Review: Caste Heaven, Volume 4

Caste Heaven is Lord of the Flies only with better manners, more sex, and less death. 

It is the ongoing manga series of a high school where students participate in a game of castes--from year to year, people change roles: king, yes-man, geek, Goth, preppy, wannabe, slacker, brainiac. The series revolves around the relationship between Azusa and Karino. Azusa was king and lost the position to Karino. He is now the "target." 

The most fascinating aspect of Caste Heaven is the psychology. It is made clear over and over again that students could walk away from the game. They could ignore it. They could shrug their shoulders. Even if they were targeted, eh, in the end, really, does it matter? 

And yet they participate. They find comfort in roles. They struggle against roles, then retreat to them, using the roles as excuses and protection. They give up roles on purpose. They try out roles and discover new things about themselves. Their personality traits wash into their roles and often precede them, including self-doubt and insecurity but also confidence and friendliness. They make decisions based not on the petty power plays within the school but on outside pressures--sometimes those outside pressures are the reason they don't challenge the game. In one side story, a Goth admits that he finds the rules of the game more merciful than the rules of real life. He is also unnerved when the jock he thought he was taunting has the sheer almighty confidence to accept and even embrace his current role. 

The strongest bulwark against the game is the individual relationships and the personal costs that people are willing to pay for a lover or friend.

Azusa stands out because unlike everyone else he refuses to bow to his role (as target), not even to compromise. He doesn't even reject it. He simply defines himself as he wishes. He is unrelentingly defiant. He doesn't try to stay low and out of sight. He is angry, rude, explosive. He is willing to take abuse. He doesn't care. He keeps fighting. 

He is also the moral voice of the series (though he doesn't realize he is). Another character, Atsumu (the Jack), is inherently kinder and sweeter. But unlike everyone else, Azusa never lies about the game's stakes. When a geek, Inukai, attempts to hurt Azusa "on orders" to protect his lover Tonoma, Azusa responds, "You have no right to cry. If you're gonna...then don't do [the thing that makes you cry] in the first place...orders or not, [you're] the one who actually did it."

Azusa is also unabashedly ambitious. When Inukai and Tonoma decide to quit the game, Azusa states, "What are they going to do? Hold hands and skip merrily to the bottom?" To Karino he states, "I've never thought of myself as beneath you, and I never will." 

Karino is speaking. Azusa, supposedly the more

vulnerable, finds his ideology pitiable.

Karino--a young man from a wealthy family who is slated to take a place in his family's political legacy--is clearly using the game to gain a break from his fated family role. He is attracted to Azusa to the point of obsession but disguises it with a kind of sociopathic goodwill. Azusa's relentless belief that he will rise--when he has none of the social protections assumed by wealthier, more ostensibly powerful students--captivates Karino.

The series is not for the faint of heart. The sex is often non-consensual. The high school is raunchier than any high school ever has been or will be. And The Lord of the Flies vibe is strong. 

The reflections that arise from the interpersonal communications keep me collecting.