SPOILERS BELOW!! & Disclaimer: I didn't read the novel before reading the manga! TL;DR: the decagon murder house is a class locked room murder story an interesting read that had a fair amount of legitimately good and compelling twists. there were some aspects of the characters, plot and twists that just werent THAT convincing and i felt slowed the momentum of the story. overall is was an easy, fun and thrilling read for what it's worth. if youve read books like "and then there were none" by agatha christi or books like that, then youll like this. SYNOPSIS: K university has a mystery novel club consisting ofstudents from all walks of life who share a love of true crime and mystery books. the club decides to take a group trip to an off shore island that is also the home of a mysterious quadruple murder-suicide of a well known architect, his wife, and 3 employees. the club stays at another property (previously owned by said architect) and events quickly take a turn for the worst as ominous plates appear in the house labeled "victim 1 - victim 5, murderer, and detective". soon after, the club members start dying one by one and its a race against the clock to try and identify the killer before there is no one left.

ART (9/10): the art is amazing. every character had their own unique look that was easily identifiable and it looked like the mangaka put a lot of thought into the art direction of each character. the scenery was beautifully done also. the illustrations really helped set the scenes in the best way. some of the deaths of the club members are a bit violent but props to them for not making them super over the top gory; with the death scenes, the mangaka made their point and then let the plot do the rest of the heavy lifting. there was no real need to have "Saw" levels of gore.

CHARACTERS (5/10): im not too sure if the novel does a better job with this but i felt like a lot of the characters were half baked in the manga. determining which of the "main" characters got some level of back story flushed out seemed completely arbitrary. there is an argument to be made that if a couple of club members were simply deleted from the manga version that it would impact the general plot very little. i felt like every "main" character outside of orzcy and ellery needed waaaay more context. without it, it made their motivations, and there connections to each other so much more 1 dimensional and less impactful (ill get to this more in the story and spoilers section).

STORY (7/10): the story overall is solid. its a locked room murder story and it executes that well. the story had some depth with the context given from some of the character backstories and there were so twists that were surprising in a good way! i felt like while the story was tense and a bit heavy at times that it was paced well enough where i didnt feel bored or confused by what was happening. there were portions of the story that i did question but i believe that goes back to what did (or didnt) happen with the characters backstory. i felt like there were a lot of missing context, especially in the middle of the story because characters were flushed out so we are working on a lot of assumptions. for examples: the ellery vs. carr dynamic was confusing, the agatha & orzcy duo seemed superficial and unconvincing, the van & chiori duo was a revelation for the last volume, and the conan & shimuda duo seemed rushed and unrealistic. had there been more time to really unpack these characters, i think the story would be more air tight and more convincing.

OVERALL (7/10): the manga isnt awful. it did have me on the edge of my seat at times and there was a fair amount of twists that kept me hooked & engaged with the story. there was just enough gore to get the point across and everything was very visually interesting. i wish there was more of a deep dive into the characters and their relationships with each other to truly understand their motives and intentions but for what this was it isnt offense.