It is October now, and as like any usual October, I wanted to scratch that itch of indulging in a gory horror manga. So I decided to give this a shot and read through all 120 chapters.
This series does cetainly have its ups and downs. And while it didn't really scratch that "need for horror" itch I am currently having, the mystery (even though predictable) was still able to keep me reading to the end. There were moments I liked, and then other moments that I didn't like.
The beginning felt pretty weak to me which made me consider dropping the story early on, and that probably mostly stems from the characters whining and complaining and making poor decisions without making much of an actual contribution. Granted I understand they were faced with a desperate panic-type scenario while running low on resources, allowing them to make poor decisions, but sometimes I just couldn't wrap my head around with their thought process. But hey, that might just be me not actually understanding how a human mind works when faced with desperation. That said, a lot of those made me feel disconnected from a lot of the characters in the story, whether the author wanted us to make us feel for them or wanted us to hate them outright.
At least the story does seem to get more interesting as it went on, although some parts did feel a bit dragged out. And with that, with some of the lesser characters out of the way, some of the main characters' decision makings did get better even with them making some pretty good ideas (although with some poor ones sprinkled in a few times). Honestly, despite Yagi's weird intentions and backgrounds, I did enjoy his contributions to the group.
Lastly, I did enjoy the concept of incorporating a Japanese urban legend as a horror story coming to life for the characters. A simple idea, but it works wonders. I especially liked how towards the end, it becomes clear that the "monkeys" in the story symbolize the concept of evil nature inside a human. Although I would prefer if that metaphor was more hidden and consistent throughout the story instead of making it outright obvious towards the end. And speaking of metaphors, I like that saying of "to climb is to live" or something like that. Cliche, I know, but it fits with the mountain climbing theme of this story.
6-7/10; A decent horror mystery story that made good use of incorporating urban legend into a horror story, but sometimes brought down by uninteresting characters making poor decisions.