How will you survive?
The Island of Giant Insects (Kyochuu Rettou) is a horror survival manga with story by Fujimi Yasutaka and art by RED ICE, serialized from 2014 to 2019; it ran in Champion Cross from 2014 to 2018, then moving to Manga Cross for the rest of its run. In 2019, an anime adaptation was produced by Passione and directed by Takeo Takahashi and Naoyuki Tatsuwa.
After an airplane crash during a school trip, Oribe Mutsumi and her classmates were stranded on a seemingly deserted island. Mutsumi found the other survivors, and used her wilderness knowledge to help them. She expects that they will be rescued in about three days, which doesn't seem so long to endure. However, she didn't account for the fact that the island is populated with gigantic killer insects. Her knowledge of butterflies, wasps, and more may be the only thing that will help any of her classmates survive to be rescued!
A sequel series called Dai Kyochuu Rettou was started in 2019, showing Oribe and her allies' escapades after escaping the original island.
The Island of Giant Insects contains examples of:
- Action Girl: Many of the girls in the story. Matsuoka, Chitose, and Mutsumi being examples in particular due to their actions in warding off the giant insects from everyone else.
- Adults Are Useless: Unfortunately, the only two teachers seen are totally useless and Ryoko from the coast guard is Lawful Stupid. Luckily the old hunter, nicknamed "Pops", tries to be proactive, even after losing his left arm.
- Aerosol Flamethrower: Mutsumi manages to kill a group of giant butterflies intent on sucking their fluids by pulling a Solid Snake and burning them to death with nothing but a lighter and a can of hairspray.
- Alpha Bitch: Jinno Misuzu is a smug and arrogant bully uses her attractive looks to get what she wants, and who initially hates Mutusmi and Chitose.
- Always a Bigger Fish:
- The trap door spider is terrified of wasps, and nearly all other bugs make themselves scarce when the centipedes are in the area.
- Mutsumi later theorizes is only a matter of time before a new, gigantic bug predator emerges.
- Artistic License – Biology: Mostly averted. As described in Shown Their Work down below, all of the insects and other creatures are all pretty accurate in behavior and species. The most obvious exception, of course, is the GIANT size of the bugs, the "smallest" being about the size of a hand (the giant ticks) to downright humongous (the giant centipedes). That, and the fact that all of them, even the herbivores, are now man-eating predators.
- Ascended to Carnivorism: Mutsumi makes note of the fact that many of the giant insects that would normally be herbivores are now attacking and eating humans. A hypothesis is made at one point that, since the insects grew so large, they became past the point where they could survive off of plants, and had to turn to animals instead.
- Asshole Victim: With so many unpleasant characters, is no surprise there are a few.
- Usui is a pervert who tries to rape Mutsumi. Nobody is sorry when he's devoured alive by firefly larvae.
- Miss Mazawa blackmailed and molested Aoyama even when they were on the island, so her horrible death by ticks is hardly undeserved.
- Marika spends her entire page time being an unpleasant and controlling bitch, who does nothing more than get the students she's supposed to protect killed with her ineptitude. Only Aoyama is sad when she's ripped to pieces.
- After being nothing more than a nuisance and later raping Suzuki, you won't feel sorry for Kamijou when he's raped by a giant botfly and eaten alive by their larvae.
- Attempted Rape:
- Misuzu attempts to rape Chitose while the latter is strapped to a hospital bed. She's attacked by a giant crab before she can do anything more than remove Chitose's panties.
- Kamijo forces Mami and Suzuki to strip Momosaki naked and is about to rape her when they are attacked by a group of scarab beetles.
- Usui grabs Mutsumi while the group is navigating at night, pulls her behind a tree, and molests her. Thankfully, he is stopped from going any further by Chitose and Kai intervening.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: A three way version on the volume 2 cover between Mutsumi, Chitose, and Kai.
- Badass in Distress: Mutsumi of all people gets captured by a giant spider. Ends up being unable to think a way out herself, due to the trickiness of the spiderweb and having to be saved by Kai and Aoyama.
- Behemoth Battle: Between the Ammophilia Procera in the early chapters, after Mutsumi aggravates them to fight using hair spray and fabric softener.
- Betrayal by Inaction: Occurred to Kai in a flashback when a boy he had saved from bullies failed to speak up when the bullies framed him for smoking in the bathroom for tricking them.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Kamijo "Leader" Atsushi becomes the self-proclaimed leader of the group, and is a selfish and petty thug at best. He resents Mutsumi becoming the de-facto leader due to her encyclopedic knowledge of insects, and conspires with Misuzu early in the manga to kill her.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The main premise of the manga, as the characters' goal is to survive the island and its population of enormous insects.
- Censored Child Death: In the sequel, a pair of children encounter a giant praying mantis while another is devouring a teacher. The next time someone enters the room, only a shoe from one of the kids is all that's left of them.
- Class Representative: Back in school, Chitose held this role for their class.
- Conveniently Seated: Interestingly enough, our main character, Mutsumi, seems to take the seat in the very back and middle of her classroom. By contrast, Kai, a side character, in his own classroom, takes the typical 'protagonist seat'; second from the back right next to the window.
- Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: A very timely one performed by Kai Just in Time that saved Mutsumi from being raped.
- Creepy Centipedes: They're kaiju-sized, and the other bugs seem terrified of them.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Many victims are killed messily, whether it is having their fluids sucked from their body, being slowly eaten alive, ripped into shreds or impregnated by flesh eating larvae.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The biggest example are the kaiju-sized centipedes, one of which effortlessly shreds the crew of the coast guard ship sent to investigate the two-week loss of contact on the island, and then coils around the ship thinking it's a female centipede.
- Death Glare: Kai delivers a rather intense one to Usui after the latter attempts to rape Mutsumi.
- Devoured by the Horde:
- The fate of those abducted and sedated by an Ammophilia wasp. Taken back to the nest and placed with a sack of eggs, which will shortly hatch and the larvae will slowly eat the victim alive, all while the victims are loaded with a pleasure inducing pheremone to keep them from trying to move or escape as they're being devoured. Seemed to happen to some of the former residents on the island, and almost became the fates of Chitose and Akira.
- Suzuki and Kamijo are eaten from the inside-out by botfly larvae implanted into them after they had sex.
- Dire Beast: The insects themselves, which can apparently range from their normal size to bigger than an average sedan.
- Dirty Coward: See Pushed at the Monster below.
- The Dog Bites Back: Mami, who was bullied and intimidated by Misuzu, wastes no time in tormenting her when their positions are reversed.
- Dreadful Dragonfly: First the group is attacked by a huge dragonfly nymph, which can devour a person whole, and later they're attacked by an adult dragonfly just when they think they're finally safe on another island.
- Due to the Dead: Though short on time, the group does a short, impromptu service for Captain Matsuoka after she is killed by firefly larvae. The most they are able to do is make a cross out of sticks and tie her headband around it.
- Dying Dream: After being partially-devoured by firefly larvae, Captain Matsuoka passes away while envisioning herself and Mami returning to Tokyo and living together as a couple.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Marika, Nozawa, Aoyama and Miyazono all appear briefly in the opening sequence of the anime movie.
- Electrified Bathtub: In a sense. In order to kill a bunch of crabs, Kai sprays the floor with a hose, then yanks the plug out of a vending machine to electrify the ground and shock them to death.
- Enemy Mine: Jinno Misuzu goes from plotting to have Mutsumi killed to protecting her when she realizes Mutsumi is her best bet at getting off the island alive.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: Naturally the aforementioned insects. Also, some survivors try to do and some did this to other survivors whom they don't like and sometimes the one that is killed seems to deserve it making them Asshole Victims.
- Eye Scream: Akira ends up infected with the Leucochloridium parasite which infests his eyes and turns them into pulsating eyestalks.
- Fanservice Cover: The cover of volume 3, starring Misuzu in all her scantily clad-ness being molested by a gigantic hornet.
- Giant Enemy Crab: The group also encounters a large quantity of huge crabs.
- Giant Spider: One of the creatures dealt with on the island (though technically not an insect), is a giant trap door spider.
- Going Commando: Chitose's panties were removed by Misuzu during her rape attempt and eaten by a giant crab, necessitating her to go without. She's initially dismayed, but gets over it due to having more pressing matters to worry about.
- Gotta Rescue Them All: Chitose insists upon this for all of the survivors, even the ones who had previously caused the group loads of trouble due to their actions.
- Handsome Lech: Usui is an attractive young man who routinely hits on girls, being introduced flirting with Suzuki. However, he has the reputation of being scum — attempting to rape Mutsui and getting away with it because Marika refused to hear Mutsui and Chitose out. After trying to hit on Mami in the following scene, he is summarily eaten by firefly larvae.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Matsuoka shoves Mami out of the way of a group of attacking firefly larvae and is eaten by them. Later Jinno does this to ensure the other survivors get onto the life raft
- High-Voltage Death: The group manages to kill off a dobsonfly by tricking it into running into a halogen light, causing it to become electrocuted. Also, the crabs were electrocuted.
- Isle of Giant Horrors: It's full of giant insects.
- It's All About Me: So many think this way and they will use, seduce and sacrifice others to save themselves.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In early chapters, Kai can be seen acting mostly in self-interest, and mostly follows and supports Mutsumi only because it's in his best interests so that he had a better chance of survival. Later chapters, though, show him having a more selfless (if not slightly jaded) side to him. From back in school when he went out of his way to save a boy being bullied in a bathroom by running up to the door and yelling to a teacher he had brought, when in reality, he had just been bluffing to scare them away. On the island, the same can be seen later on, including when he paid Matsuoka proper respects at her makeshift grave with the others, or when he was shown to have already been thinking up a plan on how to save Mutsumi and Marika from the giant spider, even when everyone else was more interested in staying in the safe spot and waiting for help to arrive.
- Jinno can also be seen as this as the story goes on. She went from being the alpha bitch of the crew to becoming one of Oribe's allies and later gives her life to save the others.
- Kaiju: While bugs have grown to huge sizes, they weren't gigantic. Until the giant centipedes appeared that is.
- Karmic Death:
- Usui is a pervert who tried to rape Mutsumi, and shortly thereafter is eaten by firefly larvae.
- Kamijo is a thug who is the Big Bad Wannabe of the series, only kept along because of his strength. As it becomes clear that no-one gives him the respect or fear he feels he deserves, he undergoes Sanity Slippage and becomes increasingly violent and megalomaniacal. He blackmails Suzuki into having sex with him, saying that if she does then he'll spare her when he and his Yakuza friends exact revenge on Mutsumi and the others. Immediately afterwards he's raped by a botfly and impregnated by her larvae. Suzuki tragically meets the same fate, pleading for Oribe to come save her.
- Kill It with Fire: How Mutsumi manages to kill off a group of giant butterflies attacking the group.
- Lawful Stupid: The Japanese coast guard ship is equipped with a cannon, but the crew refuse to use it without permission from Kibe even when it could have saved them from the giant centipede.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Dragonfly nymph not only is huge, it can move very fast and take a lot of hits.
- The Load:
- Mami may be the school idol, but all she can do in a fight is cower and cry for help. Her naivete gets Matsuoka killed when she ignores Mutsumi's warning and walks into a trap set by a group of firefly larvae.
- Marika's authoritarian attitude enables Kamijo and Misuzu to run free, shouting down the others' attempts to protest. Her bullheaded incompetence and disregard for Mutsumi's expertise further winds up getting several members of the group needlessly killed.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Lesbian Jock Matsuoka and Lipstick Lesbian Mami.
- Master of Unlocking: How Kai gets the group into the medical facility when they get there, and after Kamijo and Misuzu lock them out; though he refrained from telling them he did this the first time and simply claimed he had climbed in an open window, only telling them he picked the lock when getting them in the second time to get away from the Protohermes grandis.
- Ms. Fanservice: Misuzu dresses in a midriff-baring halter top with no bra, and jean short-shorts that show off her shapely physique.
- Not Now, Kiddo: Marika, one of the teachers, hates being contradicted and coldly disregards Mutsumi's advice because she is only 15.
- Off with His Head!: A Protohermes grandis dobsonfly decapitates Akira after he's infected with the snail parasite Leucochloridium that makes him a bigger target for predators.
- Oh, Crap!: Mutsumi's reaction when the group comes across Miss Nozawa in a forest filled with ticks. After seeing her and realizing that not all of the potentially deadly ticks are gigantic and easily avoidable as they previously believed, Mutsumi realizes that they are in even more danger than she previoualy thought, and they have to get out of the forest ASAP.
- Orifice Invasion: Many of the arthropods attack the characters in decidedly sexual manners, with Inou Ai, Suzuki, and Kamijo being stand out examples.
- Posthumous Character: When the main group first meets the school's art teacher, Miss Nozawa, she was already doomed to be dead because of how many ticks had latched on to her body, and they feel sorry for her death. However, a later flashback by Aoyama reveals that Miss Nozawa had initially survived the crash for a bit, but at the same time shows she was a horrible person because Miss Nozawa had been blackmailing and sexually abusing Aoyama under threat of outing her for shoplifting. She ended up in the tick nest because of Marika pushing her over a cliff and into the forest after catching her in the act of molesting Aoyama.
- Puppeteer Parasite: The group loses Akira this way. The snail parasite Leucochloridium infects him after he consumed some food or water from the island and makes him climb a light tower so he'll be eaten by a Protohermes grandis.
- Pushed at the Monster: The majority of the survivors (bar the main characters) do this on a frequent basis just to save their own skin. Long story short, if these survivors don't like you, your chances of survival have dramatically dropped.
- Rape as Drama: Kamijo forces Suzuki Kayo to give him a blowjob and have sex by offering to spare her after they return to the mainland — planning to have his yakuza buddies kill Mutsumi and Misuzu. Immediately afterwards, they are raped by giant botflies, impregnated with larvae, and eaten alive from the inside-out.
- Robbing the Dead: How the group acquires a working cell phone. Kai swipes one off of one of the island's former residents after the group finishes smashing a nest full of Ammophilia larvae. Technically the robbed party aren't quite dead yet, but at that point they were more than halfway eaten and no way to save them, so they might as well have been dead anyway.
- Sadist Teacher: Miss Nozawa, who tormented Aoyama under threat of outing her for shoplifting, along with sexually abusing her and forcing her to pose nude for the art club against her will.
- Sanity Slippage:
- Mami blames Aoyama and Marika for the death of Matsuoka, since they'd refused them entry to a shed they were using to hide from the fireflies.
- Marika is so obsessed with safety that she's willing to leave the other members of the group for dead when they're attacked by firefly larvae, consoling a distraught Suzuki by saying that unity is paramount while molesting her. When the supposed safe zone at a Shinto shrine that the group was travelling to is revealed to be home to a giant trap-door spider, she snaps and more or less hands herself over to it.
- Chitose notes that Kamijo was always a violent person, but that the traumatizing experiences have made him even worse when he starts ranting about how he's Oda Nobunaga reborn and tries to rape Momosaki.
- Aoyama Nozomi undergoes this after causing the death of Marika, who had molded her into a yes-girl and sex-slave. She blames Mutsumi and continuously tries to kill her while making it look like an accident, further making her The Load.
- Sex for Services: In a sense, quite a few of the girls on (and some off) the island have used this method to get their way.
- Mami uses this on Matsuoka in order to get her to promise to protect her from Kamijo, Misuzu, and the insects on the island. It's uncertain if they got past fondling and making out, since it cuts to Misuzu and Leader.
- Misuzu used thus method on Kamijo in order to get him to agree with her and get him on her side while on the island. She also used this method back in school with a teacher in order to get a good grade.
- Because Aoyama was desperate to save Marika and she knew Kai had some form of plan to save both Marika and Mutsumi, she forces herself onto him in order to push him to go through with his plan.
- Sex Signals Death: Kamijo threatens Suzuki into having sex by saying that if she does as he says then he'll spare her when they return to the mainland and he gets his Yakuza buddies to kill the others in revenge for his humiliation. She goes from reluctantly giving him a blowjob to greatly enjoying her first time. The fire protecting them from giant insects goes out after they fall asleep together, and when they wake up they are both raped by giant botflies, which impregnate them with larvae that eat them alive.
- Sextra Credit: The reason the prim and proper class rep Chitose hates Misuzu is because she caught her having sex with their teacher in order to get an A on a test.
- Shown Their Work: Every fact about insects and other creatures is well researched.
- Slasher Smile: When Matsuoka advocates leaving Misuzu and Kamijo tied up for the insects to eat following the incident at the hospital, Misuzu turns to Mami — who she'd bullied — to support her. Mami shyly ducks behind Matsuoka, and then flashes Misuzu a malevolent grin.
- Spiders Are Scary: The giant spider that the group ends up dealing with, which ends up killing Marika and one of their classmates, is suitably terrifying to the members.
- Spiteful Spit: Kai performs one while declaring he was going to keep an eye on someone who had just attempted rape.
- Swallowed Whole: The dragonfly nymph swallows one of the hunters almost whole.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Despite the insects all trying to eat them, Mutsumi is horrified at the thought of killing them and all-but breaks down in tears every time she's forced to do so, apologizing profusely for having to kill them.
- Tap on the Head: A bit more of a realistic version. When Kai hits a student attempting rape over the head with a stick, it's enough to stun him, but not enough force to knock him out.
- The Team: At the start, Oribe Mutsumi, formerly a quiet girl who sat in the back of the class reading up on insects, took up a role as leader of the group due to her vast knowledge of insects. Naruse Chitose is the best friend of Mutsumi and class representative, contrasting her former shy personality by being an outgoing leader in school. She switches positions with Chitose, whose skill in combat and drive to protect everyone make her better suited to the task. Kai Kazuhiko who knows a lot about how to operate electronics, and even how to pick locks. Kamijo Atsushi, although he claims to be the real leader of the group, is not listened to despite his name. He mostly does a lot of grunt work. The class idol, Miura Mami, is The Load due to her inability to fight and tendency to panic.
- Team Shot: The volume 1 cover.
- Undying Loyalty: Aoyama is completely loyal to the teacher Marika after she saved her from a depraved teacher, Nozawa, by pushing Nozawa over a cliff after seeing her sexually abusing Aoyama and saying Nozawa was attacked by a giant insect. Because of her loyalty to her, she is willing to threaten Chitose with a knife to try and force Mutsumi to save Marika when the teacher is captured by a giant spider, and even forces herself onto Kai sexually to convince him to help her save the teacher (and Mutsumi by default) later when that fails.
- V-Formation Team Shot: The cover of volume 1 has this, with all the members of the main survival cast starring in it save the Captain, who is dead as of the second volume. Mutsumi stands at the front point of the V.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: Many characters get to die either in the same, second or after a few more chapters from when they were introduced.
- Wham Line: "We just have to make our food bigger." The source of the giant insects turns out to be the result of an experiment to make sea food such as crabs and lobsters bigger in order to solve world's food crisis. Too bad it also resulted in other invertebrates getting bigger as well.
- World of Buxom: All of the female characters have voluptuous chests, even those who don't appear to.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Chapter 41: Just when the survivors think they're finally safe on an inhabited island, a giant dragonfly descends and devours "pops", showing the bugs have already arrived to the island as well.
- Zerg Rush:
- Firefly larvae are relatively small, but they attack by the dozens.
- Stinkbugs are also small in comparison to the other insects seen, but there are enough to take down a much larger dragonfly nymph.
