History Manga / LovesickDead

[[quoteright:188:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ld_4.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:182: Not all strangers give the best advice.]]
''Lovesick Dead'' (also known as ''Undying Love'' and ''Intersection Fortune Telling'') is a short horror manga series from the ''[[Manga/JunjiItoKyoufuMangaCollection Kyoufu Manga Collection]]'' by Creator/JunjiIto, known for such works as ''{{Manga/Tomie}}'', ''{{Manga/Uzumaki}}'', ''{{Manga/Gyo}}'', and ''Manga/TheEnigmaOfAmigaraFault''.

Ryusuke, a boy returning to his foggy hometown of Nazumi, notices that its unique form of fortune-telling has become increasingly popular since he left. People will go to crossroads in the fog and cover their faces, and ask the first passing stranger to answer their questions to find advice and solace in their lives. But ever since he returned, girls who go to the crossroads have begun to break down and violently kill themselves after hearing an answer.

While he seeks to find the cause and solution to this disturbing problem, he is challenged, for not only are the dead not leaving the crossroads, but Ryusuke fears that he may be tied to the mysterious events in more ways than one...
----

!! Tropes appearing in ''Lovesick Dead'':
* AtTheCrossroads: The fortune telling is practiced at these, and often, life-changing questions are asked there...and unfortunately, answered for the worse.
* TheAtoner: Ryusuke, for he believes [[spoiler: he started this whole mess as a child by brushing off a woman who became the first crossroads suicide from his dismissal. He not only resolves to catch the one causing the problems, but seeks to restore hope and avert future suicides by giving good fortunes, which eventually becomes his defined role]].
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The beautiful boy at the crossroads cultivates the obsessive love of the girls in the town, even after their deaths. [[spoiler: Ryusuke, after becoming the boy in white, tells the undead horde of spirits to go right ahead and love him, and the chaotic swarm destroys them all.]]
* BigBad: The mysterious boy at the crossroads, whose pieces of advice have compulsive and devastating effects on the girls who hear them.
* {{Bishonen}}: Both the beautiful boy at the crossroads and [[spoiler: Ryuusuke, as the boy in white]] are depicted with femininely attractive faces and gain the term as an epithet in the original Japanese text.
* BittersweetEnding: While at the end, the [[spoiler: boy at the crossroads and ghosts seem to be gone, many lives have been ruined by intersection fortune-telling and the protagonist must bear the burden of restoring and aiding the town as it continues its practice.]]
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: The boy at the crossroads vs. the aptly-titled boy in white [[spoiler:AKA Ryusuke]].
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Ryusuke and Midori knew each other as kids and become romantic upon reunion. The horror stepping in makes sure it doesn't let it last, though.
* {{Determinator}}: Ryusuke, who has a personal stake in stopping the events and gets accused of being the devilish boy along the way, will nevertheless do anything to catch the real deal. [[spoiler:Not even being mobbed by a giant army of suicide ghosts and being most definitely killed in the encounter stop him from continuing to oppose the boy at the crossroads, becoming a MessianicArchetype in the process.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: Starting with one woman, many girls have been driven to suicide after hearing bad intersection fortunes, seemingly compelled by the mysterious beautiful boy to doom themselves after hearing his advice. The majority, who are told they will never have love, become obsessed with their crushes until a final rejection pushes them to kill themselves. [[spoiler: Even the ''dead'' still have this urge when they are denied the answer they want, but it is likely they have already been so warped by the boy's initial words that the newcomers are not to blame for their reaction.]]
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: The beautiful boy at the crossroads has pale skin that stands out against his black hair and clothing.
* ExactWords: Midori [[spoiler: is compelled by the beautiful boy's advice to hate Ryusuke for the rest of her life. After he begs for her to forgive him, she goes out and kills herself to spare herself and Ryusuke that torment, noting that by shortening her life, she has ended the problem while fulfilling the pronouncement.]]
* FanMob: A very twisted case with the boy at the crossroads and the girls he has told will not find love. Their affections turn to him and they mob him just like a normal group of teen girls and an attractive male idol, which is even what the scene is mistaken for by a curmudgeon complaining about the noise.
* FrameUp: [[spoiler: Ryusuke's friend Tejima]] frames Ryusuke as the Intersection's Pretty Boy, even going so far as to pierce his ears in his sleep because a lack of ear holes would have proven them different. [[spoiler: However, he wasn't trying to implicate him to others, but to get him to doubt his sanity so he would kill himself and join Suzue in death at her urging.]]
* GoodCounterpart: The boy at the crossroads gets one in the form of [[spoiler: Ryusuke, who becomes the boy in white, encouraging the suicidal to find purpose by helping others instead of driving the happy to suicide.]]
* LeanAndMean: The beautiful boy at the crossroads is unnaturally tall and the instigator for the current tragedies befalling the town.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: While there are definitely supernatural elements in the story, the reason fortunes drive people to madness isn't completely clear. On the one hand, it could be that the boy at the crossroads has some dark powers that make people take their fortunes to the worst possible end, but it's also possible it's more psychological and people are taking fortunes the wrong way due to suggestion and their own will rather than magic and that they are following them to the end due to the finality of the fortunes in the town's custom.
* MultipleChoicePast: The boy at the crossroads is suggested to be either the unborn child that died with Midori's aunt (who was the first fortune-telling suicide), or the runaway elder son of the man who had affairs with both Midori's aunt and the "troubled woman" in the second chapter.
* OminousFog: The town is filled with it at nights when the beautiful is out, though it disappears once the supernatural evils are gone. [[spoiler: When a mass suicide occurs, the fog turns red from the blood]], and [[spoiler: when Ryusuke becomes the boy in white]], the fog becomes softer and more ethereal.
* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The spirits of the girls who died look more solid and take the form of their rotting corpses, though it's never clear how physical they are.
* PoliceAreUseless: When Ryusuke visits the police about the situation, he is instead turned against because of the efforts to frame him as the boy at the crossroads.
* ProphetEyes: The boy at the crossroads [[spoiler: and later, the boy in white]].
* SerialEscalation: The woman in the second chapter keeps having worse issues to deal with, asking countless questions seeking advice and always taking the worst options, destroying her life with increasingly drastic and damaging choices. [[spoiler: Her question was dismissed by the crossroads boy with a remark to find a bigger problem, Rather than taking the response as a dismissal or an opportunity to reexamine the severity of her issues, the woman fell into a quest to literally find a bigger problem and do it again each time she worsens her life. When she self-immolates and is hospitalized, the question remains whether she was sucidal or whether she was just creating a bigger problem for herself.]]
* SlashedThroat: Possibly as a side effect of whatever has gripped the town, the girls all commit suicide by cutting their necks with box cutters.
* StalkerWithACrush: The girls told they will never succeed in love turn into these, first with Suzue Tanaka toward Ryusuke, and then with a swarm of victims toward the beautiful boy.
* TomatoInTheMirror: Invoked, as Ryusuke starts to doubt his sanity and wonder if he and the boy at the crossroads are one and the same, especially after others reach that conclusion, but the evidence he sees has been planted by his friend trying to get Ryusuke to kill himself and join Suzue so her ghost will leave him alone.

----

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: While there are definitely supernatural elements in the story, the reason fortunes drive people to madness isn't completely clear. On the one hand, it could be that the boy at the crossroads has some dark powers that make people take their fortunes to the worst possible end, but it's also possible it's is more psychological anpeople are taking fortunes the wrong way due to suggestion and their own will rather than magic and that they are following them to the end due to the finality of the fortunes in the town's custom.

* SerialEscalation: The woman in the second chapter keeps having worse issues to deal with, asking countless questions seeking advice and always taking the worst options, destroying her life with increasingly drastic and damaging choices. [[spoiler: Her question was dismissed by the crossroads boy with a remark to find a bigger problem, Rather than taking the response as a dismissal or an opportunity to reexamine the severity of her issues, the woman fell into a quest to literally find a bigger problem and do it again each time she worsens her life. When she self-immolates, the question remains whether she was sucidal or whether she was just creating a bigger problem for herself.]]

* StalkerWithACrush: The girls told they will never succeed in love turn into these, first with Suzue Tanaka, and then with a swarm of victims and the beautiful boy.
* TomatoInTheMirror: Invoked, as Ryusuke starts to doubt his sanity and wonder if he and the boy at the crossroads are one and the same, especially after others reach that conclusion, but the evidence he sees is planted by his friend trying to get Ryusuke to kill himself and join Suzue so her ghost will leave him alone.

Ryusuke, a boy returning to his foggy hometown of Nazumi, notices that its unique form of fortune-telling has become increasingly popular since he left. People will go to crossroads on the fog and cover their faces, and ask the first passing stranger to answer their questions to find advice and solace in their lives. But ever since he returned, girls who go to the crossroads have begun to break down and violently kill themselves after hearing an answer.

Ryusuke, a boy returning to his foggy hometown of Nazumi, notices that its unique form of fortune-telling has become increasingly popular since he left. People will go to crossroads on the fog and cover their faces, and ask the first passing stranger to answer their questions to find advice and solace in their lives. But ever since he left, girls who go to the crossroads have begun to break down and violently kill themselves after hearing an answer.

* FanMob: A very twisted case with the boy at the crossroads and the girls he has told will not find love. Their affections turn to him and they mob him just like a normal group of teen girls and an attractive male idol, which is even what the scene is mistaken for by a newcomer to the town.

* SerialEscalation: The woman in the second chapter keeps having worse issues to deal with, asking countless questions seeking advice and always taking the worst options, destroying her life with increasingly drastic and damaging choices. [[spoiler: She was given the advice to put her issues into context to make them seem smaller, but seeing as the malicious boy at the crossroads gave her that advice, it turned into a quest to constantly "seek a bigger problem". When she self-immolates, the question remains whether she was sucidal or whether she was just creating a bigger problem for herself.]]

* StalkerWithACrush: The girls told they will never succeed in love turn into these, first with Suzue Tanaka, and then with a swarm of victims and the beautiful boy

Ryuusuke, a boy returning to his foggy hometown of Nanchou-shi, notices that its unique form of fortune-telling has become increasingly popular since he left. People will go to crossroads and cover their faces, and ask the first passing stranger to answer their questions to find advice and solace in their lives. But ever since he left, girls who go to the crossroads have begun to break down and violently kill themselves after hearing an answer.

While he seeks to find the cause and solution to this disturbing problem, he is challenged, for not only are the dead not leaving the crossroads, but Ryuusuke fears that he may be tied to the mysterious events in more ways than one...

* TheAtoner: Ryuusuke, for he believes [[spoiler: he started this whole mess as a child by brushing off a woman who became the first crossroads suicide from his dismissal. He not only resolves to catch the one causing the problems, but seeks to restore hope and avert future suicides by giving good fortunes, which eventually becomes his defined role]].
* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The Intersection's Pretty Boy cultivates the obsessive love of the girls in the town, even after their deaths. [[spoiler: Ryuusuke, after becoming the White-Clothed Pretty Boy, tells the undead horde of spirits to go right ahead and love him, and the chaotic swarm destroys them all.]]
* BigBad: The mysterious figure known as the Intersection's Pretty Boy, whose pieces of advice have compulsive and devastating effects on the girls who hear them.
* {{Bishonen}}: Both the Intersection's Pretty Boy and [[spoiler: Ryuusuke, as the White-Clothed Pretty Boy]] are depicted with femininely attractive faces and gain the term as an epithet in the original Japanese text, which becomes "Pretty Boy" in English.
* BittersweetEnding: While at the end, the [[spoiler: Pretty Boy and ghosts seem to be gone, many lives have been ruined by intersection fortune-telling and the protagonist must bear the burden of restoring and aiding the town as it continues its practice.]]
* BlackAndWhiteMorality: The Intersection's Pretty Boy vs. the aptly-named White-Clothed Pretty Boy [[spoiler:AKA Ryuusuke]].
* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Ryuusuke and Midori knew each other as kids and become romantic upon reunion. The horror stepping in makes sure it doesn't let it last, though.
* {{Determinator}}: Ryuusuke, who has a personal stake in stopping the events and gets accused of being the devilish Pretty Boy along the way, will nevertheless do anything to catch the real deal. [[spoiler:Not even being mobbed by a giant army of suicide ghosts and being most definitely killed in the encounter stop him from continuing to oppose the Intersection's Pretty Boy, becoming a MessianicArchetype in the process.]]
* DrivenToSuicide: Starting with one woman, many girls have been driven to suicide after hearing bad intersection fortunes, seemingly compelled by the mysterious Pretty Boy to doom themselves after hearing his advice. The majority, who are told they will never have love, become obsessed with their crushes until a final rejection pushes them to kill themselves. [[spoiler: Even the ''dead'' still have this urge when they are denied the answer they want, but it is likely they have already been so warped by the Pretty Boy's initial words that the newcomers are not to blame for their reaction.]]
* EeriePaleSkinnedBrunette: The Intersection's Pretty Boy.
* ExactWords: Midori [[spoiler: is compelled by the Pretty Boy's advice to hate Ryuusuke for the rest of her life. After he begs for her to forgive him, she goes out and kills herself to spare herself and Ryuusuke that torment, noting that by shortening her life, she has ended the problem while fulfilling the pronouncement.]]
* FanMob: A very twisted case with the Intersection's Pretty Boy and the girls he has told will not find love. Their affections turn to him and they mob him just like a normal group of teen girls and an attractive male idol, which is even what the scene is mistaken for by a newcomer to the town.
* FrameUp: [[spoiler: Ryuusuke's friend Teshima]] frames Ryuusuke as the Intersection's Pretty Boy, even going so far as to pierce his ears in his sleep because a lack of ear holes would have proven them different. [[spoiler: However, he wasn't trying to implicate him to others, but to get him to doubt his sanity so he would kill himself and join Reishi in death at her urging.]]
* GoodCounterpart: The Intersection's Pretty Boy gets one in the form of [[spoiler: Ryuusuke, who becomes the White-Clothed Pretty Boy, encouraging the suicidal to find purpose by helping others instead of driving the happy to suicide.]]
* LeanAndMean: The Intersection's Pretty Boy is unnaturally tall and the instigator for the current tragedies befalling the town.
* MultipleChoicePast: The Intersection's Pretty Boy is suggested to be either the unborn child that died with Midori's aunt (who was the first fortune-telling suicide), or the runaway elder son of the man who had affairs with both Midori's aunt and the "troubled woman" in the second chapter.
* OminousFog: The town is filled with it at nights when the Pretty Boy is out, though it disappears once the supernatural evils are gone. [[spoiler: When a mass suicide occurs, the fog turns red from the blood]], and [[spoiler: when Ryuusuke becomes the White-Clothed Pretty Boy]], the fog becomes softer and more ethereal.

* PoliceAreUseless: When Ryuusuke visits the police about the situation, he is instead turned against because of the efforts to frame him as the Intersection's Pretty Boy.
* ProphetEyes: The Intersection's Pretty Boy [[spoiler: and later, the White-Clothed Pretty Boy]].
* SerialEscalation: The woman in the second chapter keeps having worse issues to deal with, asking countless questions seeking advice and always taking the worst options, destroying her life with increasingly drastic and damaging choices. [[spoiler: She was given the advice to put her issues into context to make them seem smaller, but seeing as the malicious Pretty Boy gave her that advice, it turned into a quest to constantly "seek a bigger problem". When she self-immolates, the question remains whether she was sucidal or whether she was just creating a bigger problem for herself.]]

* StalkerWithACrush: The girls told they will never succeed in love turn into these, first with Reishi Tanaka, and then with a swarm of victims and the Intersection's Pretty Boy.

* DrivenToSuicide: Starting with one woman, many girls have been driven to suicide after hearing bad intersection fortunes, seemingly compelled by the mysterious Pretty Boy to doom themselves after hearing his advice. The majority, who are told they will never have love, become obsessed with their crushes until a final rejection pushes them to kill themselves. [[spoiler: Even the ''dead'' still have this urge when they are denied the answer the want, but it is likely they have already been so warped by the Pretty Boy's initial words that the newcomers are not to blame for their reaction.]]

%% * {{Bishonen}}: Both the Intersection's Pretty Boy and [[spoiler: Ryuusuke, as the White-Clothed Pretty Boy]] display this and are referred to as such in the original Japanese text. It just becomes an awkward translation to "Pretty Boy" in English.

* {{Bishonen}}: Both the Intersection's Pretty Boy and [[spoiler: Ryuusuke, as the White-Clothed Pretty Boy]] display this and are referred to as such in the original Japanese text. It just becomes an awkward translation to "Pretty Boy" in English.

''Lovesick Dead'' (also known as ''Undying Love'' and ''Intersection Fortune Telling'') is a short horror manga series by Creator/JunjiIto, known for such works as ''{{Manga/Tomie}}'', ''{{Manga/Uzumaki}}'', ''{{Manga/Gyo}}'', and ''Manga/TheEnigmaOfAmigaraFault''.

* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The spirits of the girls who died look more solid and take the firm of their rotting corpses, though it's never clear how physical they are.

* FrameUp: [[spoiler: Ryuusuke's friend Teshima frames Ryuusuke as the Intersection's Pretty Boy, even going so far as to pierce his ears in his sleep because a lack of ear holes would have proven them different. However, he wasn't trying to implicate him to others, but to get him to doubt his sanity so he would kill himself and join Reishi in death at her urging.]]

* MultipleChoicePast: The Intersection's Pretty Boy is suggested to be either the unborn child that died with Midori's aunt, the first fortune-telling suicide, or the runaway elder son of the man who had affairs with both Midori's aunt and the "troubled woman" in the second chapter.

''Lovesick Dead'' (also known as ''Undying Love'' and ''Intersection Fortune Telling'') is a short horror manga series by Creator/JunjiIto.

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The Intersection's Pretty Boy cultivates the obsessive love of the girls in the town, even after their deaths. [[Ryuusuke, after becoming the White-Clothed Pretty Boy, tells the undead horde of spirits to go right ahead and love him, and the chaotic swarm destroys them all.

Ryuusuke, a boy returning to his foggy hometown of Nanchou-shi, notices that its unique form of fortune-telling has become increasingly popular since he left. People will go to crossroads and cover their faces, and ask the first passing stranger to answer their questions to find advice and solace in their lives. But ever since he left, girls who go to the crossroads have begun to break down and violently kill themselves after hearing an answer. While he seeks to find the cause and solution to this disturbing problem, he is challenged, for not only are the dead not leaving the crossroads, but Ryuusuke fears that he may be tied to the mysterious events in more ways than one...

* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: The Intersection's Pretty Boy cultivates the obsessive love of the girls in the town, even after their deaths. [[Ryuusuke, after becoming the White-Clothed Pretty Boy, tells the undead horde of spirits to go right ahead and love him.

[[caption-width-right:220: Not all strangers give the best advice. ]]

''Lovesick Dead'' (also known as ''Undying Love'' and ''Intersection Fortune Telling'') is a horror manga series by Creator/JunjiIto.