[Top 15] Best Survival Horror Mangas of All Time
By Chris Park
The suspense of having to survive in an unknown environment is terrifying enough for many. However, when being placed with another element of horror in the form of people or creatures, the stakes are most definitely raised. Here are the fifteen best survival horror mangas of all time.
15. Mad Chimera World
By: Kishimoto Seishi
Mad Chimera World takes place in a world overrun by chimera-like creatures, where the females kill and eat the males. Usagi and her younger brother Mitsuki must fight to live in this world, in order to prevent him from being killed and eaten. Along the way, Mitsuki continues to read books and learn about the world that once existed before this one.
14. Shibuya Kingyo
By: Hiroumi Aoi
Hajime Tsukiyoda is an average boy who one day decides to help out his fellow classmate. While being treated to some food in return for his help, Shibuya is then invaded by human-eating goldfish. With their goal to simply eat as many people as possible, Hajime and his friends must fight them in order to survive themselves.
13. Doubt
By: Yoshiki Tonogai
After a group of friends is kidnapped, they are forced to play the popular ‘Rabbit Doubt’ game in real life, where the remaining five must discover who is the liar among them. With their only chance at being escape being the barcodes on their bodies to open specific doors, the group must work together despite knowing that one person amongst them is a killer. Will the paranoia be enough to cause them to fall apart, or will they be able to escape this horrific survival game alive?
12. Judge
By: Yoshiki Tonogai
After being indirectly responsible for his brother’s death, Hiro is kidnapped to find himself in the presence of a group of eight other mask-wearing individuals. It is revealed that each and every one of them has committed a large sin of some sort and that every twelve hours, they must vote to execute one member until only four remains. With this incentive, they must either search for the exit to escape or become the judge of each other’s lives.
11. Secret
By: Yoshiki Tonogai
Being the third installment and spiritual successor to Doubt and Judge, Secret tells the story of six students after a horrific bus accident that kills the rest of their class. However, it is revealed that there are three murderers among the six students and that if the killers don’t come to terms with their crimes and answer them, they will be proven guilty to the police. As the students must survive with each other, this survival horror takes an even more mysterious turn when the secrets surrounding each of them continue to raise doubt.
10. Drifting Classroom
By: Kazuo Umezu
One day, an entire middle school is suddenly transported into a post-apocalyptic wasteland, with student Sho Takamatsu being part of the group. As the reality begins to set in, the people around Sho slowly start to go insane, mainly the adults. Knowing that, he and the other children do their best to survive in this unknown world, with many imminent dangers bound to make things go south with little to no notice whatsoever.
9. Cage of Eden
By: Yoshinobu Yamada
After a plane crash, Akira Sengoku and the other survivors find themselves on an island filled with prehistoric plants and animals that have since gone extinct in the modern era. As they realize that there are dangers on the island taking the form of these creatures and each other, the group of survivors must find a way to reach freedom while discovering secrets along the way.
8. 6000
By: Koike Nokuto
After an accident killed all its workers in a facility 6000 meters below water, it was abandoned until another company purchased it out, before sending a crew to reopen it. Kadokura Kengo is a part of the crew that is sent down to the underwater facility. After another accident injures his colleague, Kadokura is alone with a crew he doesn’t trust, while knowing that there is more to the deep sea outside as well as the crew of people around him.
7. Dragon Head
By: Minetaro Mochizuki
While on a train to Tokyo, Teru Aoki is caught in an accident that kills everyone in his class except for him. Eventually making his way out of the wreck and into the destroyed tunnel, he finds two other survivors named Ako and Nobuo. The lack of basic necessities will cause these three to go to desperate measures in order to have a chance at surviving this post-apocalyptic reality.
6. This Man
Written by: Karin Sora
Illustrated by: Megumi Kouji
Inspired by the urban legend of the nameless man whose face has been seen in dreams around the world, This Man is a manga that tells the story of a serial killer with a similar face. After Hakaru Amano begins to investigate the face of a man who had been illegally trespassing on residences, the true horror beings to unfold.
5. Alice In Borderland
By: Haro Aso
High school students Arisu, Karube, and Chōta live a simple life that gets rather boring at times. After wishing for something more interesting to happen, they are transported to a post-apocalyptic world called Borderland. Stuck in this dangerous and unknown land, it is revealed that if they want to survive and escape a horrible fate, they must play and win various games.
4. Psyren
By: Toshiaki Iwashiro
One day after school, high school student Ageha Yoshida finds a calling card on the way home, simply titled Psyren. Finding out his classmate Sakurako Amamiya received a similar calling card, he inquires her about it before she goes missing. Eventually deciding to answer the calling card, he finds himself on an unknown planet filled with monsters, along with Sakurako. The two must fight in order to reach the end, where they will finally be allowed to return home.
3. Battle Royale
Written by: Koushun Takami
Illustrated by: Masayuki Taguchi
Battle Royale tells the story of what you’d expect- being a battle royale to the death. After a group of junior high school students is brought together, they are forced to fight each other to the death in order for the victor to be let free. While every manga on this list is dark in a sense, there are certainly even darker areas that this manga taps into, which may be a turn away for some, or even more of a reason to read for others.
2. I Am A Hero
By: Kengo Hanazawa
Hideo Suzuki is an average 35-year-old male living in Japan. That suddenly changes when a virus called ZQN starts to turn people into hostile zombies, forcing him into a fight for his life, with only his shotgun. As Hideo goes around meeting various survivors in this apocalyptic world, the manga details the effects the apocalypse has on people as well as the moral choices they must make in order to ensure survival.
1. Corpse Party
Written by: Makoto Kedouin
Illustrated by: Toshimi Shinomiya
A group of students and a teacher are thrown into an alternate world after performing a ritual called Sachiko Ever After. Trapped inside an old and abandoned Tenjin Elementary School, they try their best to find their way out. However, with an evil spirit as well as malicious members within the group, Corpse Party is definitely a well-made survival horror that any lover of the genre should read.
