Shinigami-sama ni Saigo no Onegai wo ("Last Wish to the Shinigami") is a manga by Mikoto Yamaguchi, which was serialized in Gangan Joker from 2009 to 2011.
Shizuka Aida is a young teenager who is three days away from being executed for cruelly murdering his family, when a Shinigami comes to visit him. Turns out the Shinigami who appeared before him happens to be his little sister, Hibiki, and she has come to ensure that she takes his soul to hell, personally. She has another job on this trip as well, and that is to grant the final wish of a girl with heart disease, and she drags her condemned brother along with her.
Soon, it becomes apparent that people are not as simple as they may seem at first glance, and even Shizuka's guilt is uncertain. Hibiki and Shizuka promise to search together for the truth about their family's death, and they won't let life, death, or trouble in the afterlife get in their way!
This series provides examples of:
- Ambiguous Innocence: The crux of Shizuka's character: On one hand, he's a spacy, yet very kind Nice Guy, a loving older brother, and willing to go to incredible lengths to help people he just met. However, he's also devilishly clever, a devious manipulator, and will gleefully act like a utter Psycho to do so; all the while wearing a creepy smile. Shizuka himself has only hazy memories of the night he supposedly murdered his family, which only adds to the ambiguity.
- Ax-Crazy: Asami Arisawa, who is the first client we get to see. She ended up killing seven people with a cleaver before Hibiki cancelled her wish, because she wanted to feel the thrill of the hunt.
- Shizuka often puts on this sort of act during his Guile Hero moments. He's disturbingly good at it too.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Don't mess with
Boy AShizuka and get him mad. Don't. - Big Brother Attraction: Hibiki shows signs of being a Type 2. Her colleagues get suspicious after she gets really possessive of Shizuka, not letting any of them stay in the same room as he does. Luka even asks if she is a brocon, which she flatly denies (albeit with a rather flustered reaction). Further hints of this show up in chapter eleven, where she is shown to be visibly jealous at Shizuka having a rather happy time without her.
- Break the Cutie: Happened with Hibiki. Initially somewhat averted by the fact that Shizuka was not yet dead, but later played straight when Shizuka is killed right in front of her eyes. He was later revived (albeit illegally, in Shinigami law) by Hibiki.
- Cute and Psycho: Again, Asami Arisawa. See Ax-Crazy above.
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Shizuka manages to overturn the death sentence on him and Hibiki by making judicious use of over-the-top acting and a Logic Bomb on the straight-laced Shinigami Chief Ayame. He even had eight different scenarios prepared for different personality types.
- Distinguishing Mark: Shinigami are identified from normal humans by a strange symbol that is found just under their right eye.
- Eyes Always Shut: Shizuka rarely ever opens his eyes, and most of the panels he's appeared in shows him with both his eyes shut. He does occasionally opened just one eye, but the overall air about him when he has both eyes closed is that he is a rather spacey individual. However, he has shown analytic skill that betrays his nonchalant appearance. When he has both eyes open though, beware.
- Fanservice: Started out as mainly omake jokes, but increased as the chapters went on rather noticeably...
- Fan Disservice: Also a fair amount, which should be expected considering death is a very present factor. Like when Shizuka gets treated after being shot; although nearly nude in a female illusion as a likely-deliberate move on the author, s/he's also bloodied as all hell, suffering from a severe gunshot wound and obviously in extreme pain.
- Groin Attack: Satsuki gives one to Shizuka in chapter three.
- Guile Hero: Shizuka
- Informed Attractiveness: Hibiki has been described as having a beautiful figure by some characters, but with the art style used in this manga, she's not really a stand-out.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Shizuka can't remember what happened the night his family was killed. In addition, causing it is Saaya's ability.
- Meaningful Name: Hibiki means "sound", and Shizuka means "silence". It spills into their personalities as well, as Hibiki tends to be the rash, reckless one who charges in head-on into problems, while Shizuka is the cool, calm and meticulous one who plans out everything carefully, even having back-up schemes should an earlier plan fail.
- No Ending: A particularly nasty case. After 18 chapters, some of which were just mysteries to occupy the chapters but also carrying a number of major plot revelations, Shizuka is kidnapped by the seeming true culprit behind his family's murder and hauled off while Hibiki reads a letter he left to her to solve the final steps of the mystery. And then the series ended with a final relationship chart of the cast to 'let the readers figure it out.'
- Off with His Head!: How Shizuka was killed.
- Shinigami: Hibiki becomes one after her death as does Shiroha.
- A few others have also appeared, namely Ayame, Luka, Ume, Yoshino and Satsuki. Rin is the chief shinigami.
- Sibling Yin-Yang: Shizuka and Hibiki couldn't be more different.
- Token Mini-Moe: Satsuki, one of the higher-ranking Shinigami. It used to be Ayame, and Satsuki was the tall one.
- Tsundere: Hibiki, towards her brother. Lampshaded in the omake at the beginning of chapter two.
- Theme Twin Naming: "Shiroha" means "white feather" and "Kureha" means "red feather".
- Wholesome Crossdresser / Disguised in Drag: In chapter eleven, Shizuka, looks way too much like a girl, even under the influence of the power of Yoshino, whose ability is to change the outer appearance of a human. Not only that, but he very convincingly behaves like one throughout the date. Hibiki commented that he looked a lot like their mother.
- Zero-Approval Gambit / Hero with Bad Publicity: To the public at large, Shizuka is an infamous mass murderer known as "Boy A", a reputation that he will often play up whenever he pulls one of his gambits. A good example is the way he dealt with two girls who wanted to kill each other.
