Sickness Unto Death Volume 1

Futaba Kazuma is an 18 year old college student, learning clinical psychology whilst living in a mansion which the neighbours claim is ‘haunted’. Apart from the butler, the only other person living in the mansion is Emiru, a young girl suffering from deep despair. Emiru is physically weak and refusing to open up on her emotional state, so Kazuma takes it upon himself to try and help the poor girl whilst learning about her condition. But will his feelings for her merely get in the way, or perhaps save her?

Sickness Unto Despair is a two volume manga series with art by Takahiro Seguchi and story by Hikari Asada based upon a 1849 novel by the same name by Søren Kierkegaard, which admittedly I have not read and do not know much about. However, lacking that knowledge won’t affect your understanding of this series as the manga seems to be making references to its text to support its content rather than anything else. As the series is short, the first volume moves at a rather swift and predictable pace, yet we don’t learn much after turning the last page of the book.

The majority of the story is told in flashback with the opening chapter spoiling the reader that we’re to expect a sad ending. Kazuma and Emiru meet briefly on the street and it’s not long before they’re living together, and despite Emiru’s lack of wanting to open up to any professional psychiatrist beforehand, she promptly makes a special exception with Kazuma. Soon Kazuma realises that his feelings run deeper than mere admiration and the lines between ‘doctor’ and ‘patient’ are crossed, which will surely raise a few eyebrows as well as ethical questions. The relationship moves swiftly and we don’t learn much about the lead characters, mostly to keep the mystery of the source of Emiru’s despair going, but as a result the relationship feels flat and rushed. Outside of that we have hints at what seems to be a supernatural mystery, providing the more successful side of the story. There’s a lot bearing on the childlike innocence of drawings that creates intrigue around the supposed ‘ghost’. Whether it’s truly a supernatural occurrence or a fabrication from Emiru’s mind is yet to be known but it impels the reader to push on through the wetly written romance.

While the art itself is very neat and clinical (pardon the pun) and it’s easy to follow the panels, it lacks any visual flair; the characters look plain, the backgrounds don’t strive to be anything outside of what they need to be and there’s nothing unique to help the artist make his mark on the page.

Sickness Unto Death Volume 1 tries to come across as serious and deep thinking, and whilst the reader gets to learn more about the process of therapy, which is interesting in places, the main pull of the story – the romance – is thin on the ground. The art looks nice but it won’t pull you into the deep dark story it’s trying to create. Still, the series is only two books long, so if you fancy dipping into the story, you won’t have to spend much on it to see how it plays out.