巨蟲列島

KYOCHUU RETTOU

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
6
RELEASE
March 28, 2019
CHAPTERS
24

DESCRIPTION

Mutsumi Oribe is a high school student who drifts ashore to an island after her plane crashes on its way to a field trip. However, the island has become a nest for giant, carnivorous insects. Can these high school students, who have now become prey to these monsters, escape the hell that is this island?!

(Source: Akita Publishing)

CAST

Mutsumi Oribe
Kazuhiko Kai
Chitose Naruse
Ayumi Matsuoka
Mami Miura
Mirei Jinno
Atsushi Kamijo
Ai Inou
Inaho Enoki
Emiko Miyazono
Ryouko
Marika Chuujou
Hiroshi Tsuge
Kayo Suzuki
Takeshi Minowa
Kasumi Momosaki
Nozomi Aoyama

CHAPTERS

RELATED TO KYOCHUU RETTOU

OVA ActionKyochuu Rettou

MOVIE ActionKyochuu Rettou Movie

MANGA ActionDai Kyochuu Rettou

MANGA ActionKyochuu Sanmyaku

REVIEWS

Xritsken
55/100
Kyochuu Rettou (The Island of Giant Bugs) is an interesting concept that just falls flat.
Kyochuu Rettou
Warning: Spoilers
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;
Matsumi Oribe
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.
Jinno Misuzu
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.
Kamijo Asushi
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.
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TheGruesomeGoblin
5/100
A bottom of the barrel manga that's torn between smut and gore involving giant insects.
LAST TIME ON THE ISLAND OF GIANT INSECTS...!

I felt like I may as well as just immediately break the ice and point out this is not the first time I've reviewed this series. If you've read either of those past two reviews, you may be pondering the futility of this third and final review.

~~Except the manga has an ongoing continuation meaning this will not be the final review.~~

"TGG, you hated the OVA. You hated the movie. Why did you read and finish the manga?"

Well you see, the answer is quite simple. It's because I'm a fucking idiot.

The Island of Giant Insects (again x2)

This is a horror manga by Yasutaka Fujimi (story) and... well, the art gets a bit tricky. For most of the manga, the art was done by Seongrak Jang/REDICE. However...

~~I may hate this manga, but for what it's worth, I do hope he's doing better.~~

I'm sure that there's been other manga this has happened for, where the artist for whatever reason is replaced partway through publication but... and this isn't Shuu Hirose's fault or anything, but man the shift in art is crazy. To say it was noticeable would be an understatement. There were a couple of characters who at first I questioned who they were immediately following the art shift.

I just wanted to bring up the art shift right away so you didn't wonder why I was including images from two different series about giant insects and nudity. Oh by the way,

CONTENT WARNING!

If you're not looking for explicit gore and nudity thrown together with giant insects, this isn't the series for you. Oh, and also in case you actually care, I may end up spoiling which characters end up biting the dust but honestly who even gives a

~~Also, since I'm reviewing the manga itself this time, I'll likely be covering some ground already covered in the other two reviews.~~

”Plot”

The plot is, as you may or may not have expected, nothing to write home about. An airplane transporting a bunch of students and teachers on a class trip crashes, and those that survive wake up on an island teeming with gigantic and murderous insects. The plot after that point is almost solely the survivors battling and fleeing from the insects and... sometimes they have to deal with members of their group fucking around and jeopardizing the safety of the entire group.

~~Actually, they have to do that a lot, but we'll get to that.~~

There are hints of what transpired to result in giant insects (aka typical humanity goes too far with science plot bullshit and it probably somehow resulted in giant insects) but it honestly really doesn’t matter. I mean, do you care?

Do I care? Do any of us care? Chances are the moment you read the title of the manga or see pretty much any of the volume covers, you have an immediate reaction.

“Oh. This series is one of those.”

A very thin plot to keep the high schoolers moving so they can encounter and fight or run from more giant insects. “We have to survive until help comes! Oh, there’s giant murderous insects on this island? Let’s go deeper into the island!!!!!” Characters are going to act irrationally to the point of pure stupidity because the only thing that matters is steering this train into copious amounts of gratuitous nudity and gore.

But you know, it’s not even like I have a problem with that. For better or for worse, there’s always going to be a spot in the horror genre for series like this.

My problem lies not with the gore and believe it or not even the nudity but with the...

Uneven Balance

Okay, so. I think there are three groups of people who read this series.
1. Those in search of a good horror series involving giant insects. This is the group that ends up dropping like flies very quickly.
2. Those who read it for the nudity and/or sex/rape scenes. ~~I WANT to say that there are probably more rape scenes than sex scenes, but it's not like I actually kept count...~~
3. Those who read it for the giant insects and swathes of gore the insects end up producing. To give credit where it’s due, there actually is some good gore and towards the end of the series when the actually cool insects finally start showing up it’s great.
For the record, I was a member of the first group that very quickly ended up joining the third group. The problem though, and I think it’s this series’ biggest problem, is that the balance between these three elements is just completely and utterly fucked.

Insects, gore, and nudity.

The insects and gore go together just fine since the only desire of these insects is to kill and eat these humans. But then you have the problem of where to include the nudity. Well, some insects eat via… withdrawing a person’s fluids through their various… body cavities. When I first read the start of this series and I saw the “rape butterflies” I was just prepared for the entire manga to be that.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about the majority of rape being from the insects. After all,

humans rape too!

Haha! But no really, rape… really shouldn’t be as high of a priority as these characters place it while they’re literally scrambling to survive giant insect attacks.

When our original group of characters ends up meeting a new group of survivors farther in the island, one of the new male characters… like I think he got one single line of dialogue and then the next time we see him it's him pulling bug girl into the darkness to try and rape her. Specifically bug girl, our protagonist, and also the most useful character in this entire manga. THE EXPERT ON INSECTS, GIANT OR OTHERWISE.

Thankfully, he was brutally killed not that long after. However, if that makes you think this manga brings down the hammer of awful horror death upon characters deserving of it, then I have bad news for you...

The Cast of Unlikable Horror Characters

Of the three groups that would read this manga, I believe there is one unifying trait that brings us all together. All of us want to see at the very minimum, at least one of these characters dying a horrible and hopefully painful death at the hands of giant insects. Some of us may even want to see the whole group to go because even while there’s a few that aren’t horrific assholes, the fact that this group has survived as long as it has is infuriating.

But you know, there can be a charm to horror fiction where you’re pushed to genuinely root for the demise of characters. However, you need to have a sense of which characters your readers are going to want dead. And under no circumstances should you let your most hated character live through almost the entire manga. This manga actually includes a moment where all the other characters take a moment to remember all the ones that died and I want to say at least a third of them were horrible assholes who were awful to the rest of the group or at the very least deserved to die.

Like the dude that insisted that he was the leader of the group the whole manga and didn’t do jack shit.

It was always the bug girl’s knowledge that saved the day. At one point he was going to straight up get abandoned along with the bully girl by the rest of the group but the bug girl convinced the others to untie them and let them come with them again.

And then he just went right back to acting like an asshole and immediately sold out his original group to try and curry favor from the terrible teacher’s group.

He only finally died as a result of rather than paying attention to the status of the mugwort the bug girl left to fend off incoming insects, he decided to instead rape the girl they left behind to take care of him because he was wounded.

My interpretation was at this point maybe he was just going completely insane and that was what motivated the rape because the only other possible interpretation was he decided “oh hey everybody else is gone, this has given me a perfect opportunity to rape.”

On the other hand, bully girl who was incredibly awful in the early part of the manga for some reason got to do a heroic sacrifice at the end. Said heroic sacrifice was honestly completely undeserved. It's not that she turned over a new leaf. After a while, she just kind of mercifully cooled it on the being an asshole thing while the delinquent who wanted to be leader's still just stumbling around

"HEY UH MISS TEACHER UH HERE'S ALL OUR GROUP'S SUPPLIES HAHA"

like sure bully girl actually fucking started contributing as a character when she got handed a shotgun but my immediate reaction when they gave her the shotgun was complete disbelief. Like are you really fine with her having a shotgun??? REMEMBER THAT TIME WHEN SHE BETRAYED YOU FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON?

But oh no, she exploded while fighting a centipede... I should feel... bad? I guess I should give credit where is due, I at least didn't internally cheer like when the delinquent idiot died.

But you know what pisses me off the most? The way this series ends is of course they manage to escape the island... to go to another island. Where they meet new characters. And I'm just like oh fucking god damn it we have to go through all this shit AGAIN.

Like obviously to keep the manga going they have to shuffle new characters in so there's more potential victims to die to the insects and then they'll escape this island and then go to another island where's there even more insects and then they'll escape that island where guess what there's more insects and then they'll

Conclusion

What more can I say about this series than what I have over the course of three reviews? Like I think you already know whether or not you're going to read this series the moment you see the covers and title. It's bottom of the barrel trash but... I read all of it. And I'm probably going to keep reading the sequel.

...I really don't even have any sort of joke to follow that up with. I'm just voluntarily stuffing trash down my gullet because hey at least there's gore and insects.

The Island of Giant Insects manga is a 5 out of 100.
___See you again next time... on the Island of Giant Insects...___
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