Limit is a manga written by Keiko Suenobu. Its original run was from 2009 to 2011 and it had 6 volumes.
Mizuki Konno is your typical high school junior at Yanno Prefectual High School. Like many teens her age she is studying hard for college and when she has some down time she likes to fuss over fashion and make-up. While she may not be one of the class elites, Mizuki is fortunate to be on the right side of her class's idols. But that might not settle well with those who are in a similar academic status but not so lucky with their social lives.
It was adapted into a Dorama in 2013.
Limit contains examples of:
- Abusive Parent: Morishige's dad, who alternated between hitting her when he got mad at her and giving her candy.
- The Ace: Kamiya, who's survival experience makes her the most useful member of the group.
- Alpha Bitch:
- Sakura, the leader of a posse including Konno and Haru that constantly bullied Morishige.
- Morishige tries to be this after the bus crashes and she gets a sickle, declaring herself "empress" and bossing around everyone. Once she loses the sickle to Usui however, it doesn't pan out.
- Always Second Best: Haru sees herself as always second to Konno, no matter how hard she tries.
- Anyone Can Die: In fact, most of the characters we're introduced to are dead by the end of the first episode.
- Bittersweet Ending: Konno, Haru, Kamiya, Moriko and Hinata all make it out alive. Konno and Kamiya are reunited with their families and Hinata has turned himself into the police for his crimes, ready to accept whatever punishment he's given. Their classmates are dead but the five of them are saved, which is about the best ending they could have hoped for.
- Break the Cutie: Poor Usui, who goes from a cute timid girl to mentally unstable after she thinks Konno and the others have abandoned her.
- Broken Bird: Morishige. The abuse she endured from both her father and her bullies at school has led to alternate between fits of Ax-Crazy and being eerily aloof.
- Character Development: Konno changes from someone who cared mostly about herself and looked down on people who were "weaker" than her to a much more sympathetic character who tries to understand the people around her better in order to not accidentally hurt them like she did with Haru.
- Morishige also gets a little bit, though not as much as some of the other characters.
- Chekhov's Gun: The scythe.
- Usui's personal alarm.
- The driver's lighter.
- Creepy Crows: How Konno and Kamiya found Usui's body
- Children Forced to Kill: A bus full of kids falls off a cliff, killing all but six of them. The ones who survive fight and kill each other, mentally torture each other, and the rescue teams can find literally nothing when they go searching for the children. The parents of said children can't do anything but sit and wait.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Morishige was (and would still be had the crash not happened) the victim of abuse at home. Part of why she's so intent on being in control all the time and why she was so afraid of Hinata.
- Konno was the victim of some pretty harsh bullying in middle school after trying to stick up for her friend who ended up betraying her anyways, which just makes her treatment of Morishige all the worse.
- Despair Event Horizon: Haru crosses this after she's accused of murdering Usui.
- Driven to Suicide: Morishige tries to kill herself for being useless. She fails.
- Driving Question: In the second half, the question becomes Who killed Usui?
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: After the bus crash, our main characters find themselves surrounded by the dead bodies of all of their classmates.
- Establishing Character Moment: The entire opening sequence is to establish Konno's character, what her view of the world is and why she acts the way she acts.
- We get two more right after the bus crash. First, we get Morishige's character by her reaction to Sakura's death and her actions towards the other characters. After that we get shown Kamiya's by her lack of emotion, be it fear or happiness, at the death of HER ENTIRE CLASS.
- Hinata gets one via Konno's flashbacks and the other characters' reactions to his arrival.
- Face–Heel Turn: Hinata didn't start out bad, but his Accidental Murder of Usui followed by his attempts to cover it up led to him going off the deep end.
- Flash Back: Used to tell backstory. Most notable is when it's used to tell about Konno's backstory.
- Forced Prize Fight: Morishige sharpens a stick and throws it to Haru and Konno telling them to fight to decide who will be the slave.
- Fortune Teller: Morishige attempts to do this using Tarot Cards and most of her predictions actually end up being correct.
- Genki Girl: Konno, who tries to stay positive in spite of the tragedies around them.
- Girl Posse: Konno was part of one, with Sakura being the leader until the bus crash killed all of them except her and Haru
- Harmful to Minors: Oh so much.
- Heroic BSoD: Happens to Haru a few times but the most obvious is right before she crosses the Despair Event Horizon after being accused of murdering Usui.
- Everybody gets one after they discover Usui's body.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Konno tries to do this for Haru to keep her from becoming the slave, except it doesn't work. Instead, Morishige praises her for her sacrifice and makes Haru the slave, just to mess with her.
- Improbably Female Cast: Every main character is female, at least until Hinata shows up.
- Intrepid Reporter: Konno's older sister Haruka, which leads to some conflict when she's asked to cover the bus crash.
- Jerkass: Morishige, although not without reason. Being abused at home and bullied at school with no safe place to go will make you turn out like that.
- Kids Are Cruel: Just about everyone gets a moment of being cruel to one another at some point.
- Liar Revealed: When Hinata reveals that he's the one who killed Usui and has been telling lie after lie to try to cover it up. And yet somehow you still feel sympathetic towards him.
- Mind Rape: Morishige does this to Haru on multiple occasions.
- No Sympathy: Haru feels this way towards Morishige.
- Plot Armor: Konno manages to survive a bus crash, drowning, and attempted murder (on multiple occasions). The other characters aren't so lucky.
- The Quiet One: Morishige was the quiet loner in the class. Then Sakura died and her personality completely changed.
- Small Role, Big Impact: The bus driver only has a few scenes at the beginning but him getting drunk and crashing the bus is what leads to the plot being set in motion.
- Snowball Lie: Hinata's whole story. He starts out by saying that he never ran into Usui or anybody else when, in fact, he did and was responsible for her death. He then tells more lies to cover up that one and more to cover up those. Kamiya is the one to eventually call him on it after he mentions the bandage on Usui's leg. She asks him how he knew about the bandage if he never saw Usui. After he's caught trying to kill Konno, he gives up entirely on trying to pretend that he's innocent. He explains to them about meeting Usui in the woods and accidentally killing her and about taking the scythe. It actually becomes a bit of a
Tear Jerker moment when you realize he really did want to be a nice guy and help them all go home together. - The Social Darwinist: Sakura has this worldview, flat-out stating she doesn't consider everyone to be equal and looking down on anyone who is "weaker". This is how she justifies her bullying of Morishige and general Alpha Bitch antics. Konno buys into her philosophy as well at first.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Hinata, who initially didn't even intend to kill anyone (the first death he's responsible for, namely Usui's, was accidental) and genuinely wants to help the other survivors, only to go off the deep end out of fear and shame when his Snowball Lie of a cover-up catches up with him.
- We Just Need to Wait for Rescue: Kamiya says this is the only thing they can do in their current situation.
- Wham Episode: The bus crash about halfway through Volume 1.
- In volume 3 Usui's death
- When Konno discovers the location of the scythe.
- Later in the same volume it's revealed that Hinata was the one who killed Usui.
- Wham Shot: Several. First one is in Volume 1 when Konno opens her cell phone and you can see the mountain of dead classmates behind her. Another is when we get a full two pages devoted to a picture of Hinata saving Konno from drowning. And then there's Volume 5. About halfway through, Konno finally realizes that Hinata was the one who killed Usui. She begs him to tell her she's wrong and he hugs her. So you think that he's going to say that it's alright and he wasn't the murderer. But no, instead we cut to his back where the scythe is tied and realize that a. Hinata was the killer and b. that he'd had the scythe on him the ENTIRE TIME, which was why he was against the whole stripping to prove your innocence idea that Konno came up with.
- Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: Hinata.
