Hit the “Random” button and see what comes up! In this feature, we take a look at whatever manga the Random Number God decides to throw at us and find out if it’s worth your time.

This time: Tokyo Girls Destruction, by Betten Court

The year is 2020 (or at least, not too long afterwards), and Japan has elected its first female prime minister. In an effort to restore the female youth of Japan to a traditional feminine standard of a proper lady, the aforementioned prime minister founds the Amazon Academy, an isolated, girls-only boarding school on a man-made island in the Pacific. So, clearly when our hapless protagonist shows up, wanting to attend the same prestigious academy as her older sister, it’s going to be a cutesy lovey-dovey yuri comedy with all them hot ladies, right??

Well, you’re probably stupid if you thought that, considering the title of the manga is Tokyo Girls Destruction, not fucking Kiss Kiss Doki Doki Love Lily Time (and if that’s an actual title to a manga I will probably gouge out my own goddamn eyes). Yes, our heroine, Amesu Kumi, wants to attend the same academy as her sister, but that’s because said sister is dead – she somehow met her end in Amazon Academy, and nobody seems to want to tell Kumi how or why. The only clue she has is a cellphone that’s been wiped clean of any useful information, save for one text message addressed to a Burai Sachiko: “help me”. And thus, Kumi finds herself in this strange isolated academy, desperately looking for the slightest scrap of information about her missing sister.

It’s not that simple, though. While the school is meant to instill ladies with the proper values of a traditional Japanese woman, after hours it’s a completely different world. School rules are only enforced while school is in session, and things get ugly the second the bell ring; Amazon Academy becomes a massive multi-woman melee, students resorting to extreme physical violence to get what they want. Y’see, it’s all about the school badges: they’re effectively currency, since Amazon Academy is cut off from the outside world. Without a badge, you’re just a second rate student, unable to get food or supplies and forced into doing the dirty work of your betters.

Kumi has to survive in this hellhole, and she mostly does so via that ever-effective shonen manga standby: the Power of Friendship! She quickly manages to form a rapport with the aforementioned Burai Sachiko, one of the most badass ladies the school has ever known. Together, they have to piece together what information they can about Kumi’s sister, and keep their posse of delinquent ladies growing so they can challenge the practically omnipresent authority of the Student Council and the secrets they hold.

Verdict: Hrmmm.
This isn’t bad, I guess. It’s a lot darker than you’d expect. In that last paragraph I made it sound somewhat cheesy (and it can be, at times) but they pull no punches in depicting how oppressive this situation would be. Kumi herself isn’t a fighter like some of the other girls, and the only weapon she really has is her shonen-style unbreakable resolve. Also notable is that not a single male has appeared so far in the entire manga. It’s all pretty ladies just beating the ever-loving shit out of each other, clearly drawn with a male audience in mind; as a result, it feels rather exploitative most of the time. Look, you know the drill: by now you’re either interested or not, so may as well take a gander if you are.