Tsumetai Kousha no Toki wa Tomaru
A School Frozen in Time

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I like stories about friends overcoming hardships together. Stories with intriguing mysteries and backstories. Stories that make me think and reflect on my own life and past memories. I really LOVE a good tearjerker, and hell, I've been wanting more stories set during the wintertime. So what happened to A School Frozen In Time?

The story even starts off somewhat like Angel Beats, which, as flawed and unfortunately unfinished as it is, is probably one of my favorite anime of all time. A mysterious high school where no one in our group of characters can get out of and be reminded of their tragic backstories over ... time? I'm in... yet I don't feel invested at all, not even after some quick re-reading of all 4 volumes! I don't feel like I experienced anything or truly understood the characters, who aren't memorable or interesting enough despite their dedicated backstories which can get so over the top that it feels unbelievable, and not in a good way. Sure, in real life, most people are not going to (or even willing to) have convenient moments for others to see all sides of themselves, and there can be such thing as too much foreshadowing. But most of these characters feel so disconnected from their backstories that you could remove them and hardly anything would change. It doesn't help that much of these characters feel one-note and don't really have that much chemistry with each other either. Takano and Mizuki's friendship might be convincing, but I mean, if some of these characters have crushes on each other, shouldn't there be some more hinting on that than just the little of it there is? If some characters have some deeper history with each other, shouldn't that be shown more with more specific character moments? It just feels like these characters are only friends with each other just because... well, because. The plot demands it to happen, so... just accept it, I guess.

Speaking of which, the plot is just... okay. Once the first backstory is unveiled, you can kinda figure out how the rest of the story will choose to present and unfold itself—through tragic past events in an attempt to get the reader to quickly sympathize with the characters. These characters' developments are mainly just these sudden reveals and that's about it. Oh, and about these reveals... if you're the type to get queasy about blood and topics like suicide and self-harm, you probably will want to stay away from this series now... unless you're into self-help/motivational books, because a good amount of this series kinda read like one. Not exactly a negative for me, as that kind of thing can be written well in heavy dramas that want the reader to learn something from the content through things like emotional scenes, but I know a good amount of people aren't into that so I'll just put that out there. There are a few plot twists scattered about that are some admittedly cool ideas however, particularly in the last volume; but again, because of the execution, they don't feel as satisfying as they should in my opinion. They give me more like a "huh...? what?" feeling rather than a "oh what?! ohhhh... now that's clever!" kind of surprised feeling. The answers to all the mysteries similarly don't feel as satisfying.

This manga's art is done by the manga-ka famous for the beloved drama Your Lie in April. I haven't read it or watched it yet aside from the anime adaptation's famous opening, so I'm not too sure what that manga's art is like. But it's clear that A School Frozen In Time was made before it, because I doubt people would praise that manga for its beauty if it looked more like this. That's not to say it's terrible, as much of it from the backgrounds and drifting snow to the kind of atmosphere in some panels are serviceable; but neither the art nor the panel composition are anything particularly special, especially early on. One thing you'll immediately notice are that the characters' faces can look really wonky at times, especially when they are turned at 3/4 angles; though I suppose it works for the moments when their faces get really distorted, like when they are horrified beyond belief or intentionally get out of character. Also, I had found this series through physical copies of Vertical Comic's English translation, which has a main font choice I might've otherwise seen for tiny speech notes or something that unintentionally adds to the somewhat amateurish feeling of the art. The art does kinda improve a bit after the second volume or so though.

I don't hate A School Frozen In Time. I really don't. But it really could've been much more than it is. Give it a read if you're curious regardless of my own thoughts, I can see a lot of other people caring about this more than I did.

tl;dr: A manga with a decent concept but one that doesn’t connect its various parts properly to the point it largely fails to hit the notes it needs to.

This manga is about a group of eight friends that find themselves supernaturally trapped in their high school. They are completely cut off from the rest of the world and have no way to escape. The only hint they have regarding what’s going on is various supernatural phenomena centered around the suicide of a student two months ago. However, one of those phenomena is that all memories of who that student was have been erased, and thus ... they have very little to work with. As such, the majority of the manga doesn’t actually take place in the present, but rather through flashbacks that explain each character’s background with the framing that they may be the student that committed suicide.

The manga goes through each character one by one and gives each an extended flashback centered around a major psychological burden. Each character is shown as facing a personal issue they need to overcome, the vast majority centered around their sense of self-worth. And while the writing does a decent job of conveying the character’s background and where the issues arose from to the degree that that alone is enough to empathize with and even like certain characters, it does a pretty bad job of actually doing anything with the issues such as showing the characters overcoming them or anything in that vein. As such, it’s hard to get invested in the cast at an individual level long term. Furthermore, the vast majority of these burdens are very isolated and have very little connection to anything else. The eight characters being a group of friends with strong bonds is a core aspect of this manga and one that is emphasized repeatedly. However, this is done very much in a tell but not show manner. The flashbacks do very little to establish the eight as a strong group of friends. The eight don’t really have much chemistry in the present either. Thus, it’s largely hard to get invested in the bonds between them, both at an overall group level or in the connections between individuals.

I believe that this was an intentional choice. This manga is a mystery in a sense in that it is heavily centered around discovering something that is unknown. However, it’s also not in that it’s clear that the mangaka didn’t want people to be able to predict where things would go. Far from providing clues, the writing seems to go out of its way to avoid foreshadowing as much as possible. And if that was their goal, I suppose they were very successful in that I was unable to predict the identity of who committed suicide, nor of another major twist, until it was made explicit in the final stretch. However, I don’t find that impressive as I usually do when twists surprise me, because going through the manga again with the ending in mind, while it’s true that there aren’t any inconsistencies, there was also essentially nothing that popped out as having a different meaning or being more important with the additional context. While the ending certainly doesn’t contradict anything, it also doesn’t really feel like it builds off of anything properly either. And thus, the ending in general doesn’t have much impact.

There were also some bizarre choices in world building, mainly in that it references Langoliers a lot. Langoliers are a phenomenon where a group of people are sucked into someone’s subconsciousness. As far as I can tell, this is a fictional concept created by Stephen King novel. However, in the world of the manga, it’s apparently a real thing that’s been well researched and that they can apparently find research papers about in their school library. That gives the phenomenon a weird tone that detracts from the atmosphere of mystery. And it doesn’t really feel like there was any point to it either as in the end the explanation of Langoliers given didn’t even really apply.

The art can look decent for backgrounds, but not so much with characters. There are multiple characters with similar designs so it’s hard to tell who’s who at times. Furthermore, the art style is bad with faces, with eyes that aren’t expressive and mouths that often have shading that makes them look bizarre. And even with the backgrounds, while it generally is decent, it never really looks all that great. There were also some strange translation choices with honorifics. The translation chooses to omit them, which I don’t mind in general if handled correctly. However, there’s a part in this manga where the usage of ‘-san’ is important, and the manga simply uses ‘miss’ instead which sound really unnatural and doesn’t convey the original meaning either.

If you can ignore the art style for the most part, I think this manga is pretty good. The mystery is interesting, but what I love the most is the characters and their individual stories that we slowly learn. Their stories were really touching and they didn't feel shallow or repetitive, something that could be a problem in the way that they are revealed.
Without going into spoilers, I can say that the ending was interesting and surprising in a few different ways, though a mystery will always be more interesting that its answer.

Apparently this is the same artist of Your Lie in April? I had ... only watched the anime for that so I don't know how their art in that manga is, but in general it's strangely bad when it comes to faces? It only happens sometimes though, and I don't really understand how they can sometimes get things right, and sometimes not. They don't seem to have a problem drawing more complicated poses or backgrounds, but a 3/4th view of a face is really hard for them to do. Still, I just ignored that as much as I could (plus I don't particularly like how they shade in the lips of the characters but that's just a personal preference. I think it works better in the Your Lie in April anime where it's not pure black)

-*CONTENT WARNING: MANGA DISCUSSES & DEPICTS SELF HARM, ABUSE, ASSAULT, & BULLYING-*

TL;DR: simply put -- this manga is incredible. if you can forgive the manga for it's artistic shortcomings it is WELL worth the read. its a well paced psychological thriller about a group of high school seniors facing their inner demons head of and coming out the other side better people. the story revolves around the flushed out development of all of the characters (which the manga does an excellent job of doing) and there are plenty of twists that keep the reader on their toes! while the story is dark and tense, it ... is littered with cheeky humor. would absolutely recommend it, especially if you like mysteries, thrillers, suspense, paranormal stories, and horror stories

SYNOPSIS: during the winter semester of their third year at a prestigious high school, a group of eight friends gather in the snow and are trapped in an empty school building. after realizing that they are the ONLY students at school, the topic of the recent suicide of another classmate comes up and the group realizes they have completely forgotten everything about their peer. a malice paranormal entity is out for the group, plucking them one by one. they all have to confront the inner demons of their past while searching for the name of their classmate in order to make it out of the school alive

ART (5/10): when i first started reading the manga, the art style did catch me off guard. it is very late 90s/early 2000s aesthetic that im just not used to seeing. amongst the MAIN characters, i feel like all of them are really well designed and they all stand out from each other however i did get a bit confused when the secondary characters were introduced because they looked more generic and i would confuse them for the mains every once in a while. the scenery was done tremendously well -- there was gore but it was a tasteful amount which is always appreciated. the scenes of the empty hallways and the rooms were super ominous and did a great job world building.

CHARACTERS (9/10): the story HINGES on the characters and how they confront and conquer their inner demons and eventually grow and develop. each character had a unique and complex backstory that i felt like was super flushed out and cohesive. there wasnt much fluff either, the story got right to the point of where each character is coming from, their struggles, how they have been coping, and what they are doing/will be doing to improve and move forward. it was all so wonderfully written and satisfying to see all of the characters grow and acknowledge their flaws for what they are.

STORY (9/10): the story was so captivating. i had such a fun time reading it -- it was very well paced; i never felt like the story was stagnant or that they were trying to kill time with fluff. everything was done so purposefully. the story is a twist on the mystery sub-genre of locked room murders; in the genre usually the group has to figure out of is the killer as people get plucked one by one. in this story, someone has already died, they need to remember who it was... as they get plucked one by one lol. it was super refreshing to see the genre presented this way -- i feel like, while the genre is always enjoyable to *me*, it can totally be seen as reptitive or unoriginal to someone else. again, a lot of the story hinges on the development of the characters, which they did an excellent job of doing. there was also a fair amount of twists which i always love because i didnt see any of them coming.

OVERALL (9/10): this story is the perfect balance of scary, tense, funny, and inspirational. it was so masterfully written and executed that i didnt even notice some of the artistic shortcomings. it was all meat, no fluff type of story that satisfyingly resolves itself and i really couldnt ask for more than that when it comes to manga.