A Journey of A Thousand Miles:

Doubt

…starts with one step. In the “A Thousand Miles” series, I’ll be taking a series each week that looks interesting to me and reviewing the first volume. Focused on, essentially, exposing myself to as many new series as possible, each will culminate in whether I think it’s worth continuing.

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Doubt is a 2007 Mystery Thriller by Yoshiki Tonogai. Originally serialized in Shounen Gangan magazine, it ran from July 2007 to Feb 2009. It was then published in the west by Yen Press in April and July 2013 in a two part omnibus edition. Ivera Espana handled publishing in Spanish

Cover Appeal

Yoshiki Tonogai – Our mangaka here, prior to their debut here with Doubt, was an assistant to Atsushi Ohkubo – famed creator of the Soul Eater franchise. They’ve since gone on to create mystery series’ Doubt, Judge and Secret as well as working on the Higurashi When They Cry series. That alone gets them some clout in my book, but seeing as this is the first production I’ve seen from them specifically, this book is going to really be where I form my opinion of them and their work.

The Usual Suspects – Return of the prison imagery. It’s easy to miss at first, but the characters are actually standing in front of a height chart. You know, the kind you see in suspect line ups. It’s not as explicit as DRRR’s variant with the characters holding name cards, which exudes a stronger air of criminality. But imagery is imagery and it still lends an air of criminality to the cast. Beyond that, though, a few other elements from the story to be seen are the rabbit masks and barcodes. Besides being a direct reference to the Rabbit Doubt game, masks obscure people’s faces and are a easy way to signify secrecy, if not outright deception. The barcodes can be seen in the red stamp in the background, behind the character’s legs and in the logo itself. You’ll just have to see how they’re used in the story. Wouldn’t want to give away the secret.

Cast

NOTE: I have to be skimpy with the descriptions, since the interesting stuff is actually spoilers

Yuu Aikawa – Main character. Means well but seems to jump the gun before getting all of the information.

Mistuki Houyama – Yuu’s friend. kind, but strict concerning underage smoking and drinking.

Eiji Hoshi – Kind of laid back guy. Catches hell for his smoking and drinking.

Hajime Komaba – Straightforward and analytical. Keeps his cool throughout

Rei Hazama – Wheel chair bound girl that doesn’t like crowds much. The meet up is one of the few times she’s ventured out of the house.

Haruka Akechi – Slight joker. Likes teasing people.

The Rub

I WANT to like Doubt and, in certain ways, I still do. However, whenever I look at Doubt, I can’t help but see wasted potential. It takes an interesting game premise and (under)utilizes it to make a rather…tired set up – a “locked in a room” murder mystery. It’s not “Rokka of the Six Braves, season 1” bad, but they could’ve done more.

For a bit of context, “Rabbit Doubt” is an in universe game all of the main characters play. It involves a group of players engaging in various mini-games (I presume), using rabbit avatars. However, one of the players, the wolf, is disguised as a rabbit and is given a separate win condition (the real one, in fact). The wolf then acts as a spanner in the works to keep the other players from achieving it. If the other players don’t correctly suss out the wolf between rounds, it gets to kill a player. This continues until either the wolf is found or all players are eaten. On its face, that’s cool enough and reminds me of Supermassive’s 2017 PS4 game “Hidden Agenda”. Being an interactive crime drama, gameplay goes a little farther than mini-games, but as a Play Link party game, individuals players are periodically served hidden agendas – or secret goals they can achieve that scene for extra points. Players can also try to guess who had the hidden agenda at the end of a scene to get the points instead.

Yet the only part of Rabbit Doubt that was brought over into our present events is the wolf role and killing. Had there been bona fide challenges, there’d be more for the characters to do, more chance for characterization. These characters are supposed to understand each other’s thinking and play style to some extent, but they never get to demonstrate this because instead of getting a sinister Kakegurui, we get a slasher.

There’s this implication that the six characters may have dark secrets – an aspect I doubt will be brought to fruition because Doubt (intentionally, I hope) seems to have tipped its hand already. I was going to say too early, but this is an omnibus edition so it covers the first two original volumes. Whether the ending revelation is a genuine act 2 development or just a red herring remains to be seen.

The Verdict

Doubt has a lot of potential but because it underutilizes its most interesting aspect, the Rabbit Doubt game itself, it has very little going on beyond what you can see. No one bothers to challenge the rules (the few of them there are) or even their own assumptions about their situation. Oh yeah, while I’m on that, can we stop doing that thing where characters decide that any and all impropriety, without any sense of scale and perspective, is a scarlet mark against you? Especially if you’re going to retaliate with disproportionate retribution without the slightest bit of irony.

Continue?: Yes…I want to see how bad this train wreck is going to be