Written by Tsuina Miura (initial writer of Ajin) and illustrated by Takahiro Oba (Box!), High-Rise Invasion is a manga series with a heavy reliance on Fanservice and violence, with barely a chapter going by without either a Panty Shot or someone's head exploding. The manga was serialized in Manga Box from 2013 to 2019.
A sequel, High-Rise Invasion Arrive, set a while after the first story, was released a few months after the end of the first series. It follows Senya, a young boy who dreams of being an astronaut that is transported to a wrecked version of the High-Rise World and obtains strange skills from a rifle he finds.
An anime adaptation by Zero-G was released on Netflix in 2021.
This manga provides examples of:
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The Original Manga
- Action Survivor: It takes a lot to survive even a day in this world, so any character who passes that mark qualifies as this trope.
- Adapted Out: The anime omits Yuri's encounter with the three middle school boys to fast track her meeting Nise by the start of Episode 2. Elements of the boys' story concerning how people become Angels are instead presented through exposition from other characters.
- Already Done for You: When Nise falls into a coma as a result of using a defective mask, Yuri becomes a Person Closer to God so she can gain the power to save her. While she is doing this, Kuon and Sniper Mask happen upon Nise and patch her up themselves.
- And the Adventure Continues: The story ends with the Administrator being defeated, and the conflicts between all parties involved are put to a halt by the Supervisor. However, the boundaries of dimensions between the real world, the world where the story takes place and countless others are still unstable, necessiting the continued existence of the "killing system to create God" that Yuri and the protagonists have been aiming to destroy since the beginning of the story. There are also elements of Sequel Hook, as the Supervisor itself claims even it doesn't know who build the system, the protagonists remain in the God-selection world, and there is strong implication the selection system to create God will proceed in some form or another.
- Anti-Villain: Most of the Angels are not evil people; they are just brainwashed into murdering non-masks.
- Arduous Descent to Terra Firma: Yuri Honjo finds herself trapped into an alternate world where suspension bridges and the rooftops of skyscrapers are patrolled by serial killers, and she happens to be in one such area. At first, she tries to make her way back to the urban road while dodging her pursuers, but over the course of the story, she learns that the only way to get rid of the ongoing threat is by defeating the Administrator who watches over this alternate world.
- Asshole Victim: The cop who kills his own partner and threatens to rape Yuri. Sniper Mask kills him.
- Awesome by Analysis: This is one of the reasons why the Honjo siblings survive in this world despite not possessing any remarkable physical advantage. They take in their environment, process it, and make damn good use of it.
- Badass in Distress: Yuri and Nise get captured/surrounded by angels.
- Badass Family: Yuri and Rika take huge levels of badass as the story progresses. Yuka was already badass to begin with as Sniper Mask but then they proceed to become even more so after inheriting Kuon's consciousness and abilities as well as acquiring one of the God Codes.
- Beyond the Impossible: Comes up once when Brother and Yuri talk about a mask's effect. The masks enhances your physical ability to a wildly improbable level, but not an impossible one.
- Big Damn Heroes: Yuri pulls one when she rescues Nise from Chef Mask. Nise pays her back when she rescues Yuri from Rider Mask.
- Blade Enthusiast: Nise loves using small blades in combat.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Angels. Their masks make them so.
- Children Forced to Kill: It's not enough that an entity you couldn't see snatches up your kids and teens; they also send them onto a world full of killing machines. Or, even worse, they might even wind up becoming brainwashed killing machines themselves.
- Cliffhanger: The anime only covers about half the manga storyline, ending around the point where Rika gets kidnapped. As of Q3 2023, no announcement has been made of a second season to finish the story.
- Clothing Damage: Yuri gets her shirt and skirt cut open pretty early, mainly to increase the number of cleavage and panty shots. Nise spends half the series with her top sliced open to expose her bra.
- Crapsaccharine World: The high-rises. It's a perfectly manicured world where food is guaranteed and the view is spectacular—you just can't get down to the first floor. And there are people in strange masks (with a wide variety of weapons) who will kill you on sight unless you commit suicide.
- Comic-Book Time: It takes fifty chapters just to get through Yuri's first day in the high-rises.
- Despair Event Horizon: The purpose of the masks is to frighten and assault people until they become desperate enough to jump off the high-rises.
- "Die Hard" on an X: Die Hard in an alternate realm filled with high rise buildings and Brainwashed and Crazy Malevolent Masked Men with the cute high school girl as the John McClane.
- Driving Question: Just what is this world, exactly? And what's Yuri going to do about it?
- Embarrassing First Name: Rika Honjo finds his first name embarrassing since "Rika" is usually a girl's name. Kuon Shinzaki dislikes her name as well.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Yuri unknowingly avoids getting attacked by a mask because he still had the decency of not entering the women's restroom.
- Weaponized against masks by appealing to personal traits such as the Baseball Mask who's obligated to show sportsmanship when forced into an impromptu game.
- Evil Mask: A technological example. The masks are capable of compelling anyone who looks at the inside to put them on and follow their commands.
- Evolving Credits: Any prominent Angel's true face like Ein and Kusakabe that get revealed are shown in the opening credits.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Yuri and Nise first met when Yuri came across Nise killing another survivor.
- Foil: Nise to Yuri. Yuri is cheery, determined, and optimistic. Nise, on the other hand, is somber, jaded, and callous.
- Genius Bruiser: Rika knows everything.
- Good is Not Nice: Rika. A side character even explicitly says this.
- Guns Are Useless: Happens once when Rider Mask shows up. He is so fast that no bullets can hit him.
- Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: The Honjo siblings share this dynamic: Yuri typically prefers pistols, while her brother fights masks with his sledge hammer.
- Homoerotic Subtext: Yuri and Nise have a lot of lesbian tease moments, especially since Nise is all-but-stated to be in love with her.
- Hope Crusher: The masks' favored tactic is to drive their victims over the Despair Event Horizon and get them to kill themselves.
- Imagine Spot: We get panels of several characters dying that turn out to be the character imaging their death in the middle of a fight.
- In the Style of: The manga and the anime gives off a feel that they were written and directed by Brett Leonard in vein of his films The Dead Pit, The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity, especially the latter.
- Lampshade Hanging: A game designer wannabe finds himself transported to this world. Sure enough, all of his monologues run on this trope.
- Lightning Bruiser: Nise, after she wears a mask. The strong masks (Maid Mask, Chef Mask, Rider Mask) are these, too.
- More Dakka: The most Guardian Angels wield M-4s.
- Ms. Fanservice: Yuri's skirt flips up quite a bit.
- Nice Girl: Yuri is a polite and sweet young lady.
- Nobody Poops: Averted. Both Yuri and Nise are shown to use the bathroom. They become worried about this trope when they have to spend the night making camp on the roof. Since they are living in a state of emergency, they reason, they agree that if it comes down to it they'll just have to do it in the open.
- Not Brainwashed: Chef Mask found a defective mask which gives him the powers of an Angel while letting him retain his free will - he's completely Ax-Crazy of his own volition. Nise later appropriates his mask to help protect Yuri.
- Pintsized Powerhouse: Kuon Shinzaki, who is among the shortest and physically smallest character in the series. She also happens to control a rail gun.
- Plucky Girl: Yuri will not stop until she gets to her brother.
- Police Are Useless: Double-subverted. A police officer saves Yuri from the first Mask she encounters, but then is shoved to his death by his younger colleague who turns out to be an unhinged sociopath who then tries to rape Yuri before he is killed by Sniper Mask.
- Potty Dance: Yuri does a wriggly sitting-down variant in Chapter 14.
- Primal Fear: The height.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The fate of any Angel who has their mask damaged to the point where they can't perform their duties.
- Red Herring: For a while it looked like Sniper Mask was Yuri's brother, due to having her picture. but this was proven false later. We do end up discovering that the two knew each other before arriving in the strange world, however.
- Running Gag: Brother says...
- Secret Test of Character: After Yuri tells him of her plan to destroy this world, Brother dismisses it as impossible and tells her to shoot Nise to save herself. It's only when Yuri threatens to kill Brother instead that Brother is willing to support Yuri's plan to destroy this world.
- Self-Deprecation: Rika. Between complaining about his name, conceding that he has a twisted mind, and fearing about acting lame in front of his sister, the guy just takes it too seriously sometimes. In truth, all of his gripes are nonsense: He is as badass as they come.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: Sniper Mask, in a three-piece suit and tie, complete with a nice hat.
- Shout-Out:
- At one point, Yuri needs to create a password. She decides to go with a phrase from a series she watched a lot as a child. Although the words are changed, it's clear that the phrase is the incantation used in Cardcaptor Sakura for the titular character to summon her staff and even ends with her screaming "Release".
- One page
has Masks who look suspiciously like Taki and Mitsuha from Your Name.
- Story-Breaker Power: The world's higher-ups consider Yuri's ability to cross dimensions as this and want her eliminated as soon as possible, seeing it as a violation of the rules and hugely tips the odds in her favor.
- Superpower Lottery: Putting on the Mouthless Masks is this to make you a Person Closer to God. Yuri gets the jackpot by being able to teleport all over the place.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- It's specifically stated by Brother that while the mask enhances your power to the limit of human physique, it will not alter your basic stamina. In a prolonged battle, the Angel who has the bigger body and/or wields the lighter weapon would eventually overpower the other Angel. Nise uses this to her advantage when fighting Ein: She is a growing teenager wielding a combat knife while Ein is hardly an adolescent who wields a long Japanese katana.
- The Angels have to eat. So, they have to remove their masks. Also, if, say, the Angels sneeze, they are allowed to remove their masks for a short while to wipe the snot off their face. This also applies if they need to wash their face.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Aohara specifically mentions that he is only able to manipulate one Angel at a time. Rika catches this right away and warns Yuri to beware of the second Angel.
- Super Window Jump: Nise does this on battle vs the Great Angel with the speech which she would never say, in order for Kuon to shoot a railgun to him.
- Took a Level in Badass: Yuri becomes more combat cabable over time.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Nise loses the dark in her Dark Action Girl over time.
- White Mask of Doom: The primary antagonists are people wearing blank white masks that compel them to drive people to suicide, or failing that, straight-up murder them.
- World of Badass: The Angels enhance the physical abilities of anyone who wears them. Naturally, anyone who is able to stand up to them has to be a badass by default.
Arrive
- After the End: The High-Rise World now looks ruined and unkempt.
- Big Bad: The mysterious woman; implied to be some sort of older, maddened Yuri; is the most powerful being of the High-Rise World and has been bringing people in to collect their despair.
- Space Elevator: The big building at the center of the world has changed: it's no longer the Rail Gun, it's now an orbital elevator, and it's believed that getting to its top will win the game.
