Kirari Aokigahara is your typical cheerful first-year high school girl, no different from the rest. She is ready to live life to the fullest everyday. That is until one day, she finds herself running late not to school, but Seaside Cafe, a place hosted by the owner of a website known as Suicide Cafe. Selected to join this group of individuals, she immediately endures swallowing sleeping pills and entering toxic chemical cars, on the verge of dying herself and living a life cut short.
But by chance, she is denied of being able to kill herself despite her desires, and is instead forced into the role of a magical girl (a Suicide Girl in this world) to fight against Phobia, a series of suicide monster catalysts that cause havoc in her town. In the meantime, she must learn to prevent people from killing themselves at will and grow the courage to save the ones she must protect. It won't be easy for her when all is said and done.
First published in April 2020, Suicide Girl is a Horror Magical Girl manga series created by Atsushi Nakayama and released through Ultra Jump. As of 2023, it was also released in France, though no American release has come.
Suicide Girl contains examples of:
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Kirari's attempt to kill herself at the very beginning of the story instead has the opposite effect: becoming a Suicide Girl. It's later revealed this is a trait shared between all Suicide Girls; once they awaken to the potential, they either completely weather the attack (Kirari's attempt as hanging completely fails, and her attempt to stab herself ends with the knife breaking on her skin), or reality warps to prevent it (her attempt to burn herself just causes the fire to move away from her, and her attempt at falling just has her float a few inches from the ground), with the only way for one to die is at the hands of a Phobia.
- Exact Time to Failure: Once a Phobia kills someone, a Suicide Girl has 4 hours, 44 minutes, and 44 seconds from the moment of their death to save them by killing said Phobia.
- Freudian Excuse: Every Suicide Girl, barring one exception, has one behind their reason for committing the act, since its that reason that they're scouted out for being Suicide Girls.
- Kirari wanted to die so she could be with her fiancee, Sora, after he one day, committed suicide out of nowhere.
- Manten, wanting to avoid growing old and ugly, chose to die young to die beautiful.
- Akane, as a result of the last thing she saw of her parents was them smiling at each other after pushing out out of their sinking car, decided the only way she was going to go out was dying with her fated person, as the ultimate expression of a couple's love.
- Luna, unlike the others, just snapped and wanted to kill her bullies for killing her pet pigeon before taking herself out, with her first transformation happening as a result.
- Magical Girl: Or rather, a 'Suicide Girl', as explored throughout the manga.
- No Ontological Inertia: Once the Phobia is killed, reality is rewritten so that the victim's suicide (and any consequences from said suicide) never happened, so as long as its within the above timeframe.
- Psychic-Assisted Suicide: The Phobia's MO, once they target someone, it amplifies their negative feelings until they go through with the act.
- Secret Test of Character: Ryushio's "Suicide Cafe" event turns out to be this. While he does host the event to save people from commiting suicide by exorcising their Phobias with a special smoke, its also there to weed out people under possession by Phobias and people who genuinely wish to commit suicide, so he may convert the latter to Suicide Girls.
- Transformation Trinket: The Suicide Girls' means of transforming are implements by which to commit suicide with (Kirari has a noose, Manten has a razor etc.), adorned with bows to distinguish them from their ilk.
