Envy, lust, sloth, wrath, gluttony, pride, greed. A group of sinners who bear the guilt of the seven deadly sins has been gathered in an old courthouse to face judgement. To leave this place alive, they must offer up a sacrifice - one of their number. As the trial begins, who will the gavel fall on first?

JUDGE Ultimate Verdict Edition has a story and art by Yoshiki Tonogai. English translation and lettering by Alexis Eckerman. Published by Yen Press (September 22, 2026). Rated OT.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

It's really a shame that this is coming out in the same three-month timeframe as the manga adaptation of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. Although not perfectly analogous, the two series do share some clear themes, most notably the fact that both feature people trapped in a closed setting and accused of crimes. In Judge, each victim is saddled with an animal head mask and one of the seven deadly sins, which immediately puts it more in the realm of camp than Christie's novel. This isn't terrible, but it certainly isn't as good as it could be.

When I first read Judge back in 2013, it was amazing. I'd never read a death game manga before (which doesn't mean this was the first in English; it was just my first), and I was instantly pulled into the story of Hiro and his six companions who were somehow trapped in a derelict courthouse and forced to murder each other until only four remained. The idea is that each of them is a “sinner” and must atone, but we know from Hiro's backstory that he's barely even guilty – yes, he tricked his brother into showing up for a date an hour later than planned so that Hiro could hopelessly confess to his girlfriend (a mutual childhood friend), but he didn't actually kill him. In fact, any guilt he feels is purely emotional because there's no way he could have known that your friend and mine Truck-kun would have been out for blood. In fact, among the people whose backstories we know by the time the omnibus ends, only one is an actual, honest-to-goodness murderer…and it feels disgusting to lump the gay kid whose “crime” was being gay in with him.

That may be the point. Although we don't learn how everyone got to the courthouse, we do know that someone's pulling the strings, because phone messages and notes keep popping up, plus there's a clearly orchestrated voting mechanism at play that requires the group being monitored. Does that mean that everyone is there because, like in BTOOOM, someone requested it? That seems to be the only viably non-gross reason for some of them to be present. More importantly, does that mean that the gamemaster is among the group, as a note suggests? Or is this all just a perverse way of punishing people someone, potentially irrationally, thinks deserves it?

The mystery is intriguing, and the tension is real. This is by no means a terrible series, and I was genuinely excited to read it again. But it's also high camp and wears its age in more than just its old flip phones and fashion, at least in the first half of the series. If you like death games, it's worth picking up at a library, but don't go in expecting SHIBOYUGI - or And Then There Were None.