Monthly! Real Account 2: No Answer! (ノーアンサー Nōansā)

Have you ever been duped by a profile photo while browsing your SNS of choice? The first real game in this virtual world of Real Account has started! The game is called "No Answer!" It tests the player's confidence in their looks. A panel of judges are given the task to "judge" the players' looks. The player wears an apron with either an X, a triangle or an O; with X meaning Ugly, triangle meaning "average or okay" and O meaning Good-looking. The judges will input their answer and if the majority agrees with your answer, you move to the next round. However, if majority answers the contrast of yours, then you are killed. Who wants to play?

Bessatsu Shounen Magazine 03 2014

Previously on: Real Account 1: Kashiwagi Ataru, a high schooler who is unsociable has a SNS account that lists a thousand friends. Taking Rea-Aka seriously, he becomes one of the participants in a death game. His consciousness is sucked in to the virtual world where; when people die, they die for real. The slaughter has begun, does Ataru have what it takes to save himself and the other person who saved him from certain death?

Spoiler Alert! If you are gonna read this post, please read the actual manga first!

Warning! This series contains gore, blood and mature themes!

Summary: After weeding out the people who do not have real friends or family, the first game starts. Marble announces the name of the game and the mechanics of it. No Answer! A quiz game which sounds like a game where every question is a trick one.

This is what it feels like.

The first question is: Are you Ugly, Mediocre or Good-looking? Each player is given a bib-like apron with a symbol at the back. The symbols are: X for Ugly, Triangle for Normal and O for Good-looking! A panel of 5 judges, then make a choice of either X, Triangle or O for each player. If the majority of judges agree with your self-assessment, then you move on to the next round. If not, you and your remaining loyal followers, die.

From this...

The players are divided by their numbers; 200 people in each room. Every room has a designated "Marble" mascot to oversee the operation. The judges are exempted from the game but they are forced to wear a lie-detector laced with bombs. The trigger would be a lie.

The first person to brave the waters passed with an X as an answer. The next one is a cute girl that also passed with an O for an answer. The following were either good-looking people and confident fuglies. The first fatality was brought on by a chubby woman. Her answer; O, her reason; she won a beauty pageant in her hometown, her verdict; X. She was beheaded right after. The second fatality followed after, a mediocre looking guy. His answer; Triangle, his verdict; a mix between good-looking and mediocre, his ultimate judgment; death.

Her name's "PigFace"

With the majority of the people panicking about their looks, a cowardly man tries to bribe Marble. Marble announces that anyone can follow and unfollow a participant any time, unfortunately, the man lost every follower he has and died. The host further explains the situation, anyone in the virtual world can follow each other.

Believe in yourself.

The panic brought on by the the mediocre-guy's death, everyone lost their courage to volunteer. To excite people, he brings the topic of putting up an edited version of oneself to Rea-Aka, revealing an idol among the crowd. With 3 millions followers before this disaster, she was definitely a person to be loved. Marble points at a pimply girl with a dorky look and claims that she is the beloved "Ruriri-tan" of Rea-aka; a 28 year-old single woman. Her followers dropped dramatically.

Is being a fake, that bad?

Ataru could not stand the idea Marble has brought up about Ruriri's act of deception being a selfish cause. He himself knew what it feels like to lie to others just to fit in. He emphasizes Ruriri's work to be for the cause of others too. She moved people with her words and lifted lonely spirits. After Ataru's moving statement, Ruriri started gaining "true" followers slowly.

True followers are only a handful.

With confidence, she picked her answer; an X. She admits her deception and accepts the mistake of fooling her followers with a fake Ruriri. The verdict now stands; the answer is... X.

Before she moves on to the next room, she follows Ataru as a way of expressing gratitude. With the will to carry on more than two lives, she gets ready to be judged when suddenly, her sister comes rushing in. Is it really Yuri?

To this... How?

Likes: The theme for this chapter; showing the ideal version of yourself. A lot of people do this, posting the ideal version of themselves instead of the regular self you get to know and see everyday. Trying to be picture perfect in every photo. Sad but true, people want to look their best whenever, wherever. That's why no one posts of photos where they were accidentally captured in a photo or captured without a smile.

Yup. Photoshop.

Whenever one gets into a SNS, one automatically list the best features of themselves, leaving out the bad details for real life. This creates a fake persona that one sticks to until one has had enough with the fake. I also made a fake persona to appeal to different people but I quit doing that since it doesn't make you a better human if you have a nicer feature than the other person.

We all have personas.

It's awful but people just can't stop. We are all narcissistic in some way.

One thing I really liked about this chapter is the acceptance Ruriri did about her looks. If you accept what you look like and be confident about not your looks but your other qualities, then people will flock to you naturally. Looks become a hindrance but if you have a good personality, I can't see why you having a hard time making friends. It is true that you might have been suffering in silence while at school but the kids your age are still growing their brains out and still can't figure out the consequences of their action because they all go with the flow.

Accept who you are and you'll feel better.

Another thing I like is Ruriri handing her trust, her life to Ataru. It is a hard decision as you are resting your life to someone you have known for only a minute or two. I am selfish, I know that and I wouldn't want to trust my life (and my followers' life) to a person. I would say thanks, I would guide them, I would help them in anyway, I just wouldn't trust my life to them. As for Ataru, it's another burden to carry someone's life in your shoulders. Out of my selfish reasons, I wouldn't want to pressure someone into carrying my life.

Plot Armor at it's best.

Dislikes: Plot armor. Ataru should be dead by now. He has interfered with Marble two times already and he hasn't died. Causing a commotion should be immediately punished without any trial. The game mercilessly kills anyone who talks or tries to escape so why doesn't Ataru die?

Easy!

Not really a dislike but Marble not telling the rules (the follow and unfollow options). I think that Marble is really trying to thin out the herd because if Marble wanted a lot of survivors, he would've told the player about it early on. Fortunately, only one fatality was the result of this.

Quirks: How did Yuri get here? How did she manage to get so popular and so serious in Rea-aka that she was immediately transported into the virtual world? The answers lie in the next chapter.

Any character with that kind of effect will have +1 to looks.

Predictions: She's not Ataru's sister. I have the raw copy of the magazine in my hard drive and I'm just waiting for a translation for it.

There are other ways to show gratitude. Why did you hand you life to this guy!?

So this is a rather complicated chapter. Is it really that bad to deceive people just so you can fit in? Do we need to live in the ideal viewpoint of society? A ton of questions were asked this chapter and they made my mind work for a bit. Hopefully the next one rolls out now. また 明日, 俺 の 友人！Mata ashita, ore no yūjin!