Black Paradox (2015)

Black Paradox (Japanese: ブラックパラドクス, Hepburn: Burakku Paradokusu) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Junji Ito. It was serialized by Shogakukan in Big Comic Spirits Zōkan Casual (2007–2008) and YS Special (2008–2009); its chapters were collected in a single tankōbon volume.

The story follows four people who meet to attempt a group suicide, but before they can kill themselves, they discover a bizarre phenomenon that could change the course of the world. There are six chapters included in the work, along with two bonus stories, titled The Licking Woman and Mystery Pavilion.

Plot

After meeting each other on a website named Black paradox, four individuals - each using their online pseudonyms - come together to attempt a group suicide. They decide to drive out in a car to a remote location and use the vehicle's exhaust fumes to kill themselves. However, one of the group members, Marousou, runs away when she realizes that all the others are doppelgängers. She eventually meets the real ones in a different car, whose suicide attempt is interrupted by her arrival.

Following the failed first attempt, the group tries to kill themselves again after a while. This time, they decide to overdose on sleeping pills to make the process quicker. Three of them fake their suicide attempts, while the fourth individual, Piitan, is killed. However, he is resurrected shortly afterward, at which point, he throws up a mysterious spherical object and starts talking about an alternate world filled with a dazzling light. The group is intrigued by the object, and decides to take it back for further analysis.

A few days later when the four meet once again, it is revealed that the object is an entirely new mineral, and is extremely valuable. They theorize that it is not any ordinary gemstone, but instead a soul, which originates from the alternate world, and Piitan's pylorus has become a portal to that world. While they are talking, Piitan starts throwing up the objects uncontrollably, which causes his stomach to explode.

Sometime later, two of the members of the group - Tabourou and Baracchi - become rich by selling the gemstones. However, when the objects cause several fires, they are classified as dangerous weapons of terrorism. At the same time, the government starts looking for Tabourou and Baracchi for their connection to the objects, which forces them to go into hiding. Meanwhile, Marousou, who is a nurse, takes a break from work in a remote forest villa owned by Doctor Suka, her colleague. Tabourou and Baracchi follow the two of them in disguise. During their stay at the villa, Dr. Suka reveals that he has cultivated the deceased Piitan's pylorus in an attempt to cross into the other world. He uses Piitan's robot doppelgänger to bring in more gemstones - called Paradoxical Night - into this world.

Baracchi and Tabourou are forced to reveal themselves when Paradoxical Nights start overflowing from a birthmark that covers half of Baracchi's face. Dr. Suka restores her face and cultivates the tissue from her birthmark into another portal. It is later revealed that the portals allow entry only to their respective originators. Dr. Suka pushes Baracchi into her portal when she confronts him about Marousou, who was being held captive in the mansion.

Later, Tabourou withdraws to his own seaside villa after seeing his doppelgänger, who he thinks wants to kill him. During this time, he forms his own portal to the alternate world from his shadow. Marousou develops a tumor in her brain, which is then removed and cultivated into yet another portal by Dr. Suka. In the end, all the four members of the original suicide group are shown to be staying together in the same mansion, where they are used by Dr. Suka and the government to gather more Paradoxical Nights for study as a potential energy source. Marousou, who has now developed the ability to see into the future, predicts that the Paradoxical Nights will ultimately cause the death of much of humanity before ceasing being used, and Dr. Suka will be directly blamed for this outcome in the future.

Characters

Marousou/Marceau/Miss Kikuchi: A young woman who works as a nurse. She is stricken by paranoia and premonitions of the future; she seeks to die so that she won't have to experience the horrific events she predicts. She becomes a seer once she starts working for the government with the original suicide group.

Tabourou/Tableau/Tadashi Kurose: A young man who became suicidal after meeting his doppelgänger which he believed to be an omen of his forthcoming death. He believed that he would rather take his own life than wait for death to claim him. He later loses his will to commit suicide and becomes rich by exploiting Paradoxical Night.

Baracchi/Bara Hiratani: A woman with a disfiguring birth mark covering one side of her face. She believed her reflection was coming to life and that this was a foreshadowing of her death. She has the spirit jewels valued and classified as a new kind of mineral. She was also responsible for putting them on sale under the name "Paradoxical Night," which made her rich. She gave up on committing suicide once her face was restored.

Piitan/ Mr. Houdou: A melancholy man who was used as the model for a perfect humanoid robot. He could not compare to its perfection and thus felt that there was no reason for him to continue to exist. After taking an overdose of sleeping pills and his heart stopping, he witnesses the spirit world and begins to produce spirit jewels from his stomach via the pylorus - a word which, in Japanese, is written with the characters for "spirit" and "door."

Dr. Suka: A surgeon working at the same hospital as Marousou. He was also the doctor who was treating Baracchi's birthmark. He found Piitan's body abandoned at the hospital and uncovered the truth about the spirit jewels, planning to use them as a sustainable energy resource. He is a manipulative liar who cheats people and seduces women easily for his own personal agendas.