Four schoolgirls on a field trip have their lives take a turn for the unexpected when a plane crash strands them on a deserted island. Fortunately, Homare Onishima has experience in surviving in the wild, and teaches the other girls on how to make the best of their current situation, but it will take true teamwork if the girls are to survive and return home.
Are You Lost? (ソウナンですか？) is a survival manga series written by Kentarō Okamoto and illustrated by Riri Sagara. It was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Young Magazine from January 2017 to March 2022. An anime adaptation by Ezo'la aired from July 2 to September 17, 2019, and is free to watch on Crunchyroll.
This series provides examples of the following:
- The Ace: Aside from her social skills, Homare is essentially the most important and skillful member of the group, capable of solving anything they need to survive, including a few mundane tasks such as making sunblock.
- Adapted Out: In the manga, there are also two side characters (Soji Hattori and Rui Toori) who appear as an example of what happens when they don't have someone like Homare to guide them and some chapters later they are rescued by Homare's father.
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: The story sometimes shift to the perspective of two other survivors from the other side of the island. Unlike the main group, these two have no survivor skills and have to live with no shelter and eat food from luggages.
- And the Adventure Continues: The end of episode 12 shows the girls setting up a boar trap. After a Panty Shot of Shion is shown when she's asked to trigger the trap to see how it works, a boat driven by Homare's father is shown, implying that he will eventually rescue the girls.
- Bespectacled Cutie: Mutsu, who is both rather shy and also very smart. Even Asuka comments on it.
- Blatant Lies: Asuka, disgusted by the prospect of eating a frog, lets the one she caught go and claims it was an accident. Surprisingly, Homare actually believes her, but Mutsu isn't fooled for a moment.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Homare (Blonde), Shion (Honey blonde), Asuka (Brunette), Mutsu (Redhead).
- Book Ends: The first episode involves the girls adrift at sea, surrounded by water that they can't drink. Once they reach shore, Homare has to give Mutsu some of her spit in order to rehydrate her. The last episode involves Homare and Shion low on water while on the way back to the island, with Homare shoving water into Shion's anus in order to rehydrate her.
- Born Unlucky: Homare's father. Some of his and Homare's expeditions are caused by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And when he finally arrives at the island where Homare's group is located, his ferry that he's driving turns out to be malfunctioning and causes him and the other survivors to be stranded on a different island.
- Cerebus Rollercoaster: The upbeat opening theme for the anime and some of the more comedic scenes are a stark contrast to the other parts of the series where the girls find out that surviving on a deserted island is a lot tougher than they thought. Homare does what she can to keep their morale up, usually by finding food for them, but it gets tough since none of the other girls ever had any kind of survival training like her father taught her.
- Cheated Angle: Shion's one long canine tooth is always in the side of her mouth that faces the reader (when she's seen directly from the front, it's in the left side of her mouth).
- Chekhov's Gunman: Homare's father. Though he's not physically with them, his many expeditions around the world helped to train Homare to survive on the island. When new things come up, Homare usually recalls something that her father taught her which becomes useful for their current situation.
- Chromosome Casting: The four protagonists are all female.
- Cute Little Fangs: Shion has them, which go with her occasionally biting personality.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: At first, Homare was rather aloof and more concerned with survival, but grows to care about the other girls, becoming protective of them and trying to make their situation more comfortable.
- Deliberately Bad Example: A Lower-Deck Episode of the other two survivors, Soji and Rui, shows us what happens when you don't have the expertise that Homare has, being really close to illness when they have no food (from their suitcases) and sleeping without adequate shelter.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The opening theme was performed by the four main voice actresses, while the ending theme was performed by Kiyono Yasuno, Mutsu's voice actress.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title of the last chapter, "Que Sera, Sera", first of all refers to the song of the same name, which is played on the radio the characters listen to. But since it's Spanish for "whatever happens, happens", it also refers to the fact that the girls are now stranded on the island again, but happily accept that there's nothing to do about it and that they'll make the best out of it until they can be rescued.
- Edutainment Show: The series is surprisingly educational, and the tips and survival measures given by Homare do work in real life.
- Extreme Omnivore: Due to her upbringing, Homare's food repertoire can be considered weird and different from their group.
- Fanservice: There are panty shots and the girls occasionally have to strip down to their underwear.
- Fire-Forged Friends: When they first met, the four girls belonged to different classes and social circles. However, after enough time, they practically see each other as family.
- First Kiss: Mutsu has hers when Homare shares some saliva with her to lessen the effects of dehydration in her body. She is not happy to have her first kiss that way, doubly so because Homare had just eaten a locust and Mutsu ends up with a locust leg in her mouth.
- First-Name Basis: The girls quickly start referring to each other by their first names. The only exceptions are Asuka, who once calls Homare "Onishima-san," and Shion, who routinely calls Mutsu "Amatani-san" and calls Homare "Onishima-san" for the first couple episodes.
- Five-Man Band: Homare quickly takes charge of their situation and has the survival smarts to back it up. Mutsu is the most willing to learn from Homare and could quickly calm herself in front of bad situations, especially one time when Homare is trapped under a well due to a tree blocking her. She's also the only cook that didn't delve to Homare's practical cordon bleugh style. Asuka is athletic and the strongest when doing grunt work. Shion doesn't give as much unique contribution aside from being the most adept in delicate work and being the one in charge of maintaining distress signals after being taught by Homare. As Mutsu notes, her insistence on asking for the conveniences of civilization does remind them that they are still delicate girls.
- Gag Censor: This is used in the first episode to cover Homare's privates after she attempts to give Shion "alternate sustenance".
- Hey, You!: At first, Homare doesn't refer to the others by name, resulting in Asuka getting annoyed and insisting that she call her "Asuka." Eventually, Homare switches to first names.
- Hidden Depths:
- Mutsu has the smarts and the willingness to learn that makes her the lancer to Homare. And her ambition is to become a yaoi light novelist.
- Shion is incapable of killing and is quite a complainer but she is surprisingly good at arts and crafts,note making her the group's unofficial blacksmith:Shion: (looking at her stone knife) Did I really have a talent for something like this?
- I Ate WHAT?!: More like I Drank WHAT?!, but this is Asuka's expression when she realizes she drank water from Homare's sock.
- Idiot Hair: Asuka has one, and while not dumb, she doesn't adapt as quickly to life on the island as Mutsu.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: This is what Shion tells Homare after they had to shove water into their anuses with their mouths since they couldn't just drink it. Homare almost says it anyway to Mutsu and Asuka but Shion shuts her up.
- The Load: While all of the girls contribute to their survival, Shion falls into this the most. Due to her higher class upbringing, she finds the survival situation they're in very hard to adapt to, contributes the least overall, while also complaining the most out of all of them. Even during an attempt to be useful, by helping Homare on a fishing trip, she ends up drifting out to sea and risks not just her life, but Homare's as well when the latter goes on a search and rescue mission. While the other girls enjoy her companionship, her presence is more of a burden than help.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Shion becomes more determined to be of more help to the girls after she realizes that she's contributing the least. She asks Homare to allow her to go fishing with her the next day. At first, it seems like another mundane task. Unfortunately, Shion's sitting on a small raft since she's unable to dive. While focusing on the fish in the water, she fails to realize that a rip current drags her further and further out to sea. Homare also fails to realize this as she spent much of her time underwater. By the time they realize it, Shion is far out at sea, too far to scream for help.
- No Social Skills: Homare's mind is completely focused on surviving, and she rarely talks about anything not related to the subject. She also doesn't seem to understand normal people have trouble dealing with the gross and violent aspects of a life on a deserted island. The other girls have a hard time relaxing around her because of this.
- Non-Uniform Uniform: Homare is the only one of the four main characters who wears the standard uniform without any changes. Asuka wears a sweater vest over her shirt instead of the standard blazer, Shion wears thigh socks instead of the standard knee socks, and Mutsu wears black socks instead of the standard white socks.
- Noodle Incident: The series doesn't dwell too much on the specifics of the plane crash that landed the girls on the island and starts just after the crash itself has happened. The final volume of the manga reveals the plane didn't fully crash, and while the six students on the island (four in the anime) were lost, the plane made it near a military base with no casualties, and the other passengers were rescued within hours.
- Ojou: Shion, whose family is apparently quite wealthy. She has the hardest time adapting to her new life stranded on an island.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Shion goes missing, Homare disregards her father's advice on survival for the first time, trying to find her rather than focus on her own survival.
- Parental Title Characterization:
- Homare calls her father "Papa," which Shion finds cute.
- Shion uses the very respectful "Otou-sama" and "Okaa-sama" ("Father" and "Mother") on her parents, reflecting her privileged upbringing.
- Reluctant Fanservice Girl: Mutsu, Asuka, and especially Shion, are subjected to this from time to time, often having to strip down to their underwear or having some unintentional panty shot scenes done to them.
- Robinsonade: The main theme of the series. The four girls are stranded on a remote island and must work together in order to survive.
- Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: Having traveled all around the world with her father facing all sorts of hostile environments, Homare knows a lot about how to survive in the wild. However, such an upbringing isn't good for developing social skills.
- Scary Stinging Swarm: The girls manage to get some honeycombs using smoke to scare off the bees. Homare makes it clear that bee stings can be dangerous if one is allergic to them, and while her plan is successful, she ends up getting stung a few times.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: After Shion becomes lost at sea, Homare remembers more training her father gave her, where he tells her that in a life and death situation, she should always ensure her own survival before anything else. However, due to the growing friendship she developed with the other girls, along with Mutsu and Asuka's growing concerns, and her guilt over not keeping a closer eye on Shion in the first place, she decides to risk her life by chasing after Shion in the hopes of rescuing her.
- Serious Business: Homare becomes downright giddy when she finds a pair of old scissors she can turn into a knife, to the point where she starts stroking the blade along its length.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl: Homare has no compunctions stripping down to her underwear when searching for food in the water.
- Sir Swears-a-Lot: When something goes awry, Asuka is the one most likely to let out a "crap!" or "damn!". She's also more inclined than the other girls to use vulgar terms for body parts and bodily functions, for example when she claims that "an innocent young maiden would never drink piss", to which Shion dryly observes that an "innocent young maiden" wouldn't use that word either.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Asuka, Mutsu, and Shion occasionally ignore Homare's words and search for what they want in the moment rather than what's most important for their survival. Mutsu and Asuka outgrow this phase quickly, but Shion keeps asking for the conveniences of civilization.
- When in the midst of searching for survivors, Rui manages to find the main cast having a yuzu spring bath, but ended up not warning them, since she's jealous the girls might take the attention of Hattori, the only boy in the cast.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Being partially an Edutainment Show, the manga doesn't shy away from showing how hard and disgusting life in the wild can be. For example, Homare notes that the island doesn't seem to have any plants that would make getting water and food easy, like bananas and coconuts. So they have to eat things like bugs and seaweed and explore the island on foot to find a water source.
- Being an athlete, Asuka needs a bigger intake of calories to feel healthy.
- When Asuka, Mutsu, and Shion try to eat various animals and sea creatures for the first time. They are disgusted by how casually Homare can eat bugs and shellfish, but they eventually force themselves to eat it since they need to survive.
- While Homare has no problem killing animals for sustenance, for the other girls who grew up with the conveniences of civilization, especially Asuka, killing animals like toads or rabbits is not easy to wrap their heads around. When Mutsu dissects the first rabbit Asuka killed with the knife made by Shion, Shion and Asuka hide so they won't have see it.
- The girls are rescued at the end of the ninth volume. The entirety of volume 10 is the aftermath of the following year, including medical tests, Mutsu writing a book about their time on the island, the girls becoming celebrities at their school, and Homare attempting to fit in better at school.
- Too Desperate to Be Picky: At first, the girls other than Homare aren't enthusiastic about eating the things found on the island, but eventually grow accustomed to it.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Asuka tries to look for something in the sea in the middle of a thunderstorm. She gets zapped and when Homare carries her back to shore, she points out she's lucky to be alive.
- While trying to find some food, Soji randomly eats some wild berries that resembles edible ones which turns out to be poisonous. It's a miracle that he survived with nothing more than a swollen tongue. Before this, he also attempts to eat some mushrooms that he doesn't know are poisonous or not, but Rui doesn't want to tempt fate.
- Training from Hell: Though Homare didn't seem to mind it, her trips with her father could likely be considered this. Most grade school kids probably didn't go on survival expeditions to various parts of the world with their parent. While said expeditions did help out immensely, in another universe Homare could have also just been an Ordinary High-School Student who would never get to put said skills to use outside of a few trips.
- Underwear Swimsuit: Happens practically every time the girls need to be in the water. It's expected since the girls are all trapped on a deserted island thanks to a plane crash and all the clothing they have are the school uniforms they are wearing.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
- Asuka ends up throwing up after the jam she eats turns out to be rotten.
- The girls guiding the bamboo raft end up throwing up due to motion sickness.
