Apart from perhaps one of the most offensive twists I've ever experienced, this is just another really bad death game.

The Quiz is a death game manga by Rika Takahashi (art) and Takashi Sugimoto (story).

I could probably make the argument that this isn't even really worth reviewing. Knowing that it's in the horror genre, the moment you look at the title and the cover of the manga, you could easily immediately dismiss this series.

There's going to be a Quiz of some sort, and it's going to be the type that if you answer incorrectly, you're probably gonna fucking die because it's a horror manga. Or rather, a death game.

Oh excuse me, a death QUIZ.

But honestly, this series is just so terrible and nonsensical enough that I'd make the argument it is worth reviewing and/or reading.

It goes without saying however that the various elements that make it as such delve into spoiler territory. So if you're set on reading this, and I'd only recommend it if you're already into death games, this is the point of the review to stop reading unless you don't care about being spoiled on the various twists of the Quiz.

At this point, after reading and/or experiencing a few different death game series, I've already given up on even hoping for... even mediocre writing. It's usually always just one big old ball of nonsense and terrible and awful characters and their relationships with other pretty unlikable characters. But the Quiz doesn't even ease you in.

Right out of the gate, the name of the actual Quiz the characters are here to compete in is called "Dead or Dream."

It does not take more than two brain cells to come to the conclusion that name implies that if you lose, you're going to be killed. Now, even with the odd name, from the perspective of the characters themselves, they probably have no reason to immediately think "oh they're gonna kill people if they answer incorrect or lose the round."

But like why not just... pick a more subtle name? Preferably something without DEAD in it?

Even if you just shrug and give that a pass... like in the very first round it's revealed that you can just call someone and describe to them the question in hopes of getting the right answer. Or, or even BETTER YET you could just fucking punch the question into your goddamned cell phone's search engine. Really? You won your way onto this quiz, and... the very first question, you're turning to GOOGLE?

Oh, I'm sorry. Not Google™. I meant Seagull. Of course.

What the fuck is Google? What? That's not even a real thing. I use AskJeeves. Or now as it's known now in the future, Ask. They fucking just kicked Jeeves to the side and now he's homeless.

But Seagull is the best search engine of them all and if there existed a similar sounding search engine with a different name, it'd still pale in comparison.

Anyways, right out of the gate, this Quiz is just fucked. Like I assumed the Quiz would just be... a Quiz. You know... with questions? But instead, immediately, they're asked to each pick one out of ten differently colored bottles and once they all do, they're told to drink the contents.

And none of them, not even a single one, thinks to actually question this.

"What are you making me drink?"

And the answer is poison of course. Everybody got poison but the one who picked wrong had fast acting poison that killed them almost immediately.

And of course it was the girl who immediately just guessed and picked a random bottle. They were the very first to pick a bottle and they just coincidentally picked the ONE wrong choice.

But whatever, her death reveals that the rest of the characters are fucked because they're now locked into the death quiz.

And you know after that point it's just your typical run of the mill death game horseshit. I will say the questi... puzzles... are just complete bullshit.

Like okay maybe I could give a pass on the bottles because maybe someone could look at all those bottles in all those different colors and somehow arrive at the conclusion: POOL BALLS. Except there is no indigo colored pool ball, and even if there was one, it's definitely not #8.

But then the guns with the numbers on them... the solution is... there's just no fucking way any actual human being would be able to actually fucking come to this conclusion. In this situation, any one of them could die at any moment. But instead, the girlfriend of the protagonist just blurts out

THERE'S NINE GUNS
THE SOLAR SYSTEM HAD NINE PLANETS
BUT PLUTO ISN'T A PLANET ANYMORE
SO EIGHT GUNS ARE CORRECT AND ONE IS INCORRECT BEH

and then there's an additional layer to the answer because the numbers represent the letters of the planets but in the English language and also... the Pluto gun is the incorrect gun. You would think that would mean it would be the gun to fire? But instead, one of the correct guns behind the guy with the Pluto gun goes off and kills him. Because the fucking snarky Quiz host could... undo the safety mechanisms of any of the guns remotely... which... what?

...

...Whatever, you're bored of this Quiz shit right?

Well good because you know a death game isn't a death game without some drama so one of the Quiz rounds is just "YO, WHICH ONE OF YOU IS CHEATING ON YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER AND ALSO THERE JUST HAPPENS TO BE A COUPLE WITHIN THE CONTESTANTS" wait hold the fuck up I forgot we actually have to go back.

This is the level of standards I have for death game reviews. JUST FUCK IT. JUST PUT IT IN REVERSE RATHER THAN ACTUALLY REVISE.

The thing about the Quiz Host remotely undoing the safety mechanism of any of the guns? Well, the girl who was holding and pulled the trigger of the one that went off and killed the Pluto guy... well, she's fucking just gone to the wind after that.

Even though it was the Quiz Host who undid the safety, like she still was the one who personally pulled the trigger of the gun so she very much feels like she murdered that fucking guy.

And immediately the next round is just "WHO IS A CRIMINAL" and basically all she had to do to survive this round was just not pick herself but she of course picks herself and the Quiz Host mocks her and bam she gets hanged from the noose.

Here's another real good quiz question. "WHICH OF YOU HAS A FEAR OF HEIGHTS?" Yeah okay, that's a totally fair and proper question for a quiz. Apart from the main couple, none of them should even know each other from before today. But hey they have to go along with the question so they make a makeshift suspended bride thing high up in the room and the person who dies in this round is the guy who's actually afraid of heights but he refuses to admit it so he gets scared and falls and dies.

Everybody gets the answer for this round correct. BUT YOU KNOW YOU STILL HAVE TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE PERSON DIE EVERY CHAPTER!

Anyways yeah back to the main couple. For the cheating question you know, A REAL PROPER QUIZ QUESTION... it ends up coming down to the main couple and the group really needs someone to come out and say that they're cheating and bam the girlfriend says it. She cheated.

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The stupid bullshit ass drama and relationships being broken down is to be expected from a death game but like come on. Can you at least try to build anything up first? Because his reaction is fucking way overblown. Especially considering two seconds before this he was saying "well geez in this situation, I wish I had actually cheated on my girlfriend so we would know the correct answer for sure."

And then when she actually comes clean and tells the truth, he immediately fucking loses all fight and almost ends up dying right there because he almost doesn't even actually push the button for the answer.

And then he just immediately loses all trust in her and does not trust her in the next round and yet at the very end of the manga does not foresee her trying to murder him so she could be the only winner. And she didn't even need to.

THEY'RE BOTH FUCKING IDIOTS.

Boring death game protagonist is the one who ultimately wins the Quiz! That's great, that's just fuckin' great. And this is where we come to the crowning jewel of this fucking piece of garbage. The thing that is just so laughably bad about this series that it's almost interesting.

The whole thing... the whole Quiz... it's just a job interview.

That's all it is. It's an interview... for a job at Seagull, the BEST FUCKING SEARCH ENGINE AROUND. But hey, don't get bent out of shape! It's not like Seagull is a fucking gigantic evil company that's just forcing potential new employees to compete against each other in death quizzes.

AFTER ALL, EVERYONE HERE IS JUST A FUCKING CLONE.

YEAH THAT'S RIGHT NONE OF IT MATTERED.

EVERYTHING WAS A DREAM. NONE OF THEM ARE ACTUALLY DEAD, EVERYONE WHO DIED WAS JUST A CLONE, AND NOBODY KNOWS OF THE CLONES OR THE ISLAND OR THE QUIZ.

YOU COULD HAVE JUST SAID IT WAS ALL JUST A DREAM AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE SAME EXACT RESULT.

And mind you, the issue isn't that they're clones as you can do like false versions of characters well. The issue is how fucking slapped on that reveal feels. Doing it right at the end after all of that shit just makes it feel from the very beginning I was wasting my fucking time because these versions of these characters aren't even the real ones.

...But you want to know the most offensive thing? Of the entire manga? That actually trumps all of the characters being clones?

The character that won this Quiz/Interview and the one that Seagull has chosen is... is the one who fucking used their goddamned search engine to complete one of the very first puzzles of the Quiz.

"Yeah, you know how I got hired and eventually became the CEO of this company? Whenever somebody asked me a question or needed something from me, I just whipped out my cell phone and asked a search engine. And not just any search engine, but OUR search engine. And not only did I get hired, but the old CEO handed me over his chair just like that right on the spot."

You don't... you don't hire someone... because they can search something on Google Seagull. Especially not if you're this super large company that possesses CLONING TECHNOLOGY. YOU CAN CLONE PEOPLE. WHY THE FUCK EVEN BOTHER HIRING NEW PEOPLE? JUST CLONE HOWEVER MANY COPIES OF YOUR BEST EMPLOYEE YOU WON'T EVEN HAVE TO PAY THEM BECAUSE YOU CAN THREATEN TO REMOTE CONTROL DISSOLVE THEM LIKE ARE YOU KIDD

#Quiz time. What score am I going to give this manga?#

A 1 out of 100.

There's nothing good that makes this stand out from any other death game whatsoever. The only thing that makes it stand out is the horrible twist that is so horrible that it's almost unbelievable that it's real.

I mean really, to think Rika Takahashi and Takashi Sugimoto actually had the guts to expose Gỏ̶͇̫̝̲̹̩̙̦̖̱̀̿̆̆̀͂̌̔̿͊̎͠ͅǫ̶̧̨̳̟̣͚̙̘̫͔̻̘̩̃̈̅͗͐̓͌͝gle's secret hiring methods and the fact they possess the capability of cloning. That's a pretty fucking gutsy risk to take considering Google is omniscient.

...Wa̸͕͎͘͝it... did I ju̷̙̠̮̖͚͖̎̈́̑̆͂̋͆st... did I just sa̸͕͎͘͝y Gỏ̶͇̫̝̲̹̩̙̦̖̱̀̿̆̆̀͂̌̔̿͊̎͠ͅǫ̶̧̨̳̟̣͚̙̘̫͔̻̘̩̃̈̅͗͐̓͌͝gle...? Without... withỏ̶͇̫̝̲̹̩̙̦̖̱̀̿̆̆̀͂̌̔̿͊̎͠ͅut it being strike̶̛͈̝̓̈̆̇́̏̇͗͒̌̍͋thrỏ̶͇̫̝̲̹̩̙̦̖̱̀̿̆̆̀͂̌̔̿͊̎͠ͅugh'd?

Oh nỏ̶͇̫̝̲̹̩̙̦̖̱̀̿̆̆̀͂̌̔̿͊̎͠ͅ. I mea̸͕͎͘͝nt Se̶̛͈̝̓̈̆̇́̏̇͗͒̌̍͋a̴̧̭̤̟͕̾̆̐̐̎̇̒̎̚͠͝ǵ̸̮̼͖͎̪̪̣̭̱̘̗͙͋͛͝͝͝ull!
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̸̲̬̲̤̪͉̳̔̈́̃̃̄͘P̵̨̧̛̯̮͚̞̟͍̙̙̔̀̉̓̈́͑̕L̵̩̩͔͔̩͐͋͒̔͆̄̀̎̕͠E̵̟͈͓̘̲̫̟͍̩͈͍̱̻̟̋Á̵̢̻͍̞̣͍̠̖͈̓̍̐̆̾̈́͋̊̂͗͘̚͝S̵̢͕̗̱̥̲͕̹͉̣̙̯͇̅̾͛̂̑̽͒͗̈́͛͌̈̈̔́Ę̷̢̡̡̻̣̹̣̙̮͇̥͇͖̬̆̒́ ̴̨̦̩̭̯̟͉͔̦͛͑̂̀̒̅̉̚͠͝͝ D̸̢̜͔̪̦̀̐̽̇͗́O̸̦̤̐̈́͆͐̇̂̈́̓͜N̶̰̰̝̪̊͂̋̾̇͐͗̚̕'̸̛̼̮̭̱̲͖͓̼̜̱͙̳̼̅̐͑̇̑̾̽͊̄T̸̝̩̳͍͙͉̮̝̲͙̱͚͗̀̿̄̈́̐̾̽͜ ̵̱̻͆̾̄̚͘͝D̷͔̼͈͈̠̫̖͕̯͖̤̜̻̆̀ͅË̷̩͙̞̹͕̺͎̲̥̹̿̽L̸͔̠͎͙̱̥̹̲̦͈͓͎̣̫̋̍̌̐͒͠͠ͅE̴̡͈̻͇̤̹̳͋͒̆T̸̼͛̑͆͛̂̅Ė̸̦͔̲̥̔̍͑̋̊̂͋̎͝ ̸̮̩̱̿̑̉͑͛͊͐̑͊̆̈́̕̚͝M̶̧͉̗̹͕̙̫̙̼̬̺̭̻̠̌́͜E̵̯̝͕̤͈̯̥̙̓̂̒́͛̂̎͐̎̽̕
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~The person who wrote this review has officially been deleted. Please have a nice day.~

~And remember... __don't be evil.__~