I Am a Hero

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I didn't really like this. This is not a manga for people like me, who value meaning, ambition, purpose, ya get it. However, even I can recognize that this manga is amazing. It is the scariest manga that I've ever read, it beats out the "disturbing" scary of Junjo Ito, the "gory" scary of your stereotypical apocalypse survival horror manga, and the "existential crisis" scary of psychological horror, it comes close to jumpscare shock. Why?

Because everything is so goddam pointless. I believe "I Am a Hero" is actually one of the most realistic tellings of an survival horror story. The realism is precisely what gets ... to me. The freaking monotony of the dude's life before and after the event, his averageness (to be generous,) the fact that people just get super well adjusted to having crazy dead people around very quickly just freaks me out. I thought there would be more delusional people or people who just snap, but no. They even treat the zombies as people, like what the hell?

Anyways, I finished it but I'll never touch it again. It's too weird, I don't think I'll ever come to terms with it. I don't really wanna think about it either. Whoever wrote this is a madman. Insanity.

And that, folks, is how to scare someone out of a fandom.

I've been reading manga for more than 15 years now and never write reviews, even for absolutely terrible or fantastic manga. I'm making an exception here due to how long this manga is, and how great it is throughout 90% of it, but also how the ending impacted the story and overall quality.

This is less of a review and more of a warning to any would-be reader. The ending is objectively bad--it's not bad in a 'oh it's up in the air how a person interprets it kind of bad'-- it's bad in a man who calls his wife by his ex's name ... during intercourse sort of way. It's horrendously rushed and provides no answers or resolutions to anything that happened over the course of the entire manga; essentially, it feels as if there is no ending at all and had its serialization axed or the author died prematurely. If you can deal with a good manga but an abrupt ending (just along for the ride without a destination) then I'd honestly still recommend it, as it does a lot of things better in the survival/zombie front compared to other manga.

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, the manga has been better than I expected.

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]