Reviews for Satanophany

You want a group full of badass serial killer women? The one where they murder others while being extremely hot and sexy? The one where they have sex with a man then kill him afterwards in a gruesome way? The one where there are also lesbians and they go full yuri and make us some horny bastards? Then welcome, intellectuals who have a great sense of culture. Seriously tho, this manga is not for those who are sensitive to rapes, gruesome murder, and any kind of exaggerated violence. To start, I would like to say that the author is very creative in making scenarios and building upthe core elements in the story. The goal is clear, the setting is well setup, and the characters are not left aside (of course, except for the usual side characters whom we don't give a f*ck). The coolest thing in this manga is the knowledge of the author in serial killing (history lessons baby). However, for me, it falls short in making it more interesting that it should be. While I was reading, I would know who'll die, who'll get raped, who'll have sex, and worse, I'll be able to know exactly what will happen in the next chapter. I'm not sure why, but maybe because of the obvious hints or I'm used to this kind of story telling. I did't make the manga lose its worth tho, it only ruined my experience.

But I can promise that you'll have moments that you can't wait to turn to the next chapter, as I was not able to sleep just because I wanted to read up to the latest. It can make you hype, tbh

Personally, I'm quite disturbed on how the author made such beautiful and bright characters just to make them whores, but I guess I'm just a simp :<. These elements are essential to the story btw, you'll learn later on

To sum up, if you want a badass women and don't give a sh*t about sex and violence, then you might find this interesting

As you can probably tell by Satanophany's average rating on here, it isn't a manga for everyone. But it's a manga for me, dammit, and I made the mistake of becoming obsessed with it. I really hope someone continues the translation in the future. Everything about the manga is silly and over the top. It features female protagonists killing freely, and lots of fanservice and sex. There aren't a ton of action manga out there with women as the main combatants, so I loved to see this one. It really gives you everything you'd want. The art is great, the artist is well-suited both to fanserviceand fight scenes. There is a lot of gore and the girls are beautiful and form a good ensemble cast of unique and memorable personalities.

When the manga begins, it has kind of a Battle Royale premise, but as it goes on its cast begins to function as more of some kind of ridiculous special ops team. Once they start working together (and venture beyond the walls of the prison) the manga really gets good and its possibilities open up. This is why I'm dying to read more, the last translated arc, as of this writing, just expanded the scope of this manga so much.

Everything about the manga is silly and that's why it's good. It is trashy and exploitative, but it's fun. Like a great B movie it entertains with its rawness and its willingness to hold nothing back. If you like female protagonists/female killers and can appreciate a pulpy and tasteless horror movie I strongly recommend this manga.

Satanophany is perfect self aware exploitation trash. Suspension of disbelief is key. Given the nature of literally everything about it, it will be understandably divisive and I can't blame anyone for disliking it. If you glance at it, are vaguely aware of it's content + premise, like the exploitation genre, you will probably get something out of this. The low rating is likely a result of the wrong audience giving it a shot. But I personally assure you that if you want graphic content trash that's very entertaining and high quality for what it is, I promise this will deliver. And I really want tostress how important it is to understand that Satanophany knows exactly what it is and what it's doing. Why is it stupid? How does whatever make sense? Because it wants to be. Because it just works.

Satanophany doesn't really have much of a main plot from where the translations left off and me skimming the raws. It's basically just a series of tests and scenarios for the main cast to tackle. The cast is actually rather large but somehow they are all balanced really well. You get enough of everyone. There's something really charming and likable about all the girls throughout their various development too.

While this manga gets pretty edgy and downright mean...it never gets quite as mean as Dead Tube does as an example. Though that's another subject but a series I would also recommend if you end up liking Satanophany. There's a lot more light hearted elements and the girls themselves manage to be more than just deplorable beasts. Satanophany is a lot more than just violence and sex though those are huge pluses for entertainment sake. The action is also enjoyable too. I always found myself having fun during all the intense gritty fights. This manga is a weird blender of everything and it didn't need to go as hard in every direction as it did. But it did and I think it strengthens the overall manga as a result. Art is also really good. Always really enjoy the chapter pinup illustrations that the mangaka does. I love the character expressions generally too.

I'm better at vague reviews than trying to hyper detail every character and the entire story. So I'll call it here. My overall consensus is: There is a lot of fun to be had here if this is your cup of tea. The downside is the fan translations stopped at some point, no official company will ever take this on, and the story continues long after the translations stopped. If you choose to read the raws, you'll get the gist of what's going on well enough.

Do you love the kind of girl that will actually just kill you? Do you enjoy edgy trash, but wish it had less misogyny? Are you a firm believer in womens' wrongs? If so, then you might just be the target audience for whatever the hell this is. Ostensibly, Satanophany is about a mysterious new disease called Medusa Syndrome, that turns women into serial killers. It sets up a battle royale-esque premise early on, but this is soon abandoned once Yoshinobu Yamada kills off one character and realizes he'd have to, y'know… keep doing that. It's soon revealed that this so-called "syndrome" is actually part ofa corporate conspiracy to brainwash and train ordinary women into elite assassins, using mirror neurons and the personas/memories of infamous historical serial killers. Stupid? Yes. Nonsensical? Absolutely. But it's very funny, and lets the audience meaningfully sympathize with the main cast, so I'll allow it.

But this description alone does not do the manga justice. No description of Satanophany can prepare you for the plot twist that one of the seemingly-oblivious prison guards is actually 100% in on the conspiracy, and okay with it… because they’re a necrophiliac. Nothing can prepare you for the fact that one of the arcs is dedicated to the girls infiltrating a cruise ship so they can assassinate an entire yakuza gang. Nothing can prepare you for the worst fight on said cruise ship, featuring a guy so fat that he can trap a girl inside his own folds, or that she escapes by [NSFL - DATA EXPUNGED FOR MY OWN SANITY]. Sometimes, I briefly convince myself that Satanophany is good, and then I remember this last scene, and I regret even having those thoughts.

However. There’s a shared flaw that crops up in a lot of edgy trash manga. Their preference for shock over substance means that it can be difficult to truly invest yourself in anything that is happening. If the protagonists are hardly any better than the antagonists, nobody is safe, and everyone is an asshole, then where are the actual stakes? In this respect, at least, Satanophany stands out among its peers. The protagonist, Chika Amagi, is an everywoman thrust into an edgy murderfest, and a lot of the first ~50 chapters is devoted to her slowly learning to reawaken her Medusa persona just to survive the insane scenarios the prison staff put her through. She can be a bit boring, but she never crosses the line into being outright unlikeable. By contrast, the other Medusas are initially set up as antagonists that Chika will inevitably have to kill or defeat, and even during the day the group dynamic is very Mean Girls-esque. However, once the story shifts gears and has them cooperating against greater threats, these aspects fade out, to be replaced by something significantly better. The Medusas develop a genuine sense of camaraderie, and the easygoing daytime scenes lose their sinister undertones and become a welcome break from the action once they stop trying to kill each other. Yoshinobu Yamada knows that this manga is impossible to take 100% seriously, and WILL insert comedic relief where you least expect it. All this to say that Satanophany succeeds where other schlock fails because it doesn’t force itself to be a nonstop suffering parade and because the mangaka actually cares about his own characters as something more than vessels for tittymurder, and wants you to care, too. To further illustrate what I mean, let’s look at a couple members of the main ensemble:

First, there’s Sayoko Onigahara, deuteragonist and Chika’s love interest. You read that correctly. “Is Satanophany Yuri” - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate. Now, at first I was apprehensive, because Yoshinobu Yamada did not strike me as someone who would handle this topic with any more respect or tact than Redo of Healer does. And, after all, she does fit the “Predatory Lesbian” stereotype - there’s a reason all her victims were girls. The first impression is also not promising, with a nude Sayoko trying to simultaneously seduce and exposit to Chika, while Chika seems confused, overwhelmed, and not particularly interested. Even when she initiates a passionate makeout scene some 30 chapters later, it’s very ambiguous whether Chika reciprocates or is simply taking the path of least resistance. The turning point comes around Chapter 45, once Chika learns the truth behind Medusa Syndrome and falls into a depressive state. For Sayoko, the revelation is arguably even worse - not only did she commit every single murder she was accused of, they were all her former girlfriends. However, rather than wallow in despair, Sayoko decides to visit Chika in her cell, and encourages her not to give up on life. Suddenly, I can buy that these two have a genuine emotional bond. I’m even willing to consider that their scenes together serve an actual narrative purpose in addition to being gratuitous fanservice. This is, sincerely, one of my favorite parts of Satanophany. Watching their relationship slowly develop to the point of “everyone knows they’re fucking but they’re too shy to admit it” is truly a treat, and one of the few things I can praise with no caveats.

There’s also Karen Kirishima. I have a feeling she’s one of the mangaka’s favorites, and I say this partly because she was also in one of their previous works, Deathtopia. Karen Kirishima is not a particularly deep or complex character, but I would say she best embodies the spirit of the manga as a whole. You’ve heard of serial killers that target prostitutes, now get ready for a serial killer that IS a prostitute. That’s really all there is to it; the majority of her screentime is spent fucking and/or killing men. The thing that gets me, though, is that objectively speaking, in any other work of fiction written by any author with a sane mind, Karen Kirishima would be an obvious villain. She collects eyeballs for fucks’ sake, where is the moral ambiguity in that??? And certainly, she’s one of Chika’s first real opponents, complete with sadomasochistic tendencies inherited from her serial killer persona and a dominatrix outfit that puts Do-S to shame. In a normal manga, this would be the point where Karen dies and is swiftly forgotten about. However, if Yamada is as fond of her as I think he is, it only makes sense that instead, she survives, sticks around, and is ultimately integrated into the main ensemble. She’s never made out to be A Good Person, but as the story unfolds it’s clear that even she is a victim. The promiscuity remains constant, but is never shamed, because that would be a little silly for a manga that already verges on hentai. In fact, there is a frankly incredible scene around 200 chapters in where Chika asks Karen for advice on her sex life, and her response is essentially “have you tried using toys?”, which does in fact basically resolve the problem. Karen Kirishima may not be “well-written”, but she can certainly tear a dude’s face off with her bare hands. And witnessing this magnificent feat activated some long-dormant portion of my id, teaching me more about myself than I ever wanted to know. Very few fictional characters have left a comparable impact on my psyche. You thought that very first question I asked was a joke? Just a funny little meme reference? Think again, fucko. Karen Kirishima has a substantial body count in more ways than one, a fact Satanophany treats with respect bordering on reverence. And honestly? It’s so real for that.

I struggled for a long time with whether to recommend Satanophany, or leave it at a solid Mixed Feelings. Sure, the above wall of text might mostly consist of praise. But there’s a lot of shit that sucks that I didn’t mention, too. There is a grand total of one black character in Satanophany, and while unimportant, he is SUCH a racist caricature that I’m not sure I want to see another. Homophobia is back on the menu when it comes to depicting gay men rather than lesbians. There’s the aforementioned fat guy. It takes at least 30 chapters to show any potential, and in the meantime what you get is mostly rape scenes, ryona, and cringeworthy porno-tier dialogue. The problem is, once it starts getting good, the things that make it good are so wholly unique to Satanophany that I can’t bring myself to write it off entirely. I can’t even bring myself to stop reading it. Much like JoJo, Satanophany is a look into the bizarre mind palace of its author, Yoshinobu Yamada, and the sights constantly waver between intriguing and disgusting. I don’t call this a guilty pleasure lightly, but if you give it a chance, maybe you’ll glimpse the vision that I spent this entire review trying (and, in all likelihood, failing) to articulate. Or maybe you’ll just regret it.

There are those who say that it's not for everyone and that it has low ratings due to its content, but the truth is that the manga doesn't have anything that hasn't been seen in other mangas like Redo healer. The manga is slow, and while the story has an interesting premise, it just repeats the same events over and over again. Furthermore, it's supposed to be a story about serial killers, but the author makes up things about the killers like the number of victims, making them jump from, for example, 3 (which was the real number) to 350, just to add more mystiqueto the story. I believe there are better things to read, so no, I don't recommend it.

The concept of cute and innocent-looking girls being sadistic serial killers has always been so badass to me, which is why I like Yanderes so much. Apparently, I should do my homework next time when reading random manga like this. I knew about the girl's becoming a serial killer, but I had absolutely no idea that this was Yuri. That being said, I'm not really a big fan of "sex" and "death" being so tightly close to each other. That's some really dangerous territory that I most certainly don't want to be a part of, and unfortunately, there's a lot of sex, sexual assault, and rape, which is sucha bummer, I think.

There'll be a lot of cool action, and then the next thing I know, they're having sex. I honestly find it rather annoying.

That being said, the girls and some of the side characters are pretty fun for the most part.

It's nice seeing how they'll react to certain situations and how to overcome certain obstacles.

It would get absurdly campy and goofy at times too, which is a bonus. It's nice to know that it knows how stupid this entire series is.

I would never ever recommend this trash to anyone, though.