Middle school student Kon Chigawa has never left the small island she was born on, nor does she expect to. Shunned by her classmates, Kon's always alone, and she hasn't ever been in love, either. That is, until she encounters the city girl Furuka on a cliff―and ends up resuscitating her after they fall into the ocean! Upon awakening, the two mysteriously find themselves in front of a cave said to house monsters, a place Kon often spends time by. And with that, strange occurrences begin to happen on the island...

Monster-Colored Island has story and art by Mitsuru Hattori. English translation is done by Eleanor Summers, with lettering by Madeleine Jose. Published by Yen Press (October 28, 2025). Rated 16+

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Being different can make you feel like a monster. Both Kon and Furuka know this all too well, and for one of the most recognizable middle school reasons: neither of them has ever fallen in love with a boy. Furuka recognizes that she's attracted to girls, but Kon just feels broken. And in the insular world of a small town, it's easy for that feeling to be exaggerated by the other kids around her; like “popular” girls everywhere, the ringleader of Kon's class is like a shark scenting blood in the water when it comes to Kon. The result is a very ostracized girl who can't quite believe it when a new girl comes to the island, even if that girl is carrying some heavy baggage herself.

Tangled up in Furuka and Kon's feelings of inadequacy and being broken beyond repair is the local kaiju legends of the island. This goes far beyond Kon's little brother being deep into his kaiju phase; Kon's one place of solace is the shrine outside the cave where the kaiju is said to live, and she has a habit of praying to the monster. This, more than anything, really shows how outside the world Kon feels: she's not sure that regular gods will listen to her, so she turns to the creature she believes is most like her – the local monster.

Mitsuru Hattori, creator of Sankarea and Wash It All Away, seems to be working towards a reading that shows readers how queer people can be made to feel monstrous because they're not living a heteronormative existence. There's nothing wrong with Kon and Furuka; they're lesbians, not vampires. But no one is making them feel that way; in fact, Furuka's confession of queerness to Kon and Kon's acceptance and admission of the same may be the first time they've ever felt seen. Hattori's images of their confession and subsequent sex scene (or at least make-out scene) is one of the best closed-door scenes I've encountered in recent memory; it's sensual and centered firmly on the girls while keeping what actually happens in the shadows.

There may be another reason for that, of course. After they fall from a cliff into the sea near the kaiju's hole (a word choice I have to think is deliberate; cave is right there), both girls start to notice supernatural influences on their lives. Long ago, islanders sacrificed a girl to the monster, and Furuka notices that a diorama of the practice has a sacrifice who looks a lot like Kon, and Furuka herself begins manifesting powers attributed in local lore to the kaiju.

It doesn't take much to feel like a monster. But what happens if you gain the powers of one to turn on those who put you down?

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

The worst thing about the supernaturally-tinged Monster-Colored Island is that it's published in a quarterly magazine, meaning that it took two and a half years for the ten chapters this volume comprises to be collected together. When it comes to devouring manga I love, I'll admit to being more than a little impatient. Waiting sucks! And when a manga is as wistfully beautiful and compelling as Monster-Colored Island, the thought of waiting over two years for another volume is excruciating.

Part of the reason I enjoyed this volume so much is how it reminds me of my childhood growing up in a remote, rural, seaside town. Protagonist Kon is a lonely teenage girl ostracised by her peers, spending her baking hot summer vacation alone – until she glimpses a new face. Furuka is an outsider, in appearance, Kon's polar opposite. She's a pale city girl, with luscious flowing blonde locks, while Kon's deeply tanned skin attests to her outdoors island life, and her jet black hair is rigidly controlled in tight braids.

Both girls feel out of place – Furuka so much so that she runs away from home, turning up unannounced at a distant relative's home. Kon intuits that she's not like the other girls in her class, she's “never fallen in love”, and she learns Furuka is the same. Kon's heart hammers in her chest when she's close to Furuka, an experience she's never felt before. Despite Furuka's initially tsundere presentation, the two girls quickly become more than friends, seemingly encouraged by the island's residential spirit, the Kaiju who reportedly lives in a seaside cave.

Monster-Colored Island is an achingly beautiful exploration of alienation and longing where two young girls make an almost instant deep connection with one another. The wonderfully expressive, thin-lined, slightly scratchy art reminds me a lot of Mohiro Kitoh's Shadow Star, and it effortlessly conjures a thick, unsettling atmosphere.

With many questions left unanswered by the end of the volume – such as Kon's potential identity as a sacrifice to the so far unseen Kaiju – the wait for answers will be excruciatingly painful. I really hope that we won't be forced to endure two and a half years for the next volume.

Erica Friedman
Rating:

Monster stories are always a crapshoot. If you have too many monsters, the plot becomes secondary to the monster reveal. If you have too few monsters, the reader ends up spending the whole story waiting for the monster to arrive and something to happen.

In Monster-Colored Island, we're never sure if the monster is real, and it really doesn't matter. The monster is real enough for it to pepper the conversations and thoughts of the island's inhabitants. Realistically, Furuka's appearance in this small, inflexible community is enough of a monster to destroy everything.

The emotions that both Kon and Furuka feel are themselves monstrous. Desire can be as destructive as a monster when one's life is built without the infrastructure to support it. Which is to say, when childhood comes to an end.

Kon has built a small, precarious life, avoiding and being avoided by the people around her. Furuka shows up on the island bereft of an emotional center. These two girls find each other in an extraordinary set of circumstances, but it will be up to them to build something stable from it.

There are a few questionable choices in the narrative that make it hard for me to give this a higher rating. Kon, having lived her entire life on this island and not really able to swim well, feels more like a plot contrivance than anything. I am also deeply skeptical of Kon and Furuka becoming intimate but then “forgetting” what happened. Again, it feels too much like a contrivance for plot purposes. But that may be because this manga is a short two-volume manga and a lot of conflicts, both external and internal, have to be shoved in to fill the story from its empty beginnings to a full ending.

Is there a monster? Is the monster the humans who, in fear of storms, sacrificed young women? Or is Kon somehow connected to the monster, after all? There may not be any answers, but it will be interesting to find out!