Mitadake Saga



When a teacher is killed in Mitadake High School, the school's security system automatically places the building on lock-down, preventing anyone from entering or leaving...including the murderer.

Mitadake Saga is a Web Comic hosted on Comic Fury. It's based on the Byond game, Mitadake High, by Devourerofsouls, which pays homage to many animé and their stereotypes. There are plans for three overall story arcs
 * Death Note Mode
 * Duo
 * Terminus

As you can probably work out from the first subtitle, the first arc is related to Death Note. The Byond game has a Death Note mode which replaces the killer with Kira and adds a player who has Shinigami eyes. This arc ended in March 2011

Duo is to be based on the normal mode of the game and is just about to begin. Terminus is a secret. A prequel arc, called Prelude, was planned to go in between Duo and Terminus, but it was cancelled after the creator decided that it'd make the project too long, and was too light-hearted in comparison to the other arcs.

The site can be found here and updates on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Mitadake Saga provides examples of:

 * A Bloody Mess: Inverted and invoked. The Silver Haired Girl notes that the school's ketchup is odd, drawing attention to how it is drawn just like blood. In the original game ketchup could be used to make fake blood, so there's a good chance this trope will be played straight later.
 * Adventures in Coma Land: Potentially.
 * Anime Hair: Expected, considering both the comic and game's nature
 * Art Evolution: The earlier art is very iffy. It continued to improve over time, with increasingly complex backgrounds, more distinct character designs, and softer shading effects.
 * Ascended Fangirl: The comic's co-author, Espeh, was recruited to work on the project after her and Frosty met at college, and she contributed some good ideas.
 * Axes At School: Kazu Ito is carrying around an axe. Hmm...
 * Big No: Keiichi lets out a huge one stretching across several panels right before  One panel even has it written scattered around alphabet soup-style amid a rain of hoarded keys.
 * Lampshaded by the Author's Notes underneath: Trope Unlocked: Big No
 * Blinding Bangs: Keiichi Hideki's hair completely obscures his eyes
 * Blood From the Mouth:  coughs up blood upon being stabbed
 * The Cameo: Appropriately enough, three characters from the actual Death Note series appear during that arc, though mostly off-panel.
 * The Chessmaster: In the Kira arc,
 * Closed Circle: The automatic lockdown provides this.
 * The Corpse Stops Here
 * Dead Man Writing:
 * Death Flag: During the Kira arc, several characters Info Dump about their pasts, perhaps unintentionally giving the impression they're collecting Death Flags.
 * Decoy Protagonist:.
 * Driven to Suicide:
 * Dropped a Bridge on Him: A few characters have gotten this treatment.
 * Easily Forgiven: Kazu  Zero and Koji accept this excuse a little too easily. Then again, there wasn't really time to have a calm discussion about it after he finally finished explaining why he did it.
 * Everyone Is a Suspect: The whole premise.
 * Evil Gloating: Kira engages in this throughout the final chapter of the Death Note arc.
 * For the Evulz: At the end of the Death Note arc, it's revealed part of the tragedy occured because.
 * Foreshadowing: Reread through the comic and you can catch some subtle hints that you probably didn't notice before.
 * Freudian Excuse: Kira's motivation is revealed in a set of silent panels, apparently, . Too bad they took a flying leap off the slippery slope.
 * Goggles Do Nothing: Zaraki Yagami - The Boy With Goggles - funnily enough, wears goggles. In the original game, this is reference to protagonists who wear goggles. Here it's...
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: In the first arc,.
 * Hollywood Hacking: Nana uses this to retrieve the code for the security room from the computer lab.
 * In Joke: The actions of some of the characters is a nudge at the constant rulebreaking and metagaming found in the original game.
 * Info Dump: Frequently in the first arc.
 * Killed Off for Real: Anyone who dies.
 * Late to the Party: Done with a slight twist; Duo's Prologue revealed that
 * Manipulative Bastard: The first arc's Kira.
 * Meganekko: Aki Mishiba, the purple-haired girl.
 * Mood Killer: In Duo's Prologue, Taku butts into a conversation about what happened in the Kira arc before it can really get started.
 * Murder Is the Best Solution: Considering the source game, this occurs a lot.
 * My God, What Have I Done?:  has this when he realizes the people he killed were innocent.
 * Nightmare Fetishist: Mizue, who excitedly wants to examine a dead body when the Lockdown occurs.
 * No Social Skills: Duo introduces Taku, the Gray Haired Boy, as somebody really interested in what happened during the first arc. And who constantly bugs  about what happened. With no regard to their Survivor Guilt or anything. His utter lack of tact makes him come off as a Jerkass.
 * Ontological Mystery: The school could count, once the lockdown is activated, especially as it's implied that there's more to it than it would seem...
 * Otaku Surrogate: Quite a few, especially Zaraki.
 * Red Herring: The scene between Zero, Zaraki, Daichi and Mai early on in the story where everyone introduces themselves.
 * Retcon:
 * Rose-Haired Girl: Shiki Yagami.
 * The Scapegoat: Kira was planning to set up  as this.
 * Scars Are Forever: In the second arc,.
 * See You in Hell: Uttered by Koji
 * Shy Blue-Haired Girl: Mai Saito seems to be fairly shy.
 * Serial Killings, Specific Target:.
 * Shout-Out: A fair few, though this is likely to increase as the series continues.
 * Examples; Death Note, Higurashi, Tsukihime.
 * Spanner in the Works:  really hadn't been expecting.
 * : In the Kira arc.
 * Sunglasses At Night: Fairly redundant because they're inside anyway. Not that that makes them any more practical. Kazu Ito wears them.
 * Survivor Guilt
 * Twist Ending:.
 * Yandere: Miki is this for her brother, Koji.
 * You Bastard: Taku's cheerful attitude about all the murder and mayhem going on comes off as casually cruel to his classmates... but is a good translation of Mitadake High players who don't bother acting like normal teenagers caught in such a situation would.
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Two characters have blue hair. They're easy to confuse for each other, which makes the fact that they interact with each other very early on, somewhat awkward.
 * Almost everyone in the cast has an implausible hair colour, ranging from blue, green, purple, pink etc. There are some ordinary hair colours, like brown, black and blonde in there too, so there's a healthy balance.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the Death Note arc,  fall victim to this.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In the Death Note arc,  fall victim to this.