Four high school girls were on a plane traveling with classmates and teachers for a school trip. What that trip was, who knows, because they didn’t come close to getting there. Instead, their plane crashed somewhere out in the sea, but they, so far, are the only ones who survived. They end up heading over to a deserted island and now have to figure out how to survive until help arrives by any means necessary.
…When I mean by any means, I mean that if you have to kill a flying fish, take off your uniform and use it to wrap the flying fish, then wring out the blood and bodily fluids of that flying fish and use it as your water source, then yeah…they do just that.
Are You Lost? is a survival series that tries to find a balance between tips on how to live and small laughs. The girls introduced so far each have the standard personalities — Asuka Suzumori, who’s on the basketball and track team (the sporty one); Shion Kujo, who’s rich; Mutsu Amatani, a very shy but small girl (also a bookworm) — except Homare Onishima. What makes Homare an exception is the fact that she’s been personally trained by her father, who was in the military, on survival tips. That basically makes her the authority on living in a deserted island.
This also means this manga is a case where everyone reacts to how Homare approaches each and every situation, from finding water, to what plants are actually edible, and how to set up traps to catch animals. It is mentioned in pretty stunning detail — like you can’t go a couple of pages (particularly as the manga progresses) without a factoid on how to build a specific trap or what bug or sea creature is ok to eat. And how the girls who aren’t like Homare react to it seems to be the draw — particularly how Shion acts, as it’s nowhere near what’s she accustomed to.
However, it does its best to try and have comedic moments, and it doesn’t really work out. From how the girls try and catch things (for example, Asuka takes off her skirt to catch a frog) to moments where the characters try some of the food they can eat, it’s not all that funny. It’s a bit more focused on telling in detail what’s inside of a certain species or drawing the girls in certain positions — like with Asuka volunteering to test out one of Homare’s traps, and we get to see her panties.
The drawings are very good by the way — not just of the girls, but everything is pretty appealing to look at, so for Sagara, that’s one of the strengths of this manga. The other is the fact that it’s just girls trying to survive, which also means them trying to rally together around a situation where they might not even survive. Most survival works have some sort of dumb element to it, and so far, this manga is aiming to mostly be realistic. That said, there was a note that the traps used in this work is illegal, so maybe too realistic…
But for most of volume 1, the big hook is these girls finding new ways to try and survive on this deserted island, and whether they can stick together despite little signs of rescue coming. At this point though, that’s about all it’s got going for it. Unless the comedic timing that keeps getting included gets better or something narrative-wise changes, there isn’t enough in Are You Lost? to keep me reading.