Doubt is a horror manga written by Tonogai Yoshiki with enough bloodshed and plot twists to make your head spin.
Yuu Aikawa is a typical average teenager who plays a cellphone game called "Rabbit Doubt" with his friends. In this game, the players are a warren of "rabbits" who must figure out which player is the "wolf" hidden amongst them before they are all picked off one-by-one.
Unfortunately, Yuu's normal life is cut short when he is attacked and kidnapped by a strange man wearing a grotesque rabbit mask. He wakes up to find himself trapped with the rest of his friends in an abandoned psychiatric hospital, where they will be forced to play a real-life version of Rabbit Doubt.
Which member of the group is the "wolf" tasked with killing the rest? Who is "Hajime", the stranger who acts as the sixth player of the game? And can the group find a way to trust each other long enough to escape the hospital with their lives intact?
Definitely not to be confused with the Pulitzer-prize winning play of the same name (or the movie based on it). Also not to be confused with the manga Doubt!! by Kaneyoshi Izumi or Doubt! by AMANO Sakuya.
See also Judge, which is either a sequel or a Spiritual Successor, and Secret, the third entry in the series.
This manga provides examples of:
- Abandoned Hospital: Most of the story takes place in one of these.
- Anyone Can Die: Considering the only two confirmed survivors are Mitsuki and Rei, with Yuu possibly dead.
- Arc Words: "The Liar Must Die" which is found written in blood next to most of the corpses and is the slogan for the Rabbit Doubt game.
- Ax-Crazy: Mitsuki.
- Badass Bookworm: Hajime.
- Big Bad: The Wolf is the one who uses her hypnotic abilities to trap people in a mafia-esque Deadly Game called “Rabbit Doubt” and infiltrate the group as the murderer. It turns out to be Rei Hazama, who was controlling Mitsuki Houyama and lashing out at society because she was accused of being a fraud psychic and her parents killed themselves, and attempted to kill her, out of shame.
- Brainwashed: Using hypnotism, Rei does this to Mitsuki and all the other Wolves through the TV.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: All of the Wolves.
- The Chessmaster: Rei Hazama.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Yuu and Mitsuki.
- The Ditz: Yuu, besides his early habits of jumping to conclusions easily, he also refuses to believe that anyone among the group was The Wolf… Despite that being the main rule of the cellphone game, he played so much and that the situation he is now in is clearly inspired by.
- Double Take: Yuu in the first chapter.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: In the story, the group of friends learns that one of them is the Wolf, the one who trapped them here. Come The Reveal, the Wolf is Mitsuki, but the Wolf controlling her and all other Wolves is Rei Hazama, the
Wheelchair Woobie who seemingly was the first to die. - Downer Ending: Hajime is likely hanged, Mitsuki likely kills Yuu and is prosecuted, and Rei kindly asks for the check in some random café somewhere.
- Drop the Hammer: In the special chapter, the Wolf for the drama CD is shown holding a hammer.
- Expy: Compare Yuu to Mamoru Akasaka in the Higurashi arc Tonogai worked on.
- Fanservice: No matter what's going on, we get to see a good shot of Haruka's cleavage at least three times per chapter. Or at least, until she gets killed off.
- Fair Cop: Hajime.
- Foreshadowing: On the first cover Mitsuki is wearing the same rabbit mask as the person who hit Yuu over the head to kidnap him, and on the first title page Rei is holding it on her lap. Also see below...
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Rei carries a large bunny plushie.
- Girl with Psycho Weapon: Why, hello there Mitsuki.
- Gorn
- Greater-Scope Villain: Rei. The mastermind behind all 'Rabbit Doubt' games who has Brainwashed multiple wolves including Mitsuki, using hypnotism.
- Hair-Raising Hare: It's not called Rabbit Doubt for nothing.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Eiji.
- The Hero: Yuu.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Yuu.
- Karma Houdini: Rei. For what we know, at least.
- Male Gaze
- The Man Behind the Man: Rei to Mitsuki and all other Wolves.
- Marshmallow Hell: Haruka does it to Rei, the Big Bad.
- The Medic: Hajime. It's actually just his cover.
- Missing Mom: Mitsuki's mother.
- Ms. Fanservice: Haruka.
- Nice Guy: Oh, Yuu... If it wasn't for his overprotectiveness over Mitsuki, then they might of figured out much sooner that she was the 'wolf'.
- Nietzsche Wannabe: Mitsuki and Rei.
- Not What It Looks Like: Yuu and Haruka in the first chapter; Mitsuki was not pleased.
- One-Word Title: The title of Doubt, which is a contraction of the Rabbit Doubt game, and about the game itself, where the players are a warren of "rabbits" who must figure out which player is the "wolf" hidden amongst them before they are all picked off one-by-one, which is also what the characters end up doing, for real.
- Parental Abandonment: Mitsuki's mother died before she met Yuu. Also, Rei tells Yuu that the reason Mitsuki came to her to become the Wolf and despises liars, is that her father has actually been dead for a while.
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse Haruka's head is found inside one of the rabbit masks.
- Plot Induced Stupidity: Basically a requirement for any main character in a horror manga.
- Poor Communication Kills: Obviously. The Reveal contains a particularly nasty example - Mitsuki basically murdered Kei and put Yuu through the game because the two of them bought her a birthday present as a surprise.
- Retcon: Hajime's shirt is magical, bitch!
◊ - Smart People Wear Glasses: Hajime.
- Stepford Smiler: Rei and Mitsuki, of the Unstable variety. Underneath their smiles and kind demeanor are vengeful Ax-Crazy killers.
- The Tease: Haruka.
- Teens Are Monsters: The backstories for a number of the characters involve things such as gangs and prostitution.
- Ten Little Murder Victims
- Troubled, but Cute: Eiji.
- Undercover Cop Reveal: Hajime is a cop investigating recent disappearances.
- Yandere:
- Mitsuki is one platonically for her father... Unless you want to see her love for her father in that way.
- With her backstory, Rei may also count as one. A manipulative yandere.
