I was a bit skeptical at first since short mangas like this can be either a hit or miss. Luckily this one pretty much hit it out of the all park.

I was looking for a good short manga to read while some of the other manga issues are coming out. I came across Alive. We meet Tenshuu Yashiro, a death row inmate responsible for the murder of five people including his girlfriend. However before he could get executed he is taken to a room where he meets two people who give him a simple offer. Live or die. He chooses to live and is taken with them to an odd facility along with another death row inmate. They are told that they can do whatever they want as long as they stay in the room and it is just the two of them. As they start to enjoy themselves and drink their problems away they notice a gorgeous young woman right next to their room enclosed in a glass cage. The girl tells them that whoever kills the other man first gets to be with her. From then we see the plot thicken as we find out more about why they are here and who the mysterious girl exactly is.

It’s a quick read but it will entertain you and make you wonder where the story will go the entire time. I really loved the art in this series. It was very intense and (not sure if this would be the right word) raw. The main character was really interesting. It was also a very disturbing story. The things that the main character did and went trough are very intense and I would not recommend it to someone light of heart. There was also a supernatural part of the story which I don’t want to explain more since it will spoil the entire story but it was integrated into the story line very well.

Overall it’s a manga worth reading, my only issue would be that I think it should have been a bit longer and some of the characters could have been explored more.

Final verdict: 8/10