Kyochuu Rettou

Summary: Kyochuu Rettou (The Island of Giant Bugs) is a horror manga that made its debut in 2014 and finished recently in 2019. It has a sequel that is currently in production called Dai Kyochuu Rettou. The story follows a bunch of high school students who crash-landed on an island that is inhabited by giant bugs. The Story follows one Matsumi Oribe and her friends in their desperate attempt to survive and escape the island unscathed.

Review: Now that the Summary is out of the way, let's get down to the fact that this manga, while interesting in concept, falls flat for many different reasons, but has some minor good points to it as well. We'll be covering as many of these as possible within this review, so please read all of it until the end!

Let's start with the first and most obvious thing you'll notice about the Manga in general. There is a lot of lewd content in this Manga, and generally speaking lewd content isn't bad in nature, but it feels played out in this Manga. The first few scenarios where the lewdness was shown was a little understandable, but as the Manga went on the lewdness escalated to a point where either it was just outright fanservice or it generally overstayed its welcome. I'll give a few examples of this in the Characterization section, as there is one in particular character that I had some problems with.

Continuing on from the previous section about obvious things you'll notice about the Manga, the Manga is extremely graphic and gore-filled, you'd expect that to be the case but in this particular manga it feels like the horror aspect of the gore is completely nullified by the lack of horror-based atmosphere that you'd see in other successful horror manga's such as the manga created by Junji Ito. I admit that I am a little desensitized to shock value horror, but the shock value and lewdness of the Manga take away from the Atmosphere of the horror enough that the manga falls flat when it comes to being a Horror Manga.

We'll cover Characterization next; Because hoo this is a doozy. The characterization balance in this manga is ludicrously out of balance, from a bully character who randomly decided to become a hero to the idiot who literally was on such a power trip that he wound up getting multiple people killed, to the main character who literally has plot armor for days. I'll only cover these three to allow you to get a comprehension of what I mean when I say the characters feel out of balance. Now it's no secret that in situations like this normal people can transform into the largest monsters, or work off fear to the point of idiocy but as you'll see this is taken to an extreme.

Let's start with the Main Character;

This girl's luck is exceptional, in literally every situation except for one she knows how to handle the situation due to extensive knowledge in Entomology (The Study of Bugs). As the main character, you'd expect her to be almost unkillable but the situations she gets herself out of no normal human should be lucky enough to get out of. Furthermore; she is an extreme push over that despite being the most intelligent one in the group in the situation allows herself to consistently be pushed to the side which leads to several deaths. Not the worst offender on this list admittedly, but definitely one of them. Don't even get me started on the fact that she gets exceptionally distraught over having to kill the insects killing all of her friends.

This girl is the epitome of out of the left-field. She changes sides so often that you get whiplash just reading about her. When the story first starts it's revealed she's a rather slutty character with the intent to build-up to the fact that she will be the lewdest character in the Manga. We are introduced to her Lascivious behavior in a flashback with the Main Character's best friend Chitose where it's revealed that she commonly slept with teachers to raise her grades. Not too bad; After all that is a common trope in stuff like this. Where this goes way off the rails is her inability to realize that her actions hurt her survivability.

The character is meant to only care about her own survival, and generally speaking, thats how its shown, but after the first one or two times that her actions have almost brought her to death she -continues- that behavior. She attempts to rape Chitose, she sexually assaults Mami, she uses her body to convince the idiot I'm going to discuss next to be an even bigger idiot and above all her actions have lead to the death of multiple people. And these actions generally speaking have continued until the last 5 chapters of the manga when she suddenly out of right-field decides to be a hero to the point of sacrificing herself so everyone can live! Like I said you get whiplash just reading about her.

Easly the biggest idiot in the entire group; a stupid Thug who can barely comprehend how much he's harming the group. At every turn, he attempts to undermine Matsumi and take control of the group because he has some power complex about being the "Leader", and on multiple occasions sexually assaults women or bribes them/blackmails them into doing lewd things with him. Honestly; the only reason he survived so long was that Matsumi wouldn't let him die. In the last few chapters of the Manga, he threatens a girl into having sex with him which eventually leads to his death at the hands of Botflies, as well as the girl's death.

He is easily the stupidest and most unlikeable character within this entire manga.

These are just a few examples of the characterization in the Manga, honestly, there aren't very many likable characters even on the "good guys" side. And this poses a problem with an already weak story and focus on shock-value horror and lewd scenes.

Now you would notice that I did say that there were a few good points about the Manga. Well here is where I will mention them.

If you're into Entomology or the study of bugs and want to learn more without going out and getting your hands dirty? This is a good Manga for you to read if you can stomach the gore and lewdness that comes with it. The insight of Matsumi is extremely accurate on several of the bugs and it allows you to learn about Entomology or at least some Entomology.

If you're into Bug Rape and the like of lewd sexual assault then, by all means, this is also the manga for you. This happens a lot. A significant amount. Almost too much as stated.

If you've got a phobia of insects or the gore factor gets you squeamish this is also probably for you if you want a horror manga to get into that applies to your specific tastes of fear.

As for me? I give this a solid 5.5 because honestly, it's not bad, but it's not good, it's just mediocre.