Like Kagerou Daze, Bad End Night is based on a Vocaloid song. Unfortunately, that appears to be a premise too thin for an entire volume of manga, much less a series, and this volume can't quite decide if it's a mystery, a spoof on the “bad endings” of visual novels, or selling Vocaloid merchandise, resulting in a lukewarm story that doesn't really make much of an impression.

The story is set in a nebulous time that may or may not be the nineteenth century – clothing and technology are very uncertain and very little help in placing the tale. It casts Hatsune Miku as, well, Hatsune Miku, a young woman who grew up loving the theatre, most specifically the plays of her hometown's most famous resident, a playwright named Burlet. Despite Miku's apparently poverty-stricken upbringing, she attended the theatre regularly, and when she saw a casting call for a production of Burlet's Crazy Night, she immediately decided to try out. Much to her shock, she ends up with a lead role in the play, but her unfamiliarity with being on the other side of the footlights leads to disaster – Burlet was famous for not allowing anyone to fool around with his scripts, and those who ad-libbed are said to have been cursed. When Miku breaks a clock on the set, her cast mates have to improvise to make it seem like part of the show, and that leads to all of them being trapped in a version of Crazy Night that there is no apparent escape from. Their set transformed into Burlet's mansion of mystery, Miku must find a way to free them all.

It's a plot that looks great on paper. Not only does it play into theatre superstitions (think Shakespeare's “Scottish Play”), but it also uses proven plot devices that call to mind successful fiction where characters are trapped in a game or where the characters in a work of fiction must save their story. In fact, one of the more interesting episodes of season two of Bungo Stray Dogs uses a similar plot, when Edgar Allen Poe and Edogawa Ranpo face off. So what goes wrong here?

The first issue to raise its head is the fact that it is difficult to tell that the characters are acting in a play from the get-go. Very little effort appears to be expended to differentiate “story world” from the characters' “real world,” possibly in an attempt to relate each Vocaloid to their roles. Miku and her character of Miss Villager are virtually indistinguishable, which makes it feel less like she was cast in a specific part and more like she was simply moved around at the whim of the author. While this may turn out to be important later – after all, being moved by authorial whim is part of the issue when she breaks the set – right now it just feels like lazy writing. Likewise the set and the mansion, as well as the theatre itself, all look remarkably similar, with few, if any, glimpses of the supposed audience to be seen during the performance. The whole book feels like it's taking place inside someone's dollhouse and that each supposed change of venue is at the word of the person playing – we just have to go along with their game.

The dollhouse game metaphor actually holds up for many of the problems. The characters seem to just move around as if they were being walked by an unseen hand forcing them along, which, again, may prove to be a strength in later volumes, but at this point just makes the narrative feel unnatural. The entire plot is involuntary on the part of the characters, from contrived memory losses to too-convenient secret rooms. There's nothing compelling about the story or the players to make you want to keep reading; it's like watching someone else play with their toys without being allowed any input.

Apart from a lack of time-period clarity in the costumes – there shouldn't simultaneously be a girl in a skirt that shows her knees and a woman in an 1890s walking dress – the art is decent. Although body language isn't a strength, there's a pleasant attractiveness to all of the characters, who are recognizable by anyone familiar with the Vocaloid franchise. The use of tone and black space does make the book atmospheric, and the picture Miku uses to find the hidden room is really very beautiful. Pages are a little crowded, but there is never any confusion as to panel order, which speaks to a very well planned layout.

Bad End Night ultimately suffers from never settling on a firm purpose. It's too frivolous for a good mystery, not grounded enough for a good parody, and doesn't take enough time to fully utilize its plot devices. There are hints that this could get better going forward, but it's just enough of a chore to get through this volume that it may not be worth waiting around to find out.