Usotsuki Satsuki wa Shi ga Mieru (Liar Satsuki Sees Death) is a horror/suspense manga by Ryouko, serialized on Shogakukan's Ura Sunday website and MangaONE app from May 2020 to April 2024.
Satsuki Minazuki doesn't have the best reputation. For as kind and helpful as the 16-year-old tries to be, Satsuki finds herself ostracized and mocked by her peers, treated as a juvenile delinquent by school faculty, and even her own father is deeply frustrated by her reckless behavior. Not that Satsuki appears to do anything to help her case; every other day she's running into homeroom ready to scream in someone's face that they're going to die, listing out all the precautions they should take if they want to live to the next day. No one quite knows what she gets out of acting out like this, but it has saddled her with the unfortunate nickname of "Usotsuki", which she isn't very fond of. And who can blame her? After all, she's telling the truth.
As the title states, Satsuki Minazuki was born with a special pair of eyes that give her the ability to see death. More specifically, she's able to see what she refers to as the "premonition corpse" of anyone who is going to die within the next twenty-four hours. Spurred by the need to make use of this power for good, Satsuki has dedicated herself to using her knowledge of the future to prevent the untimely deaths of those around her, whether they believe her warnings or not, and regardless of whether saving them also means putting her own life on the line.
Usotsuki Satsuki wa Shi ga Mieru contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- After her mother left him, Akira's father became physically abusive towards her, with the first instance being in elementary school, with her dad throwing her against a wall, kicking her, and forcing her to eat her birthday cake off the floor. Several years of this caused Akira to reach her Rage Breaking Point and she planned to beat him to death with a baseball bat before Satsuki stopped her. Later on, Akira's mother reveals that she fell on the neglectful side of the equation. She didn't even want to have a kid, and never once paid attention to Akira, spending her nights out on the town while her husband took care of the child-rearing. She didn't leave Akira's father so much as Akira's father kicked her out of the house out of frustration.
- When Sae's mother learns that the stress of performing well academically drove her daughter to attempted suicide, she simply remarks... good. It's only natural that Sae feel that strongly about her perceived failures, and she is the one that feels embarrassed for having a kid who isn't the top of their class. Everyone present is appropriately stunned by this exchange, with Satsuki's father slapping his fellow parent for daring to say such things. This continues into her second appearance, where she's passive-aggressively forcing Sae to pull all-nighters by giving her energy drinks and caffeine pills to stay awake. The only reason Sae doesn't die from this is because Satsuki manages to explain to her that sleeping helps with memory retention. Sae relays this information to her mother, and since Satsuki is one of the best students in their grade, she happily acquiesces.
- Satsuki's father, at least from Akira's perspective, due to how violent she saw him behave when she first meets him. Satstuki insists otherwise, but his cold nature has Akira confidently state that they both more-or-less have shitty dads, especially once Satsuki eventually explains what led to their current rocky relationship.
- Affectionate Nickname:
- Kai refers to Sayoko as 'Sayo'.
- Miho has a habit of nicknaming people, referring to Akira as 'Akki' and otherwise attaching '-cchi' to family names. For example, Satsuki becomes 'Minacchi'.
- Alliterative Name: Of the characters whose names are known, a little over half of them have this. So far there's Atou Akira, Komako Komachi, Michinaga Michiru, Saijou Sayoko, Satomi Sae, and Sakura Saki.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Satsuki starts off with barely anyone willing to interact with her. She slowly gets a small circle of friends, but she's still disliked by most of the school, and her close friendship with Akira mainly has the side effect of her going from "socially-awkward outcast" to "socially-awkward outcast with an attack dog."
- Alpha Bitch: Miho, with an extra emphasis on "bitch." Though she does occasionally show a slightly better side... but only slightly.
- Amnesiacs are Innocent: Played with in regards to Seo. Prior to her near death experience and amnesia, she was a vile bully and one of the cruellest girls in school. Afterwards, she's much kinder and nicer and admires Satsuki for her actions. But some characters, like Miho, believe that she's simply faking her amnesia and she's now regularly bullied by some of her past victims who believe that whether or not she's amnesiac, she deserves to be punished for her past actions. Ultimately, Miho is proven right, as Seo reveals her true colours in Chapter 70, showing herself to be even worse than a mere bully.
- Anger Born of Worry: Satsuki constantly inspires this from Akira, since Satsuki's reckless actions in attempting to save others more often than not nearly result in her nearly dying herself.
- Armor-Piercing Question: "Don't you know I can't lie?" In chapter 82, Satsuki is desperately trying to convince Komachi to give her a chance to counteract all the deaths piling up around her instead of taking the radical solution of suicide. What finally gets through Komachi's mountain of doubt is a realization that Satsuki is pathologically incapable of deception and if she says something, then she means it, as expressed in the line quoted above.
- Artistic License – Law: In Chapter 23, Satsuki saves a child from choking on food by submerging him in a fountain to trigger a diving reflex, much to the horror of the boy's mother. As the volume 3 extras point out, this is still considered an act of assault and attempted murder in the real world, no matter how well intentioned.
- Ax-Crazy:
- Michiru, definitely. She's introduced kidnapping, tying up and threatening to kill Miho. She only gets worse after she's stopped.
- Seo, post feigned amnesia, actively revels in setting up a bomb in the school and the murder she intends to commit, admitting that she loves it when people get hurt.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: Sayoko asks Kai if he regrets killing their elementary school teacher and he says yes... since he should have done it sooner in order to prevent them from burning Sayoko's face.
- Beach Episode: Chapter 55 features the girls taking it easy on a private beach courtesy of Akira's mother. Unfortunately, Satsuki doesn't have much fun due to still blaming herself for Michiru's death, not to mention Miho almost getting herself killed again.
- Berserk Button: Satsuki and her father share the same one: undermining or disrespecting the value of life in front of either of them will get you seriously chewed out, or straight-up smacked upside the head in the case of Sae's mother.
- Best Friend: After initially coming to blows with her, Akira quickly becomes Satsuki's closest friend and confidant, by virtue of being the first person to take her precognition seriously. While she disagrees with Satsuki's idealism and doesn't hesitate to give her a piece of her mind in the bluntest way possible, she still supports her in her every attempt to save lives. Satsuki, on her part, is extremely protective of Akira and her failure to save Akira from a non-life threatening injury (while, in fact, saving her life) sends her into a Heroic BSoD almost as bad as when Michiru had died on her watch.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Kai and Sayoko, the student council president and vice-president respectively who believe problematic students should be eliminated.
- Big Damn Heroes: Akira, Komachi and Sae manage to arrive seconds before Michiru accidently ignites the art club's fixative, spraying the equipment shed with foam fire extinguishers to save not only her life, but Satsuki and Miho's as well.
- Big Eater: Satsuki and Miho both have their moments. Satsuki in particular is shown buying multiple croquettes or burgers during after-school segments.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Downplayed Trope. Komachi is eventually revealed to have this, as she places little to no value on life despite not actively trying to end other's lives and still despising pain physical and emotional in herself and others. This lead to her being socially isolated and developing her Extreme Doormat personality.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Miho, who gloats to the others that she doesn't have to worry about studying for any subject in order to pass, calling anyone who needs to open a textbook to avoid falling below the class average a moron.
- Butterfly of Doom: The manga both explicitly and implicitly implies that Satsuki's actions, as well-intentioned as they may be, are setting the stage for something terrible:
- The first chapter begins and ends with Satsuki, sometime in the future, narrating about how all her actions beginning from saving from Komachi's life messed with fate badly. The first panel even has our heroine surrounded by the bloody corpses of her classmates.
- The end of Chapter 44 has the president and vice president share their concerns over how the amount of "premonition corpses" have been increasing ever since Satsuki started attending their school, with them eventually bringing this up to Satsuki in Chapter 62, though she doesn't believe them.
- Bully Hunter: The student council president is shown to be this. While his methods are questionable, his goal is ultimately to mitigate as much suffering as possible, and he's willing to manipulating others to do so. He is willing to give people a chance to change, but once you've exhausted his good will, you're pretty much screwed.
- Call-Back: After escaping the locked room trap Kai and Sayoko set up for her, Satsuki states that it's the second time someone has attempted to lock her in to prevent her from saving someone, referring to when Akira did the same in Chapter 18.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Satsuki. Despite her reputation, Satsuki is actually a Bad Liar. At first, it just seems that she simply dislikes lying, but it becomes clear when her friends try to goad her into at least telling a meaningless lie by eating her lunch until she does that she can't bring herself to be dishonest on any level. This extends to nearly getting herself killed because she couldn't stand the thought of lying about jumping off a building. The reason for her staunch honesty is because the last time she lied was when she tried to explain to her father why she didn't do anything when she discovered her mother bleeding out on the floor, fearing he wouldn't accept the real reason.
- Cassandra Truth: The main crux of the series. Satsuki has premonitions of death by way of seeing the victim's future corpse, but is unable to convince anyone that she's telling the truth when she tries to warn them, hence her "Usotsuki" nickname. This, in combination with her reckless actions to prevent said deaths, gets her the reputation of a delinquent and Compulsive Liar amongst her peers, teachers, and even her own father. The only people that fully believe her are Akira, Miho, and the student body president and vice president, as they all come across undeniable proof that she's right, while her science teacher Doumoto-sensei becomes convinced that whatever is going on with Satsuki is more than a coincidence after she manages to save his life.
- Central Theme: Isolation, taking the side and believing in someone when nobody else will or should not. The cast is full of teenagers who at one point in their life became some kind of socially isolated pariah whose story gets rejected by society at large, except for a small group of friends who believe in them.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Seo is first shown as a nameless student tripping Satsuki in Chapter 3, long before she gets first gets focus as someone that Satsuki has to save and an eventual promotion to being one of the main characters.
- Chuunibyou:
- Satsuki's constant insistence that she knows when people will die causes her to be widely perceived as such, pretending to know about morbid things for the sake of attention.
- Sae, of all people, has shades of this.
- Clingy Jealous Girl:
- Michiru for Miho.
- Sayoko shows shades of this with Kai, such as when she elects to exclude him from performing CPR on Seo to prevent him from touching her chest, no matter how innocently.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Well, more like Contrasting Spiritual Antithesis Main Character, but it stands out either way that various bonus chapters point out the differences between Satsuki and Tokiko Kurosu. Both are female protagonists who are constantly followed by death (with heavy connotations of karma in their abilities), both form strong bonds with other women, both have issues with their parents, and both are clearly abnormal psychologically. However, Tokiko is defined by an extreme aloofness and Lack of Empathy, has only one real friendship formed over a long period, loved her father unreservedly, is deceptive and borderline sadistic at times, runs on a code of Blue-and-Orange Morality, and tends to be fairly passive in the story, with events more frequently happening around her. Satsuki, meanwhile, is empathetic and emotional to the point of Chronic Hero Syndrome, quickly forms a number of close friendships, has a strained relationship with her father, is practically named for her bluntly noble honesty, has a fairly simplistic and generally agreeable moral system, and has her actions heavily drive each plot. Even design-wise, Tokiko is slight, slim, wan, and weak, while Satsuki is tall, curvy, dark-haired, and athletic.
- Creepy Child: Komachi. While she's kind and sweet, she regularly says or does something when completely alone with another character that never fails to deeply unnerve them. Be it seemingly getting deep pleasure from Miho bullying her for information to believing that Satsuki is attempting suicide and trying to assist her in the act.
- Crossover: Tokiko Kurosu from the mangaka's previous work, Shi ni Aruki, occasionally makes cameo appearances in the various omake, including a full-length bonus chapter where she instigates a "protagonist-off" against Satsuki. These appearances tend to have the more smug and sadistic side of Tokiko's personality, which was more subdued in her own comic, on full display to help highlight the differences between the characters and add to the comedy.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- It's implied that Satsuki's insistence on preventing other's deaths no matter what, as well as her rocky relationship with her father, is a result of her blaming herself for whatever incident caused the death of her mother.
- Sayoko's is detailed in Chapters 52 and 53. Her father was absent, with her mother having to work herself to the bone at least two jobs to keep the household running just above the bread line. As if this wasn't bad enough, she was routinely bullied and used as a chewtoy for the rest of her elementary class's amusement, a situation perpetuated by her teacher in order to give the rest of the children an outlet for poor behavior so that they focused on classwork proper. When this system of abuse is disrupted by Kai's arrival in the class and his friendship with her, said teacher tried to enforce it again by burning Sayoko's face with acid to crush her spirit and accept her place.
- Komachi's is detailed in Chapter 79. Ever since she was a child, she has been able to predict when people can die which escalated to people around her dying at alarming rates. This chain of deaths following her has caused nothing but pain to the point Komachi decided to end her life to make it stop.
- Death Seeker: Chapter 78 reveals that Komachi desires to die. Doumoto expresses concern when he sees her turn in a blank survey about her future goals and not long after, Satsuki starts seeing her preminatory corpse of her successful suicide attempt. The reason for this is detailed further in Chapter 79 where she has the ability to predict when people will die, which culminated in people dying around her. Chapter 81 implies that despite Satsuki's hesitance, she is willing to step back and respect Komachi's wishes. Satsuki ends up going back on this promise in Chapter 82, however.
- Defeat Means Friendship: How Satsuki and Akira become best friends. Satsuki learns that Akira's father is going to be battered to death, only to find out that Akira herself was going to do the deed, leading to the two fighting. In an interesting twist, Satsuki doesn't win the ensuing fight and nearly gets strangled to death. Akira backs off on her own accord, horrified by what she was about to do, and thanks Satsuki for stopping her.
- Delicate and Sickly: Downplayed with Kai. He's frequently alluded to having a weak constitution by Sayoko, but otherwise seems to be able to carry on normally. He does quickly suffer a dizzy spell after saving Satsuki from being impaled, implying a general lack of stamina and strength.
- Determinator: The second Satsuki sees a Premonitory Corpse, she is going to go out of her way to prevent the death by any means necessary.
- Didn't Think This Through: Satsuki's major flaw is refusing to think about what's going to happen next after she does something, with several results. Her reputation as a liar is enforced due to none of her predictions coming true after she prevents a murder, she frequently puts herself in the same danger the victim was supposed to suffer (or worse), and by completely dismantling all of Kai's traps for Seo, she destroys all evidence she could have used against him.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: Kai goes out with Sayoko cradling him, lamenting that all he ever wanted was to keep her safe and make a better world for her.
- Dysfunction Junction: Just about every major character is screwed up to some degree or another, be it hailing from broken homes to having odd behavioral quirks.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the second chapter, Satsuki makes the mistake of trying to put out an oil fire with water. Later stories would establish that Satsuki is incredibly knowledgeable about accident prevention and is the sort of person who reads autopsy reports in her spare time, making this rather incongruous.
- Education Mama: Sae's mother is a very dark version of this, as her actions are pushing her daughter towards an early grave... something she seems fairly flippant about.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- In Chapter 41, Akira wonders why she's not considered a problem for the student council duo to solve, due to her history of delinquency and aggression. Kai is quick to point out that her issues come from her troubled background instead of her being outright malicious, and as such she's not in their crosshairs.
- Miho is horrified to see exactly what kind of person Seo actually is deep down, when she starts committing acts that go far and beyond the duo's usual Alpha Bitch tendencies.
- Exact Words: Before she passed away, Komachi's mother told her to always go along with what others say and do, become someone people will want to help and always try to make people smile. Unfortunately due to Komachi's poor social skills, her attempts to make people happy came off creepy at best, Innocently Insensitive at worst leading to her being ostracized, bullied and taken advantage of and developing her Extreme Doormat personality.
- Fake Assisted Suicide: In Chapter 82, Satsuki seems willing to grant Komachi's request to kill herself only to save her at the last second.
- Failed a Spot Check: Satsuki almost allows Seo to die because she believes that she's looking at the Premonitory Corpse, instead of the real body of the victim. Luckily, Akira is there to correct her and pull the body free.
- Flashback Episode: Chapters 52 and 53 are mainly this, depicting how Sayoko and Kai first met and why the latter uses his powers the way that he does.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: Volumes 3 and 4 include omakes following a comedic storyline where Satsuki and Akira inexplicably switch bodies. The second one ends with the reveal that it was all just a dream, much to the former's relief.
- Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: In Chapter 57, Satsuki explains that her failure to save her mother is why her father treats her so horribly now, and she hopes she can get him to understand the nature of her powers. In Chapter 58, Akira outright tells Satsuki that regardless of his reason, he is still a horrible parent for how he treats her.
- Friend to Bugs: In various omake, Ami (one of Komachi's friends) is shown to be an insect otaku. This carries over into the series proper where she's seen in in the background of one scene being giddy at seeing a praying mantis, she attempts to pitch a bug eating cafe for the cultural festival, and her interest in a dangerous Asian giant hornet nest results in her double-checking to make sure exterminators successfully removed it. They did, but one of the wasps was still around and manages to sting her.
- Genki Girl: One of Miho's defining traits. She's referred to in-series as a "mood pyromaniac" for a reason.
- Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: Satsuki's friends often have to forcefully interrupt whenever she's set to recklessly dive head-first into danger. Akira in particular isn't afraid to manhandle her at a moment's notice.
- Godzilla Threshold: Kai never considered using his knowledge of future deaths to cause one himself, until Sayoko's shockingly cruel treatment by their elementary school teacher convinced him that there was no other option to save her.
- Good with Numbers: Satsuki is extremely good at math and she has the best math scores in the entire school. When Sae asks to be tutored by Satsuki, she's unable to help though; she's so good at doing mental calculations that she can't comprehend that others are unable to just look at an equation and instantly know the answer like she can.
- Hate Sink: Kai and Sayoko's teacher not only does nothing to stop the class's bulling Sayoko, but encourages it for the sake of the class's unity. She goes so far as to burn Sayoko's face with chemicals for not playing her part, shows her scars to the rest of the class while mocking her. As a result, the teacher comes off as an Asshole Victim when Kai causes her to take a fatal Staircase Tumble.
- Heroic BSoD: Satsuki completely shuts down and can do nothing but mutter apologies after she fails to save Michiru.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Satsuki is genuinely out to save the lives of others, and has done so successfully on a regular basis. However, she's terrible at explaining herself or manipulating others, so this is usually conveyed by her flatly telling another person that they're about to die and then demanding they take odd precautions. Between that, the fact that none of the people she's told this to have actually died, and her tendency to do bizarre, reckless feats for no apparent reason, she's perceived as at best a weird Chuunibyou and at worst an unstable nutcase.
- Hidden Depths: Miho very much comes across as an airheaded Genki Girl, but she's one of the most perceptive characters in the series and is able to get above-average grades without studying. She's the only character who has been able to piece together without any help that Satsuki does have some sort of awareness about when people might die, and as a result becomes the second person to learn about her ability.
- Honor Before Reason: Satsuki will under no circumstances tell a lie, even when it would make things much easier for her and no harm would be caused. It's so bad that, in one instance, Satsuki threatens to jump off the school roof in order to save someone's life. This successfully undoes the prediction (since they come running to stop her), but she realises afterwards that she can't bring herself to commit to the bluff since that would make her a liar... so she jumps. Luckily she lives.
- I Hate Past Me: Seo, post-amnesia, detests her old self and desperately wants the chance to turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately for her, the only person who seems willing to believe her and give her a chance is Satsuki and many others, such as Miho, Mikami, or her old victims, believe that she's simply faking her amnesia and deserves punishment no matter what. They're right about her faking it.
- I Just Want to Have Friends: Satsuki. She's absolutely ecstatic whenever someone even implies that they want to be friends with her, and becomes extremely anxious whenever she feels she might have done something to jeopardize an existing friendship.
- It also applies to Komachi. Despite hanging around Ami and Nanase, she doesn't truly feel like they accept her. She only found comadery with Seo and Satsuki and even then, she still was hesitant to tell the latter about her powers.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: As Chapter 57 reveals, this is Satsuki's motivation. When she was thirteen, before she really knew how her powers worked, she saw the premonitory corpse of her mother. Not understanding what it meant, she ignored it, and didn't do anything to try to save her. In fact, she actually walked over the body of her dying mother due to assuming it was just the premonitory corpse and started playing video games in the other room. To this day, her father blames her for what happened, and so does she. Akira isn't exactly pleased about how this all affected Satsuki, and tells her as much in her usual abrasive fashion.
- Imagine Spot: Satsuki is prone to imagining exactly how terribly someone is about to die. On many occasions, she pictures how she could painfully expire in her attempts to save someone else, only to go ahead with the course of action anyway.
- In Love with Your Carnage: Sayoko actively revels in Kai's ability to predict deaths and use that knowledge to make them come true, especially given the duo's choice of targets. While Kai at least feels somewhat bad about how Michiru's death affects Satsuki, Sayoko fondly repeats the memory of the lightning strike.
- Interface Screw: In Chapter 48, Satsuki thinks she's undone a slew of potential deaths, only to see the telltale black smoke of the Premonitory Corpses appear in the windows of multiple classrooms. Except it's merely black ink, sprayed on the windows by Michiru on the orders of Kai, using his own knowledge of the corpses in order to trick Satsuki.
- I See Them, Too: Chapter 36 reveals that Mikami, the school council president, is also capable of seeing premonition corpses. However, instead of trying to prevent deaths, he uses his ability to ensure them in order to get rid of terrible people he believes are causing others suffering.
- Chapter 79 reveals Komachi also has this power, but can only see when a person dies.
- It's All My Fault:
- Part of the reason Kai Mikami is so driven in his quest to kill bullies and create a peaceful school environment is because he was unable to prevent Sayoko from being hurt and scarred in the past.
- Likewise, the reason Satsuki goes out of her way to save others is because she blames herself for her mother's death.
- Killed Off for Real:
- Michiru, who is struck by lightning, becomes the first casualty of the series.
- Kai, stabbed to death by Seo, who replaces him as the Big Bad.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Played with. While Satsuki manages to save Seo from being killed with poison gas, she's too late to prevent brain damage. The actual extent of the brain damage isn't explored but it's enough to cause Seo to forget who Akira and Satsuki are, and - most inconveniently - who lured her into the storage room and tried to kill her in the first place.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Of the friends that Satsuki is able to make as the manga goes on, two of them (Komachi and Sae) are unaware that she can see corpses. Even after saving their lives, they still believe that she's a compulsive liar, albeit nowhere near as malicious as others make her out to be.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: The student council pair have this dynamic. Kai is openly friendly and empathetic, physically weak and willing to give Satsuki advice that could potentially undermine his plans because he finds her efforts endearing. Sayoko is cold, aloof and stoic, willing to use force to stop Satsuki and is far more results-focused in regards to their work.
- Mirror Character:
- Satsuki to Kai. Satsuki and Kai are both able to see premonitory corpses, and are steadfast in using their abilities for good after blaming themselves for a terrible event in the past (Satsuki blames herself for her mother's death, while Kai blames himself for Sayoko getting attacked by a teacher in their youth). However, while Satsuki's definition of good is to save the victim no matter what, Kai's definition is to freely let the deaths happen (if not orchestrate the kills themselves) if they deem the victim to be morally bankrupt.
- Akira to Sayoko. Both are the best friend to their respective corpse-seer, acting as their loyal supporter and Secret-Keeper, and their friendship began after they were saved in some way by them. However, the latter was a victim of a targeted bullying campaign that her corpse-seer stopped and believes in their mission wholeheartedly. Meanwhile, Akira was the assailant in the situation that Satsuki stopped, and while she'll always support Satsuki's life-saving actions, she worries about the mental stain it causes and regularly tries to convince her to abandon her quest (if only briefly).
- Mistaken for Gay: After watching Satsuki latch herself onto Miho for a day in an attempt to save her life, Michiru comes to the conclusion that Satsuki is a love rival for Miho's affections.
- Mistaken for Profound: Sae frequently tries to get Satsuki to tutor her in mathematics, believing her to be a genius in the subject. Satsuki is of the belief that anyone could match her results due to maths equations only having one answer, much to Sae's chagrin.
- Murder by Inaction: Akira occasionally brings up the idea that Satsuki should completely ignore the deaths she sees in order to improve her wellbeing, and in one instance even floats the idea of simply letting a death occur to serve as evidence of her abilities. Satsuki strongly rejects these ideas on the basis of this trope.
- Subverted with Kai, who has used his ability in the past to ensure undesirable people he feels are deserving die.
- Mystery Magnet: Satsuki's school seems to have had far more possible fatal accidents that would be considered normal. The first chapter implies, and Akira argues, that Satsuki trying to save people who were destined to die has resulted in destiny trying to compensate by killing as many people as possible.
- Nominal Hero: Akira helps Satsuki mostly out of personal loyalty to Satsuki and concern for her well-being more than out of a desire to save lives. In fact, she's admitted that there are times where it might be better to let someone die because the world would be better off without them.
- Not Helping Your Case: Both Akira and Miho point out that Satsuki would probably have a better reputation if she at least skipped the attempted warnings that make her come across as a pathological liar at best and a complete nutjob at worst, and simply focused on saving people. Granted, even that would have its issues, as some of her more reckless rescue methods come across as though she's trying to kill people herself.
- Odd Friendship: Satsuki, who's a socially awkward outcast, winds up forming one with Miho, an energetic, narcissistic popular girl. Satsuki herself is surprised by this considering she originally outright hated Miho due to her bullying of Komachi until Miho revealed that she believes Satsuki and knows she's been saving others.
- Oh, Crap!: Kai is painfully aware of how much stronger Satsuki is than him, and often end up reacting like this whenever she barges into a room looking for him. He gets a hell of spook in Chapter 48 after Satsuki effortlessly escapes the locked room trap he set for her.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted in the case of Sakura and Asagi who both share the given name Saki.
- Only Sane Man: Miho, despite her self-centered and bitchy nature, ends up finding herself in this role on occasion, as she has common sense that the rest of the main group lacks.
- Out of Focus: Komachi's two friends are present throughout the first two volumes and seem like they're ready to start coming around on Satsuki... only to more or less disappear into the background as Akira is introduced soon after. With the cultural festival, Ami starts to get a lot more attention and even develops a friendship with Satsuki. Nanase isn't as lucky.
- Out-Gambitted: Seo's carefully constructed plan to blow up the gym is undone because Miho saw the smart switch she'd planned on using and synced it to her phone and then kept her occupied long enough for everyone to get out. Once the gym is empty Miho blows it up herself and taunts her, just to rub Seo's failure in her face.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Satsuki tends to have an extremely close relationship with those she considers friends, this is most apparent with Komachi and Akira, as Satsuki tends to blush and act like a shy love interest around them sometimes. Satsuki's reaction to being shut into a small broom closet with Komachi certainly crosses into the Ambiguously Gay territory, though she has never reacted to seeing her friends naked or anything.
- Psycho Lesbian: Michiru Michinaga has one hell of a crush on Miho, going so far as to kidnap her, tie her up and pretend to threaten her life for a fetish. She also has a habit of throwing Death Glares at Satsuki just for (unwillingly) spending the day with Miho.
- Psycho Sidekick: Akira Atou, to an extent. While she'll happily do what she can to assist her best friend, she's also of the belief that Satsuki should let at least a few people die for the sake of her mental wellbeing and reputation. She even admits that, while Satsuki is probably morally correct in how much she values all human life, she personally agrees more with the philosophy of school council president Kai Mikami, who shares Satsuki's power but instead uses it to ensure the deaths of terrible people. Plus, their friendship began with Satsuki preventing Akira's attempted patricide.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite how much she confounds him, Doumoto-sensei is probably the one most willing to cut Satsuki some slack, being there to offer her advice or praise, and even holding off on suspending her despite the rest of the faculty pushing for it. As such Satsuki greatly respects him, though even he seems to have his limits.
- Security Cling: Miho likes to hide behind her taller friends whenever the student council duo is about. Given that they've tried to kill her once and make no bones about potentially doing trying again, it's understandable.
- Sherlock Scan: Due to studying countless medical texts, Satsuki has trained herself to be able to determine the cause of death of any corpse she sees with incredible accuracy, though she can overlook crucial details if she's anxious at the time. Naturally, Mikami is implied to have developed the same talent.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: In Chapter 38, Kai attempts to get Satsuki to join him in his cause. Unable to refute his slippery words about preventing potential suffering, Satsuki simply punches him in the face instead with a simple statement: "Stop acting like murder's right!"
- Sociopathic Hero: Miho hangs around Satsuki more out of self-preservation than anything else. She's otherwise an arrogant, self-absorbed bully who openly badmouths everyone around her, makes fun of Satsuki's idealism, and seems to show little empathy for others not even showing a hint of sadness over Michiru's death. That said, she admittedly does like Satsuki even if she finds her annoying, does go out of her way to help her, and even she seemed shocked at just how batshit insane Seo turned out to be.
- Spiritual Antithesis: The author notes that the manga serves as this to their previous manga, Shi ni Aruki. Both works revolve around teenage girls who deal with people dying around them on a regular basis. However, while the latter's protagonist (Tokiko) is unperturbed by death and is more darkly amused than anything else whenever she stumbles upon a corpse or sees people die in front of her, Satsuki is deeply concerned whenever she gets a premonition of death and drops everything in order to focus on saving the victim from their fate, even if it means risking her own life. As a side effect of this, Shi ni Aruki sometimes had multiple characters die in a single chapter(three out of all 16 significant characters die in the first chapter alone), while Usotsuki tends to dedicate two to three chapters to Satsuki figuring out how to save a single individual. And on a lesser note, while both are horror/suspense stories, Tokiko being a calm-and-collected Ice Queen in contrast to the socially-awkward Plucky Girl Satsuki results in Usotsuki having far more moments of comedy.
- Taking the Bullet: How Kai dies. Seeing Seo running at Sayoko with a knife, he throws himself between them and takes the blade to the gut. Just as Seo planned.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Seo, upset that no-one was willing to believe she'd truly changed as a person during her faked amnesia, decides that there's no point in being a good person at all and sets up a plan to kill Kai and plant a bomb in the school.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Played with. The school's resident Alpha Bitch Miho is repeatedly a victim of accidents and attempted murders. However, due to Satsuki's power these potential deaths are always prevented.
- Those Two Guys: Ami and Nanase, Komachi's friends. Ami often brings a comedic slant due to her insect obsession.
- Token Evil Teammate: Miho for Team Satsuki. Unlike Akira and Satsuki (and even Komachi, who joins them in the final chapters), she is not a selfless or even a nice person, and is pretty open with them about only befriending them to maximize her chances of survival after having been saved by Satsuki multiple times already. Unlike her fellow bully Seo, Miho decides that cleaning up her act is a small price to pay for proximity to the one person (later two) who can prevent her death and will give everything to do so if need arises.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: Satsuki and Akira's tomboyish duo is later joined by Miho.
- Villainous Rescue: Kai saves Satsuki from getting impaled when she falls off a chair. While they're diametrically opposed and usually Kai would be absolutely fine with letting someone die, their twisted sense of morality means even they acknowledge Satsuki is a good person who doesn't fit into their criteria for a "deserved death."
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Amusingly, Akira's mother has more in common with Miho, being a fashion-conscious, unflappable gadfly in contrast to her delinquent daughter.
- The Watson: After Akira and later, Miho join Sastuki in stopping deaths, they take on this role, giving her someone to explain her thought process to when examining corpses, as well as help her re-evaluate whatever information she gleaned.
- "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Satsuki's dynamic with her father, who tends to be very cold towards her. She desperately hopes that she can one day properly explain her powers to him, and when she does, he'll understand and fully realize she values life just as much as he does.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The student council president can see Premonitory Corpses just as Satsuki, but uses it to ensure death of those who they think 'deserves it'. This makes Satsuki antagonistic towards them, but some characters might truly deserve to die. Akira even discusses the concept with Satsuki, asking if she really thinks no one deserves to die, knowing the kind of abuse Akira's dad put her through.
- Wham Episode:
- Chapter 28. The student council president and vice-president are aware of the ability to see Premonitory Corpses, with Kai implied to have the same power.
- Chapter 51. Satsuki fails and Michiru dies.
- Chapter 70. Seo has been faking her amnesia. Using all the information about Premonitory Corpses she learned from Satsuki, she sets up a death scenario that neither corpse-seer could see coming; fatally stabbing Kai and revealing herself as the one behind the classroom explosion to come.
- Chapter 79. Komachi is the reason the chain of premonitory corpses and deaths are occuring due to her power.
- What You Are in the Dark: When Akira points out that Satsuki could leave people to die and no-one would know, Satsuki responds that she would know that she'd failed to save somebody.
- With Friends Like These...: Discussed. Satsuki is dumbfounded by the fact Miho and her friends are not only constantly throwing insults behind each other's backs, but that each one is fully aware that the other two will immediately badmouth them as soon as they're out of earshot. Miho justifies it in the moment by saying they just find it fun, and later elaborates when confirming that she see Satsuki as a friend that it's possible to be good friends with someone and still dislike facets of their personality or behavior.
- Yandere: Michiru is openly in love with Miho and her way of showing it? By kidnapping Miho, holding her hostage in a shed, sexually assaulting her and threatening to kill her as part of a fetish she awoke to when watching Miho struggle for her life during Satsuki's first time saving her. She didn't actually intend to kill Miho and only wanted to scare her, but even still...
- You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Both Satsuki and Kai have this opinion of the other, given their stances of what constitutes 'for good' for people in their position.
