Manga 1671 Believers

Believers is a tense pot-boiler of a drama that you could easily imagine as a live action effort directed by Lars von Trier or some other eclectic director with a penchant for putting his actors through the emotional wringer.

Three cult members are on a small island off the coast of Japan taking part in a program to purify themselves in order to become new heightened humans, and the method to do this is through a humble routine of mental exercise and meditation, eating, sleeping, and the occasional secret lust-ridden sex, betrayal, paranoia, death and mutilation.

You see, you can’t just plop three humans on an island ... and not expect it to all go haywire. Especially since their food rations begin running out thanks to a lack of food drops from their main organisation which is quite obviously in financial and legal trouble.

This all harkens back to the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995, and being that this manga was published in 1999 you can feel the millennial fears and worries come to life on the page. Author Naoki Yamamoto takes a pivotal moment in Japanese news and concentrates on the lesser folk involved in the affair, and does it brilliantly by isolating them from the main happenings on the mainland. It is a staple of the thriller genre to increase tension on ordinary people bit by bit until the proverbial pot boils over and Believers delivers on that aspect at an assured pace.

The three characters themselves are well fleshed out with compelling backgrounds and seeing them rub off on each other, quite literally in some cases, is a joy. The lust that rears its head is kinetic, the paranoia and suspicion, the outright jealousy masked by hierarchy is ugly but very real.

As one extreme emotion follows another, the behaviour of the characters, one in particular, becomes more and more selfish in nature and so transparent yet the other two are so weak-willed that for the most part they can’t defend themselves from ridiculous demands and outrageous behaviour that borders on hysterical satire if it weren’t so disturbing and realistic to imagine.

That is Believer's strength, its portrayal of ugly emotions taking flight in humans so easily susceptible to outside influences, so reliant on external stimulation and ideas, not strong enough inside themselves, not strong enough to have realised how bloody stupid it was to join the cult in the first place, let alone willingly go on an island and ultimately allow themselves to spiral into the depths of human instinct gone crazy with blood-lust.

It builds to a terrifying climax and good resolution that almost veers into over the top territory but then refrains and settles for a more logical and satisfying conclusion with some form of liberation. That’s what the entire story is about really, finding liberation.

Imagine three persons stuck on an isle. Now imagine that those people went there voluntarily to "redeem" themselves. Sounds like an interesting scenario right? Believers is a psychological drama manga that narrates the daily life of three cult members on an island.

The story is quite straightforward: three persons of a cult, who participate in the "Desert Island Program", decide to live on an small island to purify themselves from the corrupt society. This is done in two ways: through mental exercises (that involve communicating everything, even secrets) and strange meditation methods. As the reader can imagine, there is no way three persons can hold out ... long without giving in into human desire, especially when the cult organization stops sending food to the island.

This a strong point of Believers; it displays human nature well through small, realistic incidents and good narrative. Jealousy, lust, paranoia, betrayal and death are all present, portrayed realistically through the characters. The narrative and display of the cult was done well, showing the reality of what a lot of cults are: mindlessly following orders without hesitation, and to what this can lead.

The cast of characters is by no means big: it focuses mainly on the three people from the island. The characters are done well, two weakwilled ones, while the other one is very strong willed. This can only go wrong; as time passes, the demands get more and more ridiculous, which are mixed with jealousy, contempt and paranoia. The occasional interaction with people from outside the isle displays the madness that can come from blind faith.

The art style is nothing outstanding. Sometimes inconsistencies can be found in the drawing, but nevertheless it fulfills its purpose.

Believers was overall a good read with an interesting story that displayed human nature realistically. With a satisfying and convincing conclusion, Believers narrates basically the story of humans trying to escape the oppressive reality and everyday life of society.

Thank you for reading.

Believers is an adult psychological manga that has a tinge of mystery to it. It follows a small sub-division of a pop-culture, well-organized cult in the setting of a small, isolated island in Japan.

Story: 8/10

The story starts out following the character’s main activities on the island; working hard for their “compatriots.” The opening chapters are a little strange, with the characters not having being called natural names {rather entrepreneur-esque names like “Chairman” and “Operator”}, mindlessly chanting after a cassette recorded message by the cult leader, and discussing dreams over scarce food rations. The intrigue is what kept me reading, I wanted to find out why ... they were doing all of this strange stuff and after a few mentions of their final goal, I wanted to know what it was.

If the author didn’t throw a big shot of drama in there, then the story would’ve gotten boring. But once more explicit themes hit, drama was abundant. I thought the introduction to the hentai aspect was a little unrealistic and cliché, but hey, that’s the Japanese for ya. This is one of those stories that ended in a way that really made you think about what had just happened, and what’s really real, and what’s not. As all psychological stories do. If you’re looking for something that has an absolute conclusive ending, this manga is not for you.

Art: 6/10

The art for Believers is more on the realism side than traditional manga style. To me, the artist wasn’t really consistent with how they wanted to draw the characters. Sometimes the men had visible facial hair, sometimes they didn’t. Sometimes they were sweating buckets, sometimes not at all. Sometimes the irises in the eyes were visible, sometimes it was just the pupils. The bodies were proportionate, there were no huge distractions on that end, but sometimes the faces looked a little discombobulated, and almost like a blow-up doll. That was something that really bothered me. I also had to look for certain physical features to tell characters apart at first, because they all look basically the same – wearing the same clothes and eventually all having the same hairstyle. If it weren’t for a headband and a slight change in the shape of the eyes, I would be totally lost as far as the whose-its-whats-its. To me, the art just seemed like a rush job to get done just to tell the story. There were no spectacular panels, and I think that the distractions could’ve been fixed if a little more time had been spent on them. It’s almost as if the artist didn’t try…

Characters: 7/10

In the beginning, the characters were all seemingly stock, the only difference was that they acted out their respective “roles.” It was pretty bland, actually. However, I gave this score a 7 because you really see the characters change. One of the characters sort of had a forced change, and the other characters change around that. You still don’t see MUCH of the character individuality, but at least a little bit shines through. Plus, in my opinion, character development is better than having just a set, static character.

Overall: 7/10

Believers is a short, interesting read if you’re looking for something that incorporates survival and cult themes. It also mentions a neat little tidbit about dreams that sort of piqued my interest for further research. I saw it as a bit of a darker, sadder manga, but it really depends on your views on cults and how you take the ending. I think that’s one of the best things about psychological stories, they’re open for interpretation. However, with such a {seemingly} rush job on the art and how dry the characters were I think this manga would’ve hit full bloom as a light novel.