Synopsis
After witnessing someone die, 13-year-old Rachel "Ray" Gardner is brought to the hospital for counseling. However, she instead wakes up in the sixth basement of an abandoned building with no other memories. While blindly wandering around, she is branded a "sacrifice" and encounters a cowled figure covered in bandages from head to toe, wielding a scythe at her.
At first, the hooded man, Isaac "Zack" Foster, desires to kill Ray. But upon deeming her boring, Zack changes his mind and instead cooperates with her to escape the dilapidated structure.
Adapted from the Japanese horror adventure game of the same name, Satsuriku no Tenshi follows Ray and Zack as they evade numerous barriers, traps, and guards all while unraveling both of their dark pasts.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
I had a couple of issues with this manga, the biggest one being the characters themselves. The story follows a girl who wakes up in an unfamiliar building with most of her memories missing. As she explores the place, she meets a guy who immediately tries to kill her. Without spoiling too much, her memories gradually return, and she falls into despair, wanting to die. She then makes a deal with the guy — he’ll kill her once she helps him escape. So, we have a psychopath serial killer and a girl with a death wish as our main characters. The killer, Isaac Foster, loves murdering peopleand isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. He’s covered in burns and wrapped in bandages — your typical “cool-looking” edgy design — and wields a scythe for some reason. That’s basically his whole character. The manga gives him a bit of backstory later, but it’s shallow and doesn’t make him more interesting. It honestly feels like the author took the easy route by creating a visually striking psycho without giving him any real depth or charm. Compare him to other psychopaths in fiction — Hannibal Lecter, who’s intelligent and manipulative, or Villanelle from Killing Eve, who’s twisted yet charismatic. Isaac just doesn’t have that spark.
Rachel Gardner, on the other hand, is actually intelligent — she’s the reason Isaac can make it through the building at all. But despite her cleverness, she’s emotionally flat and, at times, frustrating to watch. Her constant obsession with dying becomes repetitive fast. A lot of their dialogue boils down to:
“I promised I’d be the one to kill you.”
“Yes, I only want to be killed by you.”
It gets old really quickly. On top of that, Rachel’s endless talk about God makes her come across more like a broken record than a complex character.
The side characters aren’t much better. Most are forgettable, except for a priest who, like Rachel, can’t stop rambling about God. It feels like the author tried to make things deep and philosophical, but it just ends up sounding like meaningless pseudo-religious rambling.
The story itself is full of clichés and only gets worse toward the end. Some parts are just plain dumb. The art is okay — nothing terrible, but nothing impressive either. The character designs and faces didn’t really appeal to me.
Did I enjoy it? Absolutely not. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.
