History Manga / ThouShaltNotDie

** The story tears into the supernatural high-school action genre (for example stories such as ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' and ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar''). Here, the whole high-school thing is just a front to give a somewhat appealing exterior and to hide the absolute hell that the students have to endure. The characters are treated as little more than weapons on legs and having been forced to essentially give up all their rights as human beings and are treated as disposable. And just like weapons in real life, there are numerous underground dealings to sell these kids to foreign powers without their knowledge. And to top it all off, those in charge will use whatever means necessary to keep the students under control, with everything from threats to drugs and numerous other things.

** Telekinesis isn't that flashy compared to air bombs or MindRape but a good user can bring a lot of firepower since they can crush car and skulls from a distance.

* GenreDeconstruction: The story tears into the supernatural high-school action genre (for example stories such as ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' and ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar''). Here, the whole high-school thing is just a front to give a somewhat appealing exterior and to hide the absolute hell that the students have to endure. The characters are treated as little more than weapons on legs and having been forced to essentially give up all their rights as human beings and are treated as disposable. And just like weapons in real life, there are numerous underground dealings to sell these kids to foreign powers without their knowledge. And to top it all off, those in charge will use whatever means necessary to keep the students under control, with everything from threats to drugs and numerous other things.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters: The story features a pretty big roster of characters, with several introduced in just the opening chapters. [[AnyoneCanDie Don't get too attached]].

* AchillesHeel: Mashiro can absorb a lot of damage and even resist mind control, but electricity works wonder on her.

* AmericaSavesTheDay: Subverted, Japan has to ask the U.S forces to extract the remaining children in the first arc and they arrived in the nick of time to stop [[spoiler: a berserk Mashiro]] from killing Kuroi and possibly everyone else. Later the Japanese officers explains they had to let the Americans test if the gifted children are under control (which is why they waited for so long before neutralizing [[spoiler:Mashiro]]) and Asagi suspects EngineeredHeroics, since with their equipment not only were they waiting for this but they likely leaked children's positions to the guerilla forces the whole time.
* AnyoneCanDie: Besides Kuroi, Mashiro and maybe Asagi ([[YourDaysAreNumbered who has, at best, three years to live due to a rapidly aged brain causing severe dementia]]), just about any named character seems to be fair game, and even Kuroi and Mashiro haven't gotten off easily. A named character getting crippled or PutOnABus is pretty much the best fate for them.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Psy-Res, the metal allows a better reach and more options to the close range psychics by connecting their blood to the blade. The downside is that the connection isn't a one way street and the wielder can feel what the blade is being drenched in or connect with another Psy-Res blade. When used by sadists like Yanagi it doesn't take long for them to get high on the taste of blood.

* TheChampion: Kuroi to Mashiro, he doesn't care about anyone else and even let two seniors to die because he didn't see why they should be kept alive, Mashiro has to order him to protect or not kill other schoolmates.
* TheConspiracy: The Shirotae Project. [[spoiler:It used to be a secret project that did numerous inhumane experiments hidden from the public eye for the sake of finding some kind of immortality elixir for the sake of it's leader Miyata Seijiro, all disguised as a simple hospital. The whole thing has influence in several branches of the government, allowing them to keep up their actions with impunity. However the leader died 20 years before the start of the story, yet the project kept going despite that and is now controlled by an unknown individual. This project is also the cause of the sudden appearance of children with special abilities due to the numerous experiments done towards pregnant women. This is also why a lot of the kids lost their parents as [[HeKnowsTooMuch they could have leaked the info]], Momoka's among them]].
* CrapsackWorld: Did you expect anything else from a manga by Creator/YokoTaro? Kids with special powers are used as bioweapon, most of them suffer from severe psychological issues due to their powers and upbringing and the whole world doesn't care or know about the ChildSoldiers being sent to die.

* DecoyProtagonist: At first, Usuki is portrayed as the leading man, seemingly more [[VanillaProtagonist sane and stable than his peers, as well as having an unremarkable but useful power]]. Then his head gets turned into salsa at the end of the first chapter.

* DysfunctionJunction: Most of the kids were unstable before the school turned them into weapon and took away their right as human being, the rest gets killed either by their schoolmates or the army they were sent to kill.
* EyeScream: Happens a lot during the gory scenes and [[spoiler:Kuroi ends up losing an eye, though in his case, "scream" might be the wrong word.]]

* GenreDeconstruction: The story tears into the supernatural high-school action genre (for example stories such as ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' and ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar''). Here, the whole high-school thing is just a front to give a somewhat appealing exterior and to hide the absolute hell that the students have to endure. The characters are treated as little more than weapons on legs and having been forced to essentially give up all their rights as human beings and are treated as disposable. And just like weapons in real life, the are numerous underground dealings to sell them to foreign powers without their knowledge. And to top it all off, those in charge will use whatever means necessary to keep the students under control, with everything from threats to drugs and numerous other things.

*** Despite being able to explode heads from meters away, those with MindOverMatter powers are easily gunned down because they can't form barriers out of raw telekinetic force or compressed air. Their abilities are explicitly established to have a time-lag and depend on their reflexes, meaning they have to manually stop each and every bullet that flies at them if they want to avoid getting hit, which is impossible for an otherwise ordinary teenager to do.

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story shares its name with the Akiko Yosano poem of the same name, that focused on how she wished for her son to return safe from a war.

** Kuroi can read everyone thanks to his high intuition to the point he can feel landmines, however if he is too angry to focus he can't do it. Additionally, he cant really use his MindRape powers on someone who is in a state where there really isn't a mind to rape.
** The kids are also better as commando or covert operation than open warfare since they have no experience or even body armor to take gunfire. The fact that their telekinetic powers that they use to defend themselves with has a time-lag really leaves them with few defensive options against guns.
* MagicAIsMagicA: Long users power is transmitted through moisture, short range users through their blood.

** Kuroi lost it long, long ago, due to his ability to read minds. He describes the unending noise as a nightmare, and the fact that his abilities allow him to manipulate anyone into doing whatever he wants broke him even further. By the time he discovers Mashiro he is [[DesperatelyLookingForAPurposeInLife desperate to find a purpose in life]] since he always gets what he wants.

* NeverBringAKnifeToAGunfight: Even the students with MadeOfIron powers aren't bulletproof (the toughest,[[spoiler:Mashiro]] just shrug off the gaping holes) yet due to Japan's regulation and the secrecy of their operations, katanas are the only thing they can give to them when they go in open warfare. It goes as well as you expect.
* NoSell: Kuroi put a "hole" in Mashiro, basically a mental break that shatters the heart, it doesn't work.

* OnlySaneMan: Usuki, it didn't end well for him and his death makes everyone go crazy since no one is there to calm them.

* RulesLawyer: Everything is set so that should the truth about the school be uncovered, the Japanese government can say the school was officially a N.G.O and they have no weapon or gears provided by the Self Defense Force (soldiers with no guns), therefore Japan didn't break their disarmament treaties.
* SeamlessSpontaneousLie: Kuroi tells Mashiro that the reason he enrolled in the Special Abilities Private High School was because he wants to see how far his powers can go. Now, this seems believable, taking in account that he says this after he cheerfully stabs a female soldier to death, however the ''actual'' reason is [[spoiler:that he saw that Mashiro is immune to his mind-reading powers and he has become completely obsessed with her.]]
* SexForSolace: The government secretly created Soap Land, a brothel with porno magazine where the students, most going through puberty, can blow off some steam and just try to deal with the situations they often find themselves in. [[spoiler:Unknown to them, it also doubles as a sampling center]].

* TalkingWithSigns: The minor character Kurumi never speaks out loud, instead she writes on a small tablet computer whenever she wants something said.
* TroubledSympatheticBigot: Jean, the French leader of the R.A.I.D went along the right wing party's plan of an ethnic cleansing using bioweapon derived from the psychic student. He does it because immigrants are flooding his country and destroying it since his family died in a terrorist attack (the arc was released in 2016).

* CrapsackWorld: Did you expect anything else from a manga by [[Creator/TaroYoko Yoko Taro]]? Kids with special powers are used as bioweapon, most of them suffer from severe psychological issues due to their powers and upbringing and the whole world doesn't care or know about the ChildSoldiers being sent to die.

''Thou Shalt Not Die'' (Kimi Shi ni Tamou koto Nakare, 君死ニタマフ事ナカレ), written by Creator/TaroYoko and illustrated by [[Manga/ChronoCrusade Daisuke]] [[Manga/WorldEmbryo Moriyama]], follows the students attending the "Special Abilities Private High School", Kuroi and Mashiro, alongside their companions as they try to get through school and survive in an ever increasingly hostile world.

* GenreDeconstruction: The story tears into the supernatural high-school action genre (for example stories such as ''Manga/ACertainScientificRailgun'' and ''LightNovel/TheAsteriskWar''). Here, the whole high-school thing is just a front to give a somewhat appealing exterior and to hid the absolute hell that the students have to endure. The characters are treated as little more than weapons on legs and having been forced to essentially give up all their rights as human beings and are treated as disposable. And just like weapons in real life, the are numerous underground dealings to sell them to foreign powers without their knowledge. And to top it all of, those in charge will use whatever means necessary to keep the students under control, with everything from threats to drugs and numerous other things.

*** Asagi has SuperIntelligence that gives him enhanced memory and foresight, but it's the result of a greatly aged brain that not only gave him ''very'' early onset dementia, but also means he'll suffer brain death within two years, resulting in a very nihilistic view of the world. [[spoiler: It also brings him to tears when a girl from Soapland that he has mutual feelings for was someone he ''couldn't'' forget despite distancing himself from her to spare her heartbreak.]]

*** [[BadPowersGoodPeople Mashiro]] has terrifying Super Strength that [[OneManArmy easily allows her to splatter her targets]] or [[PersonOfMassDestruction wreck her surroundings]], something that an optimist like her is ''not'' happy about despite being trained to kill. It only gets worse when her SuperpoweredEvilSide comes into play that turns her into TheBerserker on top of her immense strength slowly starting to grow beyond her control, [[SanitySlippage causing her to slowly become detached]] [[MirrorCharacter in a way that isn't to dissimilar to]] [[TheSociopath Kuroi himself...]]

** It also tears into the kind of powers you'd usually expect in a setting with superhumans, often by giving them a LogicalWeakness, [[PowerAtAPrice hefty costs]] or [[LudicrousGibs otherwise]] [[Gorn nasty]] [[CruelAndUnusualDeath results]];

** It also tears into the kind of powers you'd usually expect in a setting with superhumans, often by giving them a LogicalWeakness, hefty costs or otherwise nasty results;

*** Mashiro's Super Strength can easily splatter her targets or wreck her surroundings, something that an optimist like her is ''not'' happy about.

*** Kuroi's enhanced intuition gives him a mix of Telepathy and TheEmpath that can't be turned off, and having it and the ability to hypnotize people since he was a child turned him into TheSociopath since it easily gives him whatever he wants.
*** Asagi has SuperIntelligence that gives him enhanced memory and foresight, but it's the result of a greatly aged brain that not only gave him ''very'' early onset dementia, but also means he'll suffer brain death within two years, resulting in a very nihilistic view of the world.

* MindOverMatter: A lot of the long range kids are using telekinesis, Usuki could crush cars while Mizukaki can fumble apple.

* SunkCostFallacy: [[spoiler: As explained by Yanagi during a takeover of Special Abilities Private High School, it's the entire reason why unethical projects like the superhuman program are still occurring despite the low success and high fatality rates, and attempts to rectify this such as the Psy-Res metal backfiring horribly. Ever since the initial goal of Immortality was established, too much money and promise was invested by multiple parties to simply stop, and the lives of countless teenagers is seen as too inconsequential to really matter in the longer run.]]

** It also tears into the kind of powers you'd usually expect in a setting with superhumans, often by giving them hefty costs or nasty results;

** It also tears into the kind of powers you'd usually expect in a setting with superhumans, often by giving them hefty costs or nasty results. Mashiro's Super Strength can easily splatter her targets or wreck her surroundings, something that an optimist like her is ''not'' happy about. Kuroi's enhanced intuition gives him a form of Telepathy can't be shut off, and having it and the ability to hypnotize people since he was a child turned him into TheSociopath since it easily gives him whatever he wants. Asagi has SuperIntelligence that gives him enhanced memory and foresight, but it's the result of a greatly aged brain that not only gave him ''very'' early onset dementia, but also means he'll suffer brain death within two years.

* RealityEnsues: Super powered kids isn't some new age weaponry, it's Japan using a loophole so they can take military action. The kids get butchered under gunfire. The MadScientist explains that they shine when it comes to war on information and terrorism, where modern military is obsolete since a hidden suicide bomber is easy to spot for a psychic but normal soldiers aren't equipped for that.

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: The story shares it's name with the Akiko Yosano poem of the same name, that focused on how she wished for her son to return safe from a war.