'Believers' is about three cult members – two men and one woman – who take part in the “Deserted Island Program”, a program which aims to “purify” them from the corrupt influences of modern society. The characters don't use their birth names, they are simply referred to by their rank title – Chairman, Vice Chairman and Operator. Each day consists of: meditating by sitting in a triangle formation with each other's feet touching; analysing their dreams with each other in an effort to cleanse themselves of all impurities; testing their “psychic” powers; listening to their “master” through radio transmissions; and communicating their progress to higher ranking members in the cult. Celibacy and honesty are the greatest virtues while any sexual thoughts are tantamount to heresy and will see you spend a night buried up to your chest in sand to rid your body of its “poison”.
'Believers' begins as a mystery which slowly starts to reveal itself as the story unravels and the characters descend into madness. At its core 'Believers' is a romance, but to simply call it that is too reductionist. The story is filled with black comedy, drama and psychological elements. One of the recurring themes is the idea of the line between dream and reality becoming eroded over time. It is never clear whether what we are seeing is reality or the characters' distorted perceptions of reality. It is very Satoshi Kon-esque, which is one of the highest compliments you could give. Yamamoto also brilliantly juxtaposes the dangers of blind subservience with the mindless bliss of being told how to think. You want the characters to succeed, yet you also understand that their position is due to their own personal negligence. Their conflicts are as much internal as they are external. Perhaps the biggest theme is how we try to suppress human desires. In particular, sex. The role of sex is significant in all of Yamamoto's manga and thus deserves a section of its own.
Yamamoto is one of the more polarising mangaka out there. He specialises in erotic manga, so a lot of people will dismiss his work out of hand. However, the sex does serve a purpose and is not simply watered-down Hentai. Just as sex in 'Arigatou' was used to symbolise liberation, the sex in 'Believers' fills a similar purpose. I don't recall ever seeing any author, manga or otherwise, using sex as a motif as intelligently as Yamamoto does. A word of warning: granted that genitalia is either censored or obscured, absolutely nothing is left to the imagination. In fact, there is an entire chapter dedicated to nothing but sex. Unfortunately, it does eventually comes across as a little gratuitous, but try not to let this put you off from reading an otherwise good manga.
Where the story in 'Believers' falls slightly short is in its conclusion. It was almost as if Yamamoto had written the first 20 chapters without considering how he would conclude the series. In the end it felt like Yamamoto was trying to tie up too many loose ends with too little time and it all smacks of poor planning. It isn't so bad that it undermines all the good work that preceded it, but it definitely could've been handled better. One other minor gripe was the sheer amount of dialogue. There is one scene where the Chairman is explaining his idea for a script and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I have never seen a page of manga filled with so much text and I probably never will again.
Moving on to the art, 'Believers' is the first manga that Yamamoto drew without any assistance and it was drawn entirely on tablet. As commendable as that is, the results are something of a mixed bag. Firstly, the main cast all look too much alike. They all have similar body shapes, they all wear the same t-shirts throughout the story, they all have very similar hairstyles (the issue is further exasperated when Vice Chairman cuts her hair), they all have similar faces and both males have facial hair. Honestly, the result is just as jarring as it sounds. This is not helped by the fact that the characters are not drawn consistently from panel to panel. The thickness of the facial hair is a good example of this, appearing so faint at times that it almost gives the illusion that the males are clean shaven. The thickness of the lines, in general, is a big problem. Yamamoto himself admits that he loves to consistently draw with thin lines, but this leads to a lack of depth in his designs. Characters almost fade into the white space of the backgrounds while lines which are supposed to represent creases in a t-shirt ultimately just look like lines. The art does redeem itself somewhat with its setting, however. The Island where the characters reside is based on the Second Sea Fortress, a small, artificial island off the coast of Tokyo Bay during the early 20th Century. Particularly, long shots are used effectively to show the detailed and pretty landscape. All-in-all, the art is just okay. Not great, but it does the job. Ultimately, Yamamoto's stories have always come before his art and the same holds true here for 'Believers'.
Whether I could recommend 'Believers' largely depends on one's tolerance for depicted sexual acts, of which there is a lot here. If you can appreciate it for what it is then 'Believers' has the potential to appeal to a lot of different audiences. Yamamoto himself claimed that he doesn't care for genres and that is one of the biggest strengths of 'Believers' – there is something here for everyone (except minors, of course!). For a manga that isn't likely to take much more than a couple of hours to complete, it may be worth the gamble.
