare Act.

After the forced injections, the school’s principal then delivers a speech to the kids about wanting them to work and study hard to become wonderful adults…





We then cut to several years later where we meet Fujimoto, the “main” character of the series. He is thinking back on those words he heard all those years ago, mentioning he was one of the lucky ones to reach adulthood. He is currently at the Ministry of Welfare and Health of his country where he is attending a lecture about recently becoming a messenger (a job that is a big deal).

This is where we also hear more about the law itself from the lecturer. It is a law designed to install the fear of death into citizens, so to encourage them to value life…





As Fujimoto reflects upon valuing life more because of this law, someone actually says out loud that he can’t go along with this job. He states the government is basically snatching away people’s lives via some sort of "Russian Roulette" to teach them about what is precious through the government’s point of view. It doesn’t make sense to him at all, also mentioning that his sister was killed because of this law and there was no honor in it. Just senselessness.

Naturally, given the kind of society that would enact such a law, you can guess what happens next. The lecturer calmly presses a panic button and…







The lecturer goes on to say that they all are entrusted to deliver these Ikigami from now on. Its “honorable work” designed to help the welfare of the country and to keep that in mind. So in other words, don't screw up or you're toast.

Four months later, Fujimoto has been trained and is now in delivering these Ikigamis to people (2 to 3 times a month). This particular month, he has three deliveries to take care of.



Fujimoto heads over to the first person’s house, looking over the paperwork and preparing himself to deliver the bad news on the way over. Once there...











The story continues on, where we meet this Yosuke (we even see him a bit before this), but we’ll leave off here and let you discover what happens for yourself.


Ikigami: The Ultimate Limit is a series about what happens to people when they have so little time left. What do they do? Do they try to finish a goal in their life? Do they break down? Do they do something bad? While Fujimoto is technically the main, or at least most recurring character, the series isn’t really about him but the people who he delivers their death sentence to. There’s also discussion about this government and this law, but that’s later on. I only got three volumes into the ten volume series, so I don’t know all the particulars, but it's a pretty good character based series. It's bittersweet at best, but shockingly nasty at worse with the stories we see here.

Anyways, what do you all think?

Comments

[skjam]

Here's my review of Volume 9: http://www.skjam.com/2014/06/13/manga-review-ikigami-the-ultimate-limit/(If you stop exactly when you see the words "current volume" you won't see spoilers.)

[informationgeek]

Hey man, your link isn't working. Just a heads up.

[skjam]

Let's try again as it won't let me edit... http://www.skjam.com/2014/06/13/manga-review-ikigami-the-ultimate-limit

[thezmage]

I would imagine that the most common reaction to receiving one would be to kill every government worker you can get to in the next 24 hours, starting with the one who delivers the note.

[skjam]

There are harsh penalties on one's family if you commit crimes during that last 24 hours, though that doesn't stop people who don't really care about their families.

[locuatico]

or people who don't have a family. or people who downright hate their families. Or people who are sociopaths and want an excuse to kill lots of people.

[skjam]

It's as difficult to get your hands on a decent weapon in this Japan as in the real one, expecially on short notice. The killers seldom get beyond one corpse preceding them.

[thezmage]

Still, I would think it would be relatively easy to get ahold of a kitchen knife and get the drop on the guy delivering your letter. Or enough materials to make a decent bomb.

I would think somebody similar to the guy in the fifth page would realize that the government just gave them a ready supply of potential suicide bombers to try and take out the government.

I would think there would have to be some people who respond to the notice of their murder with the desire to take revenge on the persons responsible for it, or at least a representative of it

[q99]

I doubt that many would, honestly. It doesn't change anything, and these were people who never rebelled against the system before.

[locuatico]

.........no...this is, like. THE worst plan to stop mass suicide short. if people were told there was a possibility they would die this way, people who already had suicidal tendencies would kill themselves out of sheer fear of dying like these. just consider the people who are told they have a temrinal disease that could kill them and end killing themselves.
Yes, there are people who take this as a wake-up call to live life the best you can, but does who are in deep depression will not give a crap about that.
And what about those who at the slightest problem believe it's the capsule? if there are people who will tell their doctors how they overlooked something because they watched dr. house, there are people who will believe the government just forgot to inform them.

[draganoche]

You raise several good points of what the situation would result in the real world. However you are running under the belief that the stated purpose of the dystopian authoritarian government is true. It is a stated fact in the series that the project changes absolutely nothing expect turning the people in the government's tools.

[locuatico]

i also have a problem with that, though. In fact, i think the project would actually increase the number of suicides, which the series argues it does not, which i feel as unrealistic.
the number of people who fall into depression would increase because of the reasons i mentioned and, overall, the whole thing would be counter-productive to what they are trying to do.

To me, the problem is that, alongisde addiction, Japan appears to have a different vision of the issue than we do(that or only this series). this series seems to be under the impression that suicide happens because the person does not appreciate life enough, not understanding what depression actually does to the individual that drives them to commit suicide.

[skjam]

It's also implied (if not outright stated in one of the volumes I missed) that the government is deliberately lying about the salutary effects of the program. Most people don't question this (and our protagonist has been up to the beginning of the series deliberately not thinking about it) but there are those that do.

[locuatico]

well, If that is the case, i wouldn't be surprised if the government ends collapsing in itself or having to run away once the public learns the truth

[q99]

Well, of course! It's not a nice government.

[thezmage]

Well, first of all there's, like, a 90% chance that everyone has the nanobots in them, because any decent dystopian government knows that propaganda will only get you so far. After awhile you're gonna need a good secret police force

[informationgeek]

Secret police? This government has people in hazmat suits come out in the open to snatch people up and take them away if they say something against them, no matter how many people are around.

I think they are going to need to really work on the "secret" part of secret police.

[thezmage]

First of all, I was using "secret police" as a catch all term form the police arm of the dystopian government. Second of all, all I see in this set of scans is an example of the government flexing its muscles in front of low level public servants inside a government building. There's no indications that they'd treat it the same in a more public scenario. Especially when someone has their finger on the "sudden heart attack" button. Clearly they do are about public relations if they're trying to sell the benefits of the program to everyone.

[night4345]

I'm pretty sure most people would have a breakdown from something like this. Plus the problems that could be caused if the person is unavailable to get notified about his death.
Interesting story though.

[doctor_spanky]

Well it's for sure a better idea than The Purge
(also this story looks much more thoughtful)

[espanolbot]

Eh, the Purge works better if you assume that it's really a means to instill fear by getting the public to oppress each other rather than having a central body doing it for them (people are forced to be as cordial and orderly as possible to avoid becoming targets during the next purge).

Plus there's the whole "social guilt" thing, as wanting to bring an end to the system will logically mean those who HAVE done something not wanting their own misdeeds being made public, so they'll have an investment in keeping the "if you don't tell on us, we won't tell on you" thing going.

The idea being that (in theory) if you're a good neighbour, employee, employer or whatever, you should have nothing to fear from the purges accept the (in real life potentially few) people who'd just murder you purely for random reasons.

Plus, there are people getting annoyed of people in the movies justifying the purges due to talking-heads within the movies saying "they just work"... even though they're working for a dystopian government and it's their job to make people feel better about just wandering off to murder folk. We have always been at war with Eurasia, etc.

The ideas are certainly there for an interesting dystopian piece, but the films are kind of too hamfisted to actually get them across well.

[doctor_spanky]

I think the Purge is a very silly B-movie concept that was presented as some kind of allegory with something to say about our society (for a lot of the reasons you listed, it's just too silly an idea to take seriously)

I think there's a very fun gory splattery movie in there, but you can't ask us to consider the ramifications of "like what if for just one night there were no laws and you could murder people man?" 'cause it's a ridiculous question (and should therefore produce a ridiculous movie)

"You're Next" is a better and more interesting home invasion movie (with an actual sense of humor 'n stuff)

[crinos]

To be fair, "better idea than the purge" isn't exactly a high bar to begin with.

[doctor_spanky]

Oh that's more than fair

[leoboiko]

This scheme is completely absurd and unworkable! Everyone knows that the only effective way to keep social cohesion is t o trap high-school students on an island and have them kill each other. I mean, geez.

(Cool story, btw, thanks for the recommendation!)

[informationgeek]

No problem.

As a heads up, over on Viz, they are offering up a special manga bundle called Mature Starter Bundle. It contains the first volume of this series, along with the first volumes for Black Lagoon, Biomega, DOGS, and Dorohedoro for about 20 bucks American. They are all pretty much violent action series (this series was the odd man out of that group), but they can be pretty fun.

[janegray]

While this type of story is really not up my alley, I appreciate the creativity that went into it.

The art is excellent too. The same artist of Death Note, right?

Though I hope anti-vaxxers never get a hold of this story, the paranoia is bad enough as it is.

[skemono]

The art is excellent too. The same artist of Death Note, right?

Nope. The writer & artist of Ikigami is Motoro Mase. Death Note was written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. Obata's other works include Gakkyu Hotei.

[cainofdreaming]

So, underworld docs are making a fortune in this setting with illegal heart surgeries, right?

[shadur]

It's TRUE! Vaccination is really part of the evil government plot to install DEATH CAPSULES in everyone so they can kill us whenever we get out of line! Don't believe Big Pharma, do your own research and make your own choices. FREEDOM!


... I'll grant it's well-written and the art is good, but the dystopia this book paints is just a little too vile for my tastes. Then again, I can't get through The Hand-Maid's Tale for much the same reason.