After more than 50 teenage girls commit mass suicide in a train station, the sole survivor, Saya Kota, develops an odd obsession with a girl named Mitsuko. Her best friend, Kyoko, tries to understand the changes that are coming over Saya, but as Saya becomes more alien to her, she finds herself drawn into a supernatural horror that she may not be able to withstand.
This manga provides examples of:
- Adaptation Inspiration: The film's creator encouraged Usamaru Furuya to come up with his own take on the story. As a result, while the central theme of supernaturally-influenced suicides remains, the actual stories are very different.
- Ambiguous Ending: The manga's ending strongly implies that Kyoko will become the new incarnation of "Mitsuko", although it's not clear when the BBS post entries on the last page were made.
- Body Surf: When "Mitsuko" leads girls into suicide, one survives, infected by "Mitsuko"'s spirit and gradually having her personality overwritten until she becomes "Mitsuko".
- Book Ends: The manga begins and ends with a mass suicide that mysteriously only has one survivor.
- Claimed by the Supernatural: Part of the bonding between the girls under Mitsuko's influence involves them tattooing a circular symbol on their earlobes. Saya tattoos Kyoko's ear with this symbol while she's unconscious, which may have been enough for Mitsuko to infect her since she survives the mass suicide at the end while Saya dies.
- Crucified Hero Shot: Played for creepy horror. Saya and Kyoko's teacher shows Kyoko an artwork on a BBS showing Saya nearly naked and crucified, tying to the growing influence of "Mitsuko".
- Double Agent: One of the girls in Saya's group is shown secretly taking certain photos of Kyoko that are used to poison Saya against her. Later on, though, that same girl offers photos to the police showing Saya killing the girl who posted the nude photos of her and club members murdering their teacher, but the girls find her and kill her before the police get enough info to figure out what's going on.
- Fan Disservice: There are a handful of panels showing Saya in various levels of nudity. Most are photos taken by the men she's prostituting herself to, which is creepy enough, but there are some showing her many scars from her cutting and the injuries she suffered in the mass suicide that kicks the story off.
- Self-Harm: Saya is frequently shown cutting her forearms. Initially it seems to be a way for her to deal with her personal trauma, but it's revealed that part of a previous cycle of the Mitsuko club involved Mitsuko and her followers cutting their forearms as some kind of bonding-through-mutual-pain ritual.
- Starts with a Suicide: In the opening chapter, people in a train station watch in confusion as dozens of teenage girls show up, line up at the edge of the platform holding hands, and then all leap in front of a train.
- Stock Shoujo Bullying Tactics: After a girl confronts Saya about naked photos of her that the girl found in her boyfriend's possession, she makes dozens of copies of the photos and posts them on bulletin boards in the school with notes saying that Saya is selling such photos. She's later found dead, and is later revealed to have been murdered by Saya.
- Suicide Pact: The entity known as "Mitsuko" appears to gradually take possession of a teenage girl, draw other girls to her like a magnet, form a cult-like club, and then lead them all in a mass suicide. The manga opens with 54 girls from multiple schools joining hands and jumping in front of a train, and ends with the club formed by Saya jumping from the roof of Saya's school, taking Kyoko with them.
