Hyakuman-jou Labyrinth

Hyakumanjou Labyrinth caught my attention on a yet another hidden gem hunt I conduct roughly once a season. I'm a big fan of works like Vincenzo Natali's Cube, Tsutomu Nihei's Blame!, and Kuu Tanaka's The Vertical World; I love weird physics-defying worlds, I love ontological mystery in science fiction, I love the feeling of existential dread coming from the dissonance between the real world and the bizarre laws governing whatever realms you see in works like this. On a surface level, this manga seemed to have fit the bill. Indeed, the two main characters end up trapped in a weird labyrinthine building that resemble the garbagelevel data (or "secret worlds" as it's often called in the gamer communities) that may be traversable if you manage to glitch out of bounds of a level in a video game: copies of existing objects, broken architecture, empty voids and weird reality-altering triggers are abound. It's not a coincidence that both characters are employed as game testers and use their knowledge of videogame logic and common bugs to navigate and take advantage of the laws of the labyrinth. Hyakumanjou Labyrinth takes this idea and plays with it thoroughly, exploring many concepts familiar to game hackers and speedrunners, as well as adding a sci-fi trope or five for a good measure. The problem is, well... it's really all that it ever does. It lacks the psychological horror of Cube, the classy art and atmosphere of Blame! or the plot and charismatic characters of The Vertical World. The eponymous labyrinth feels like a playground for the main character, and so is the story—it's more of a sandbox for ideas than an actual complete and self-contained product. Character development is almost an afterthought, there is never a real sense of urgency or danger, visuals feel plain and unimaginative, and conflict can barely be felt. Don't get me wrong—this is not a *bad* manga by any means; it just doesn't do anything to really distinguish itself despite having a decent premise to build on. In the end, it feels like a proof of concept for something much bigger that could have been done with it but wasn't. I wouldn't consider it a waste of time per se, but the way it is, it's hard to recommend it to anyone who isn't a big fan of this particular style of sci-fi. But if you like it, be sure to check the three works I've mentioned above which, in my opinion, represent it a lot better.