Angels of Death Review: A Girl and a Killer Make a Pact to Climb Out of a Building Full of Murderers

The deal at the center of Angels of Death is genuinely strange: a serial killer agrees to help a girl escape a building, and in exchange, she agrees to let him kill her once they're out. Most horror is about avoiding death. This one is built on a promise to deliver it — and on the bizarre, almost tender bond that forms between two people who have agreed to that.

It's uneven, but that central relationship is hard to forget.

Quick Take

• Adapted from the hit RPG Maker horror game — a building of themed murder floors and a deal between victim and killer
• The strange bond between emotionless Rachel and volatile Zack is the whole reason to read it
• Rated M (Mature); 12 volumes complete, published in English by Yen Press

Who Is This Manga For?

• Fans of the original Angels of Death game who want the expanded story
• Readers who enjoy atmospheric, claustrophobic psychological horror over pure gore
• Anyone drawn to unlikely-duo dynamics with a dark twist
• Horror fans interested in themes of death, faith, and what counts as a reason to live

Content Warnings & Age Rating

Age Rating: M (Mature) Content Warnings: Violence and gore; the central premise involves a promise of death; psychological themes including suicidal ideation and trauma; disturbing floor-master characters

The M rating is accurate, though the horror leans atmospheric rather than relentlessly graphic.

Story Overview

Rachel Gardner is a 13-year-old girl who wakes in the basement of a strange building with no memory of how she got there. Almost immediately she encounters Zack (Isaac Foster), a scythe-wielding killer wrapped head to toe in bandages. He intends to kill her — but Rachel, eerily calm, proposes a deal instead: help her escape the building, and she will let him kill her once they're free. Zack, intrigued by a victim who wants to die, agrees.

The building is structured as a vertical gauntlet. Each floor is the domain of a different murderer — a "floor master" — and to ascend, Rachel and Zack must get past each one. The floor masters are the series' rogues' gallery: Eddie (Edward Mason), a gravekeeper obsessed with burying Rachel in a beautiful grave; Danny (Daniel Dickens), an eye doctor fixated on Rachel's eyes; Cathy (Catherine Ward), a sadistic warden whose floor is a deadly trap-laden gauntlet; and Abraham Gray, the priest-like figure whose floor stages a literal trial of Rachel herself. Each presents a new psychological and physical threat.

As they climb, the building peels back secrets about both protagonists — Rachel's blankness conceals a damaged past, and Zack's violence has its own tragic origin. The deeper question is what their pact actually means: whether Rachel truly wants to die, what Zack is really promising her, and whether the strange care that grows between them changes the terms. The ending — which leans into themes of faith and judgment — is divisive, landing as poignant for some readers and frustrating for others.

Characters

Rachel Gardner (Ray) — A girl whose flat, emotionless affect is the series' central mystery. Her calm request to be killed, and her single-minded focus on the deal, hide trauma that the building slowly exposes. Whether she is suicidal, broken, or something stranger is the question the series circles.

Zack (Isaac Foster) — A volatile, childlike serial killer whose bandaged appearance and erratic temper mask his own tragic history. His odd protectiveness toward Rachel — the victim he's promised to kill — is the emotional engine of the story.

The floor masters — Eddie the gravekeeper, Danny the eye-obsessed doctor, Cathy the sadistic warden, and Gray the priest who tries Rachel, among others. Each rules a floor with a distinct psychological theme, functioning as both obstacle and mirror to Rachel and Zack.

What I Love About It

The dynamic between Rachel and Zack works because it inverts every expectation. He is the monster who becomes, in his way, her protector. She is the victim whose request unsettles the killer more than any resistance would. Their bond is built on a death pact, and yet the series finds genuine, uneasy tenderness in it — two damaged people who understand each other precisely because everyone else would recoil. When the manga is working, that relationship carries it.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

The trial on Abraham Gray's floor, where Rachel is put on trial — not for a crime, but over the question of whether she deserves to live and whether her own wish to die is even truly hers. It forces the deeper issue the whole building has been circling: is Rachel genuinely suicidal, or a damaged girl who has never been allowed to value her own life, and will Zack hold to his promise or break under the realization that he no longer wants to keep it? The way the trial drags Rachel's buried past and her real desires into the open — and forces Zack to confront what she actually means to him — is the series' emotional high point.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• The Rachel-Zack dynamic is a genuinely memorable dark duo
• Atmospheric, claustrophobic building structure with strong themed floors
• Faithful, expanded adaptation of a beloved horror game
• Complete in 12 volumes

Cons

• Pacing is uneven — some floors drag, others rush
• The art is solid but not exceptional
• The faith-heavy, divisive ending won't satisfy everyone — whether it lands depends heavily on what you wanted from the pact

Is Angels of Death Worth Reading?

For fans of the game and of psychological horror built on a strong central relationship — yes. For readers who need tight pacing and a conventional resolution, the unevenness and the divisive ending may frustrate.

Where to Buy

Read the first volume. If it doesn't hook you, put it down. It'll hook you.

Start with Volume 1 →

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