Considered to be the most evil cult in Japan to date, Aum Shinrikyo was a doomsday cult responsible for the 1995 Tokyo Subway Attack. This manga was created fours year later and drew inspiration from such cult and other similar ones.
Three individuals – two men and a woman – were sent to an island to undergo the “Deserted Island Program” that aimed to help purify them from worldliness. They were monitored by the cult through a daily report of their activities they sent through email. Initially, the trio’s life in the island was quite simple in that they would practice strange mental exercises and meditation daily. As for their food and basic necessities, they relied on the rations sent regularly by the cult. Things took a bad turn when their rations were cut, and they were forced to rely on their own to feed themselves while still continuing on their daily activities.
Ignorance, hypocrisy and depravity sums up this manga. The trio started out with quite harmless activities until hunger, suspicion and jealousy caused all of them to descend into madness in what I would describe as driven by blind faith and subservience to hierarchy. It was clear that they were in a fragile and vulnerable state of mind, and their current situation made it worse for them turning them into sex addicts and murderers.
It left a bad taste in my mouth. This feeling often visits me whenever I read something that showed how ugly humanity can be. Before I read this, the last time I had this sort of feeling was after I watched the No Longer Human arc of the Aoi Bungaku series. Both were similar in way that I felt unpleasant after I was done with them. Needless to say, this a good read because it was meant to make the reader feel that way. One more thing is that the manga leaves you wondering whether the events that transpired in the island happened in reality or not because the “enlightened” cult members are often left with the inability to determine fantasy from reality. This is the only manga I have read so far that talked about cults, truly one of a kind. I give it 8 out of10.
Iyashi's Long-windedness 