Bookmark of Demise Project

終焉ノ栞 by Saine

Shuuen no Shiori Project, commonly refered to as Shuuenpro, is a song series by 150P and Suzumu, with character designs and art by Saine, Komine and Kara, revolving around urban legends, supernatural happenings and mostly, the ugly sides of humans. Personally, I adore this series, for it shows that even the most perfect and sociable people have faces that are hidden to the rest of the world. This series has two song albums released so far, and one novel (with an upcoming one, that's two) and a manga adaptation. A strange feature of this series are the character names. Instead of normal names, they are simply referred to as A-ya, B-ko, C-ta, and D-ne. This is a reference to japanese broadcasts, where culprits and victims in murders and such are unnamed. This is highly relevant to the story, as I will summarise in a bit. 

The first chapters are shown in A-ya's perspective, seemingly implying that he is the protagonist of the story. They show the four finding a old diary from ten years ago, which contains the instructions to summon the book and bookmark of demise, throwing all involved into the demise game. When started, the game will not end before they find and kill the 'traitor', who is apparently someone among them. After performing the ritual, A-ya himself recieves an instruction from Kokkuri-san, which the rules of the game forbid from showing to anyone who isn't a participant. However, a classmate sees it, and he dies soon after, having his body split in half at the waist. A-ya blames himself for that, as he was the one who showed it to the classmate, curious about the results. During his stay at home due to the school being closed for investigation of said classmate's death, he recieves something else - the book and bookmark. They contain the steps for performing one-man hide-and-seek, and he has to do it before a week passes, or he will die. He plays it, but summoned something else that was completely out of his expectations. He dies during the game, and is reported 'with various stab wounds all over his body' in the news the next day. 

 Similar things happen in the other three's chapters, such as B-ko dropping her friendly façade as soon as terror takes over, and eventually becomes distrusting and fearful upon receiving her own instructions, to 'avoid her doppelgänger'. C-ta, on the other hand, is revealed to be spying on A-ya, obsessed with 'being A-ya's hero', and is the one who eventually kills him due to paranoia, suspecting that he isn't the 'real' A-ya, but simply an 'imposter'. He uses his talent to freely manipulate his popularity in class to control all of A-ya's connections, save B-ko. D-ne appears to be a innocent, polite girl, but is actually, as Suzumu describes, mentally ill. She is obsessed with the 'perfect girl', which she has recognised B-ko as, and claims to be in love with her. She later obtains the monkey's paw, which enables the owner to make five wishes, but they all come at a price. Her obsession goes so far that she makes wishes that bring her closer and closer to being B-ko, and eventually replaces her, becoming her doppelgänger. 

The first novel ended on a dark note, showing that all that had happened was the 'worst end' before looping the beginnings over and over again. It has been implied that there is no traitor at all, and the demise game is just an endless loop where they suspect and doubt one another. There is speculation that the traitor is actually their own distrust of one another, and the game will end when the four starts to trust each other and face the demise game together. This series explores the darker sides of the human mind, and depicts how selfishness and unwillingness to trust and confide in others eventually leads to destruction. While this is labelled as 'horror' due to the deaths and urban legends involved, I would say that those are only the trigger, and the rest of those 'horrors' are caused solely by the four.