Enigma (manga)

ǝnígmǝ

Cover of the first tankōbon for Enigma
әnígmә【エニグマ】
(Eniguma)
Genre Mystery, Psychological
Manga
Written by Kenji Sakaki
Published by Shueisha
Demographic Shōnen
Magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump
Original run September 2010December 2011
Volumes 6 (List of volumes)
Anime and Manga Portal

Enigma, stylized as ǝnígmǝ (エニグマ Eniguma?), is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Kenji Sakaki, and serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine. Kenji Sakaki was an assistant to Akira Amano.[1]

Contents

Story

Haiba Sumio is a student at a Tokyo High School with an interesting ability... He occasionally falls asleep and wakes up with premonitions of the future written out on his "Dream Diary". With this ability, Sumio helps out people in trouble before anything bad happens, until one day when his peaceful life completely changes.

Characters

Haiba Sumio (灰葉スミオ?)
Year 1 Class A. His ability is the dream diary.[2] He refers to the dream diary as a way to help change the current fate and when people are in trouble he refers to it as a MAYDAY. After being taken into the e-test, Sumio becomes the de facto leader of the group, as he appears to have the most training with his ability, and possesses a willingness to help others when they are in danger. It has been since revealed that his actual ability is telepathy, and that ability combined with Shigeru's future-sight, allows him to write the future in his dream diary.
Kurumiya Shigeru (来宮しげる?)
Year 1 Class A. Her ability is future-sight. When her ability is combined with Sumio's, the dream diary works. Shigeru is Sumio's childhood friend. Despite this, Sumio, or herself, never knew she had an ability and openly wonders why Shigeru is taking the e-test.
Mizusawa Aru (水沢アル?)
Year 2 Class H. When he was captured he was in a costume he was wearing for a part-time job as a police mascot. It's later revealed that his ability allows him to transform in his costume, called Pit-Kun. With his ability, he can also change his size, growing to huge proportions and even fly. He discovered his ability after he was in a tragic accident, leaving his body practically immobile. But after being inspired by the heroics of Pit-Kun, transformed to the character and dedicates to save people.
Hasekura Moto (支倉モト?)
Year 1 Class E. His ability is to make things turn invisible/disappear, introduced in chapter 2. He refers to his power as a curse and is the strong desire to get rid of it that Enigma promises to get rid of, however after seeing his ability being useful to the group, seems to have seen his abilities in a better light. His motto is that he always takes the safest path in life.
Matsurigi Jirō (祀木ジロウ?)
Year 3 Class B. His ability is Cubic Subtraction, introduced at the end of chapter 8 and explained in chapter 9. With this ability he can reduce the measurements of objects at his will. The only conditions of this ability is that he cannot add to the object and it does not affect humans. He is the first in this e-test to be captured by a shadow. Once he was saved, he had the choice to swallow a pill to stop the shadow transformation. Instead of swallowing the pill, he saves it to force Kurisu Ryo to take it and save him. It is explained that he has already taken place in a past e-test as the sole survivor and wanted to take place in another to save Kurisu Ryo.
Kujōin Hiina (九条院ひいな?)
Year 2 Class C. Her ability is an invisible third hand introduced in chapter 4. With the third hand, she can move small objects and often uses the ability to check each room for safety reasons. Despite being invisible, the hand always leaves small hand prints among the surface of what it touches. She was originally a loner and preferred to keep to herself, while using her ability to prevent the other students from playing cruel pranks on her. She seems to be developing feelings for Sumio.
Sudō Takemaru (崇藤タケマル?)
Year 3 Class G. - His ability allows him to "rewind" things making them return to the past. It is introduced and explained in chapter 26. He is very strong-headed as well as strong.
Kurisu Ryō (栗須リョウ?)
Year 2 as of two years ago. His ability is Flat, introduced in chapter 11. Flat allows the user to enter a flat world, such as a picture, and interact with the contents of the picture. Ryo is the only one in the world who can interact with the picture. He tricks the party into believing that he is Mizusawa Aru. It is later revealed he was one of the students who failed the e-test, where before his personality mirrored that of Sumio, but as time went by with the group and with only few riddles answered, they started to turn on each other, where in the end he saved Jiro but ended up getting trapped. While there, the shadows corroded his good beliefs with selfish and cruel desires to escape with any means. It wasn't till Jiro gave him the pill did he return to his normal self again.
Enigma (エニグマ Eniguma?)
The antagonist and mysterious controller of the e-test. It is currently unknown who he is, why he is doing this, and how he was aware they all had special abilities. He is represented by the symbol of a human skull with the jaw in the opposite direction (in a way making a lower case e), but it is later revealed by Jiro that Enigma is indeed human with a noticeable mark on his right hand. Though through a conversation suggests he is looking for something in particular with the people in these tests, what of which is yet explained. As it turns out, Kijima, a teacher at Yuyami High School, was believed to be enigma. This is not true, because Kijima only has the enigma tattoo on his palm, whereas Enigma has it on both sides of his hand. The real Enigma is Kirio Imizuka, Sumio and Shigeru's old friend from the 1st year.

Media

Manga

Enigma was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump. It was launched in WSJ 2010, issue #41, which went on sale September 13, 2010, and ended in WSJ 2011, issue #48, which went on sale October 31, 2011, for a total of 55 chapters. As of October 4, 2011, it has been collected into 5 volumes.[3]

References