A School Frozen in Time Vol.1 by Mizuki Tsujimura (Author) and Naoshi Arakawa (Illustrator)
My Ratings: 4/5On a snowy school day like any other, classmates and childhood friends Hiroshi and Mizuki arrive at school to find the campus eerily empty. Before long, they find themselves trapped inside with six other friends, and even stranger, all the clocks have stopped at a very specific moment — the exact time when a former classmate jumped off the school roof to their death three months earlier. It turns out that this departed friend is their way out of their current predicament and may even be among their group… but no one can remember who it was that took their life on that sad day. The students must face themselves and their past memories to piece together the identity of this suicide victim or risk a similar fate — with their lives lost and forgotten inside these frigid school walls.
Trigger Warnings: Blood, Suggestions of self harm, suicide, depression, loneliness.
I received this book in exchange of an honest review, from the lovely people at Kodansha Comics and Netgalley.
“What’s important isn’t the name. It’s the memories of sharing your feelings that are important.”
It’s just another day, it’s snowing outside and the students have arrived on time for class. Everything seems normal, but sudden simple things don’t make sense anymore. The exist doors are all close, reception is dead, there’s no other living person on sight except for them, and the most scariest of all? Time has stopped. Now trapped at school, force to remember something from this mysterious paranormal entity, questioning who among them has died, it’s a race to the truth and survival. I have nothing but affection for this setting. I love haunted schools, unexplained terrors that plough the hallways, characters coming up with creative solutions to problems. It’s the perfect setting for a paranormal mystery and I can’t stop. I finished the volume in one moment and I couldn’t help myself and wish for the second volume. I have to know what happens next and so will you once you read it. It’s my first time reading a fictional work from Mizuki Tsujimura and I’m baffled I never had the chance to do so before. She is extremely fluent with her portrayal of those teenagers dealing with this obscure situation, their feelings and relationship put to the test and the phenomena that is spreading throughout this school. But I am familiar with Naoshi Arakawa artwork and he is talented as always, bringing these people for me to care about, this building to feel right, and this spirit or however you name it, a real threat to consider. Try this manga! I highly recommend it, especially for none- manga readers out there. One of the best accessible ones for you to start.
YA on my Mind 
This is such an intriguing series. I’m always left craving more at the end of each volume.