I Am a Hero - Reviews

I hope I don't come off as a snob, but unless you've read Max Brooks's World War Z, his survival guide, or even the graphic illustrations of the history of zombie epidemics, then I'd say you aren't really up with the times on how zombies have evolved from slow shuffling, fairly harmless ghouls out for brains to mad, frenzied freaks bent on tasting the delicious hide that is your own at any cost. Well, I guess won't go that far, but if you haven't read World War Z I would highly recommend it as it features some vignettes that "interviewed" survivors from Japan and how they escaped. But anyway...

STORY:

The story starts off slow, I'll tell you that right now. It isn't until chapter 10 or 11 that zombies start appearing. Up until then it's exposition of Hideo and his girlfriend, but mostly Hideo and his socially awkward, lateral-thinking 35-year-old otaku self.

This manga paints a pretty accurate picture on the slow reaction time to the quickly escalating crisis that is the zombie pandemic. I Am a Hero has an author that knows his fellow countrymen and how they would handle a crisis. Let me tell you, I'm not knocking on Japan, but they haven't been in a full-out war in over half a century, whereas places like America have been sent into the field guns blazing every decade. So it's not that the Japanese rolled on their backs and didn't try when the zombie apocalypse hit, they just weren't prepared for something so sudden that could endanger their livelihoods in the form of people. Natural disasters, nobody's fault, if you die it's a tragedy. But these are things that look like people, that are people, and now they're trying to eat my thigh meat! What the hell, dude?! The fact that Japan is virtually weapon-free sounds awesome for those interested in a utopian society but when the dead walk among you it doesn't sound like such a good plan. Damnit, it's always something..!

As Hideo moves from place to place he meets a revolving cast of characters that either want to impede him by being cruel and unkind and general dickwads, or stick to him because he's got a shotgun and every game we've played that involves shooting things KNOWS that a shotgun by itself has 200% more power than a standard pistol, and that's without upgrades! Accuracy and recoil is a bitch though, but you can upgrade that later at your nearest Work Bench or Fontaine's Upgrade Terminal! 

Like virtually all zombie pandemic stories, there isn't a cure that needs to be found. I can't really remember any zombie-themed story where the protagonists actively searched for a cure, except maybe I Am Legend and that really doesn't count since those things aren't really zombies anyway. Hideo and his dwindling, expanding, dwindling crew are just trying to get the fuck out of Dodge and find a safe place to be, is that too much to ask?! Either way, it's very entertaining seeing all the twists and turns he must navigate in order to achieve that seemingly impossible, and most likely improbable, goal.

CHARACTERS:

I don't want to say "Asperger's Syndrome" (which I still use despite what DSMV-V may tell us) but Hideo does remind me of my fellow Aspies that were in my Special Education class throughout my school career that were also diagnosed with it: He always obeys the rules set out before him, doesn't make waves since he's comfortable in the routine, he is socially awkward and doesn't know when to shut up, he is very lateral thinking--Point A to Point B, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, he does weird things with his hands such as that thing where you lace your fingers together and wiggle your arms or just do weird hand motions that he's picked up from TV and stuff. In the beginning he also has a tendency to go on solo tangents to no one but himself but sometimes provides the voices to imaginary audiences that may be listening. Despite being 35 years old and a little weird, I still can connect with him on those fronts.

Also, I firmly believe he is suffering from late-onset schizophrenia. Either that or simply hallucinations possibly brought on by stress or distress. Eh, I'm not a doctor, whatevs! 

There are the helpless victims that didn't stand a chance, the poor people who followed whatever hand that led them to the illusion of safety, the nihilists that want to go out with a bang, and those few souls that see this as retribution for past wrongs to themselves. It's them versus everybody else and it very quickly turns into debauchery for those who only held onto that thread of humanity because society dictated them to. And in Japan, your outward mask is the most important thing you could have. 

I think "Characters" would also be the proper place to describe the zombies: They're relentless and they can freaking RUN. Goddamnit some of them can run! What is unique about them is that as the virus/infection/bacteria/whatever spreads throughout their body their Id seems to be acquire a mouthpiece and they start spewing important nuggets of info, such as "May I take your ticket please?" "Why don't you love me?" "Mama..Mama". Well, important to them. Whatever thought that is persisting within them or has been ingrained in their psyche now is given the chance to come out. With a few simple words a victim's livelihood can be summed up in whatever they gurgle out or moan, and that's kind of sad, really. It's like the auditory version of that bum Nakoshi's ability to see the metaphorical "secret self" of the people around him in Homunculus by Hideo Yamamoto. 

ART:

What is simply fascinating to do is to find a page and flick back and forth between it and its follower, as there are times when it seems that you the reader have taken a snapshot, then another snapshot of the same scene a split second later with drastic or subtle changes to it. This I find is the closest you can get to a cinematic effect and it really does the zombies justice. One page somebody is driving a car, next page a hand is coming out of nowhere and grabbing them, third page the driver's head is being bitten into by a pair of massive chompers. Such artistic direction, much wow. When there's a large crowd of people or a lull in the action you can be sure one of those moments is around the corner and it's kind of shocking and surprising when they do happen. One moment a character is talking to Hideo the next moment their head is punted off by the low-hanging runner wheels of a commercial jet. Talk about "Woah". This further drives the fact that everyone is expendable, even the people that Hideo subsequently spends the most time with in his quest to, well, survive. 

Another interesting move that the author employs every once in awhile is what I can best describe as a omnipotent point-of-view shift from watching Hideo and his progress to what everyone else is doing as this is all going down. This includes message boards online and letters and the like. You're so distracted by Hideo more-or-less taking care of himself that you forget that there are people without the chance to escape or the foresight to keep moving that they're sitting ducks relaying information to each other on the Net as everything goes further into shit. 

The characters are drawn as realistic while still anime/manga as you can. The artist/author, Hanazawa Kengo, has his own style, but I think personally it sort of reflects Naoki Urasawa's hyper-realistic and detailed art style, just without the cross-hatching for shadows. For Hanazawa, the characters have specific features and are fairly easy to pick out from among everyone else, with little things like patchy facial hair, weeeeeeird eyes, a mole, hair style, etc. They look human and not simplified or "anime airbrushed" of what I guess I could call "weakness of photogenics", meaning "they have physical flaws but they're not important so we won't draw them in unless they're exaggerated". Yeah, that doesn't happen here, so everyone looks unique and embodies their own person, you know?

The freaks,  I mean the zombies, are nightmares of themselves. There is no expense wasted in really jacking up these mofos to look as creepy and messed-up as possible. They're veiny and pale like those suffering from that weird virus in Emerging by Hokazono Masaya. Some of the "mutations" that people undergo during their transformation remind me of Apocalypse no Toride and rarely, Junji Itou's freaky stuff. Sure people are bitten and you get the neck wound, the bitten-off ear, a chunk taken out of the face, but then there are the morbidly funny ways that they got infected, like a man's junk was bitten by an infected lady. Creepy stuff.

OVERALL:

This manga at first seems like a slow-burner and for ten chapters, it's exactly that. At first you're thinking "Okaaay, I don't really care about this guy, when is the action going to start?" or "Dude this guy is such a nutcake, how is he ever going to survive what we KNOW is going to happen?". Either way, when everything hits the fan it seems to go like waves from a tsunami. Oh shit oh shit oh shit!! Whew..Whew Whew..Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit!!!!...Oh God, give me a breather..Hey that's inte-OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT?!?! KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!

This is damned entertaining and if they made an OVA out of this I'd watch it in a heartbeat. Give it a try if you love zombie stuff. 

I have to say I dropped this manga once before after reading about two chapters since I didn't like the main characters, but when I picked it up again and made it over the first volume I was really surprised. Suddenly I realized that Hiro was well written character and the rest as well and the beggining made much better sense.
 Story: The story is well written with obvious intents from the start of the series I never though that the author made somethig up on thespot. I especially liked the chapters about the rest of the world. The zombies were great and the explanation which was still just a speculation was also enough. The only thing I didn't like was the ending, I would not say it was bad, but rather it didn't felt like an ending at all. I still don't know if authors intent was to let us believe that Hiro live and died in the city before anything happens, but I cannot think of anything else. 
Art: Brilliant, the artstyle was great but the usage of pannels with small changes showing only seconds of an action were great. Normally I read the text and look at the pannel for the plot, but here I stayed to really look at the pannels art.
Characters: Humans, we only got a little bit of character development, but they all acted like humans and not some robots.

I Am a Hero

The subject around "zombies/undead" has always fascinated me, no matter how simple the idea behind it is and how bad the movies became in the end. I was always enthusiastic about them.
Here I ventured to the second manga in this genre area and was impressed as well as disappointed. My expectations were ultimately exceeded, however, as the manga has been better than I expected at the beginning.

This manga not only offers a very realistic drawing style, representation but also an atmosphere like you can find in "Walking Dead".
Add to that probably the best zombie concept I have ever seen. Instead of simply putting a simple bio-weapon or occult phenomenon as a scapegoat, creativity was reflected here.

Of course, the manga also has its weaknesses and these were huge. The pace of the narrative was slow and hugely fluctuating. Half of the manga is based only on shock moments, sexual depiction. The author tried everything possible to make the manga seem as brutal and as dark as it could be. The tension was mostly buried. Most of the characters were completely irrational or just plain unlikable. The plot had too many gaps and unexplained factors. The ending was very weak and disappointing.

And one thing will probably continue to confuse me. The protagonist seems to be 1:1 the spitting image of the author. Does the author have various compulsions to screw a minor? At least, according to the author, the "age" was probably relatively meaningless when a 35-year-old sleeps with a schoolgirl.

And many other flaws that I will have to go into more detail about later.

[Story 4]

Even though the background around the zombie virus is a first-class and impressive change for me personally. Did the author not know what to do with it and how to conclude it. The clarification of the various behaviors of the "ZQN" and further developments of the virus have been interesting. But the way of implementation is the complete opposite.

Apart from that, the plot was massively linear. And full of earth-shattering logic flaws that made me wonder how much power Jesus the protagonist possessed to survive all this. He could absorb everyone else's plot, which resulted in him becoming the only immortal killing machine, whereas everyone dies like a fly.

It's been a progression of >prologue > beginning of apocalypse > running > camping > finding food > running > finding food > sex > running > finding food > endgame until the end. Only the fluctuation between different groups has at least to some extent a change of scenery offered.

The problem that the whole had almost no atmosphere and charm, was mainly due to the characters.

[Characters 4]

The People are divided into Black and White. Either they are vicious rapists and psychopaths or normal people who have to give in to them. There is no other option.

It felt like all the people were infected from the beginning, otherwise, you can't explain their irrational stupidity. People react completely senselessly to catastrophic events and ignore the environment around them. When someone is bitten in their presence (especially in the beginning when the virus broke out) people stand around, look at a person with their jaw ripped out and bloody eyes and ask either "Are you ok?" or "What kind of person are you?" and wonder why they die. It took at least 10 zombies waking up at the same time for people to realize they should clear the place. Apparently, in Japan, it's common for alcoholics to bite a piece of meat out of people's throats.

Many certainly wondered how the zombies always win in American movies, even though the humans outnumber them so much. Here you can see a detailed analysis that the human IQ goes into the negative range and the people have no self-preservation instinct.

The protagonist, the perfect symbol of an absolute NEET and failure. No self-esteem is not even the protagonist of his own life, horny and no control. In the course of the plot, he developed in some of the areas and even possessed eggs until the end. However, he was probably one of the most unsympathetic characters you can find and analyzed more situations with his penis than with his brain.

Since most of the characters were kept mostly realistic (aside from intelligence) there are no character backgrounds that are too relevant. Even if the situation of the protagonist was interesting at the beginning. However, the problem with the manga is that the characters have no relevance to the plot.

All the male characters are either horny or vicious, except for 3 older men (photographer, boatman, and Kurusu's partner, who were rather neutral).

And the female characters are almost all prostitutes. Their dialogues consist only of wanting to have sex, having sex, or talking about their periods and body hair.

As fascinating as it is, I was practically just waiting to see how each character died. And their deaths weren't even interesting. There wasn't a single reason to root for or mourn the characters. They were simply dull and empty. And that's exactly what's true of their conversations. Had I known how inconsequential more than half of their conversations were, I could have skipped eternal scenes. However, I didn't want to skip anything relevant. In the end, there was practically nothing.

[Drawings / Illustration 9]

Only one flaw I have here, only one! The author can't draw women's faces, let alone their smiles. Now and then, a character's (especially female) smile looks creepier than those of the undead. Oda in particular has often shocked me with how creepy she looks when she smiles.

Apart from that, the environments have been drawn immensely high quality, almost overwhelmingly well. Which had especially captured the gloomy and apocalyptic atmosphere well.

The rendering of the zombies in particular was an absolute highlight. They looked immensely creepy and menacing with their movements and the visible damage to their bodies.

Conclusion

For a fan of the zombie horror genre, this manga is recommended. You know it from the start anyway, zombie works possess a low quality anyway but make up for it with entertainment. And here it has been the same.

Of course, if you're looking for a deep, exciting, or just good manga, you won't find any of those here. Apart from an interesting zombie background, the visuals, and small development of the protagonist, there is not anything here.

[Enjoyment 5]

This may be the recency bias speaking, but I think this might be my new favorite Zombie Apocalypse story. It does basically everything I want an Apocalypse story to do, and has an incredible amount of depth in the character writing. I do have a few minor complaints, but overall I am incredibly impressed by this.

Story - We start with a 10-chapter look at our main character's 'normal' life prior to the outbreak. From there, we follow him as he struggles to survive the initial outbreak, encounters friend and foe among other survivors, and comes to terms with the many difficult choices he has to make along the way... It's a very character-driven narrative, where the overarching plot is largely just a roadmap of locations the MC ends up, and the colorful cast of individuals he meets along the way. Partway through, we start seeing a handful of scenes in other survivor groups independent of the MC, and some of the impact they have on the world. Overall, I am very, very pleased with a narrative like this. The only thing I can find to complain about is that there are a few segments that felt a bit rushed, especially near the end, that I feel would've been more enjoyable if they'd been fleshed out a bit more. 9/10; One of the best Zombie Apocalypse narratives I've come across.

Art - The artist has a very distinct visual style to their characater designs, and it can be a little offputting at first - one might even call them ugly in some capacity. However, I think this is a very beautifully artistic way of capturing the characters' personalities, as not only does he convey a great amount of emotion with their expressions, it also allows him to subtly change the characters over time to demonstrate growth from a visual perspective. Despite the initially-offputting appearances, I grew very fond of the designs by the end. Beyond the character designs, there is an incredible amount of detail in this work, with a very special attention to backgrounds. The colored panels every so often are a real treat as well. 9/10; I especially love the characters' smiles.

Characters - As stated in the Story category, this work heavily revolves around the characters - as with most Apocalypse stories. Fortunately, the author comes through in spades for this category. Absolutely brilliant writing and incredible detail in every way, shape, and form. Every character fits squarely in the sweet-spot of having distinct personality, while still remaining perfectly believeable. Especially the Main Character; there are moments of weakness and moments of heroism for him that both feel perfectly in line with how he was portrayed from the beginning. 10/10; Damn near unparalleled in this genre.

Overall - This is a masterful work of art that sits at (or at least very near) the top of its genre. This is the sort of work you point to when someone asks why you like the Zombie Apocalypse genre. This is the sort of character drama and narrative that feels like it would even please someone who normally doesn't care for Zombie stories. I'm in love with this work, and anticipate re-reading it eventually. 10/10; I need more!

This manga isn't all that people make it out to be. First of all, everyone who starts reading knows it's about zombies, but the damn zombies only show up after 11 chapters. 11! What the hell is that? You might argue, 'Well, many things that will be important to the story later on happened in those 10 chapters. They built these characters and served as a foreshadowing for things to come and so on.' But no, nothing like that happened at all. It was all filler in the grand scheme of the story, just a waste of time. The zombies could have shown up by chapter 2, and nothing would have changed.

Then there were the many separate stories that happened concurrently to the main story, which might have made you think, 'Well, the author is certainly creating the background for the MC to meet these people later or fight against them, and it will be epic.' But no, again, nothing remotely similar to that happened. Even the MC is unaware of what happened to those people who were shown to us, the readers, for no reason whatsoever. They did absolutely nothing to the story, even less than the MC. So, once again, it was just a waste of time.

The artwork of the characters is good, no problems there. But everything else is wrong. 99% of the backgrounds were photo mashups with Photoshop filters to make them look manga-ish. Then the author adds some other elements to the scene that are also copied and pasted from somewhere and drawn on top, which adds to the scene. Then the characters are added, and the whole thing looks 100% wrong. It's crystal clear that the objects and characters added to the photo backgrounds were done without much care or knowledge of perspective. Even people who don't know anything about it feel that it looks unnatural.

The main character and his group are okay for the most part. He was made to be unreliable and a bit crazy, so you can't complain about that. The rest of the characters feel real, but as I previously stated, why are they even in the story? There's no reason.

All in all, this manga is grossly overrated and could have been around 100 chapters without feeling like anything is missing. I would recommend it, but it's not without faults and won't leave a lasting impression.