Kengo Hanazawa

The penultimate volume of the other Zombie Apocalypse saga I am reading (R.I.P. Walking Dead). The ZQN (zombies) take a back seat this volume as the various groups of human survivors begin to converge in Tokyo and fight one another for the final chance to escape the devastated country. Not nearly as bizarre as previous volumes...well...except for the lurking penis-headed kaiju and the human head walking around on stork legs.

This series rewards patience, and you'll need it for this volume wherein the main protagonists are absent for over four hundred pages as we learn more about the enigmatic Kurusu and his cult of followers. Fortunately, this new group is pretty interesting, and, more importantly, through them we receive several revelations about the nature of this particular zombie apocalypse. As usual, there are more scenes of talking heads than action, but when the action does kick in, the cool gross-out art show more makes the wait worthwhile. show less

Zombie stories is a hit or miss genre for many people. Perhaps this is simply due to oversaturation; it isn’t as if zombie novel, anime, manga, or movies are in any short supply. Yet, one such zombie stories I have heard nothing but praise for is the manga series I Am A Hero. I Am A Hero Omnibus Vol 1 by Kengo Hanazawa is a slow, careful look at and the events that set off an outbreak of a zombie virus.

This story centers around the outbreak of a zombie virus and the apocalyptic situation show more that soon arises. The main character is Hideo, a manga artist living in Tokyo. He’s more than a bit mentally unstable, and recluse. Yet, he also has a great advantage – a real firearm. Trying to stay alive and figure out what is going on, he repeats his mantra over to himself – I am a hero.

Hideo, the main character, is not someone who I would call ‘normal’. He has some issues that he’s dealing with when the story opens. Panic attacks are common for him, and he is shown. He talks to himself, sometimes in his head, sometimes out loud. What he can admit to himself, he can’t always say out loud. And, sometimes what he talks to isn’t always there. He has delusions – imaginary people talk to him, comment on things. If you’ve seen or read the anime and light novel Welcome to the NHK this would be familiar. Instead of the household appliances speaking to the main character, fueling his delusions and fears, it is seemingly real people who simply don’t exist.

This puts Hideo in a very interesting position, though. This is a man who is extremely careful in just about everything that he does. He is a recluse, working late into the night with his coworkers, and doing nothing more than migrating between his own apartment and the apartment of his girlfriend. He’s safer from a zombie outbreak than most others who live in a big city simply because of this. But this also means that he isn’t as connected to society as other people. He learns what the zombie virus is a bit later than others. The rest of society has been dealing with this for hours by the time he is fully aware of the situation.

The story takes its time getting into the meat of things. Zombies don’t appear until the latter part of the omnibus. Despite picking up this manga specifically for the horror and zombies, I was perfectly fine with the wait. The stage is set well. We understand Hideo by the time the suspicious, unnerving activity going on in the background takes a more sinister turn with zombies appearing. I Am A Hero is a very physiological story, delving into Hideo’s mind, and the minds of his coworkers as this zombie outbreak begins. This is a large aspect of why the manga works as well as it does. We spend a great deal of time with these characters before real, identifiable zombies appear. We watch as society collapses around this disease, taking others first, but eventually seeping into the closed off world that lives in.

Another aspect that helps this story stand out from the rest of the many zombie apocalypse based stories is its main character. This isn’t a story with amazing teenagers fighting off terrifying enemies or ex-military heroes using their prior knowledge to survive. Hideo is an average person, no different than anyone else. He’s overweight. He’s not particularly brave or clever. He doesn’t have any extraordinary skills. His job and past experience doesn’t make him any better suited to handle the situation than anyone else. He’s easily frightened, and his anxiety runs deep. He doesn’t always take charge in situations, even if isn’t positive those he follows are making the correct decisions. In some aspects he’s less able to handle the situation than many others. Yet Hideo does what he can to survive. Despite his crudeness and his many flaws, there is a sort of compassion hidden within him that only becomes more apparent as the story continues to unfold.

The art in this manga is extremely detailed, and quite beautiful. Color pages can be found in this volume. These colored sections are utterly beautiful. What I enjoyed most about these color images was how the zombies were depicted. It is clear even in the usual black and white images that the zombies are shown a bit differently than normal. These aren’t the gaunt, decaying figures that the word ‘zombie’ typically brings to mind. Instead, they are a pale, pasty white figures, their bodies the same size and shape as they were in life. Their veins stand out against their skin, blue lines unnaturally. They’re different, and terrifying.

I Am A Hero Omnibus Vol 1 by Kengo Hanazawa is one of the greatest horror manga currently in production. This is what every zombie apocalypse tale aspires to be. If you are a fan of horror, zombies, or apocalyptic tales I would highly suggest giving I Am A Hero a read.

This review originally found on Looking Glass Reads. show less

Hideo Suzuki is a manga artist plagued by visions of ghosts attacking him as well as people to either lord over and humiliate or debate ideas an an intellectual equal. He is socially awkward, works long hours to complete projects before deadlines, and talks to himself a lot. As he's going though his everyday life, a fire occurs at a nursing home. People are increasingly out sick and random attacks start happening until society can no longer function with the influx of zombies.

I Am A Hero has show more an intriguing premise: seeing the zombie apocalypse start with an unlikely protagonist. Unfortunately, Hideo himself is awful and iinsufferable to read. He is not successful as a manga artist and finds every way to lash out and blame others for his failures. His self image oscillates from being completely confident and arrogant to being insecure and threatened by anyone successful. In addition to all this, Hideo hallucinates frequently. Sometimes his anxieties take visual form and haunt him, but he mostly sees two people to have conversations with. One is Yakima, a pathetic worm of a man that Hideo can humiliate, lecture, and feel superior to. The other is nameless and looks like a more put together and attractive version of himself who he views as an equal to debate with. I like the conceptual idea of this as it shows how Hideo really is. However, he's prone to long, masturbatory speeches about the value of his manga and disgustingly degrades Yakima.

The biggest problem I have with this manga is how women are portrayed. Tekko, Hideo's girlfriend, seems nice on the surface, but always falls short of his expectations. She's constantly talking about her ex, refusing sex, and getting belligerent and abusive when drunk. The other named woman is Mii-chan, Hideo's co-worker. She is beautiful and has illicit affairs with her boss and others of the staff. This is all that is literally known about her. In the background, a show called Boob Morning is shown on television multiple times, which features cleavage baring women reporting the news. Hideo hates beautiful reporters because he thinks they don't value the news and would save themselves in the event of a disaster. Every man in the book objectifies women and treats them like sex machines only to insult them when rejected. During this scene at a singles mixer, the men all lie about their age and actually have girlfriends. I was hoping all this would mean something more later like Hideo would see the error of his ways or something, but all of this misogyny and objectification goes without anything to counter it and gets worse.

The origin of the zombies isn't explained. The disease is transmitted through bites and the afflicted become mindless. They are able to say small words and phrases, but attack anyone. The first instance is when a car strikes a pedestrian who gets up and keeps walking with a broken neck. Very effective. The best part of this manga is the scene where Hideo peers through Tekko's mail slot and she gets closer and closer to him. These panels are two pages wide and have the same effect as Sadako coming through the TV in The Ring. The zombies are killed on odd ways. Caving in their skulls doesn't seem to work while slitting their throats does. It doesn't make sense to me. Unfortunately, the zombie plague seems to only be the opportunity for Hideo to see women reduced to what he believes they are and then to kill them. Tekko becomes the perfect, thoughtful girlfriend and only says she loves him, even though she's trying to bite him. On the other hand, Mii-chan is a bloated corpse and only says "penis" while trying to fellate any objects near her mouth. This portrayal was particularly disgusting and shocking. I almost stopped reading right there. Maybe it was meant to be funny, but it shows how women are literally viewed by people like this. In life, both women were disappointing to him.

I Am a Hero as a title is a complete joke. No one is represented well here. All of the men are portrayed as liars, cheaters, and misogynists while all of the women are greedy, manipulative, or sex objects. No characters are more than a stereotype unfortunately. The zombie aspects don't come in until the end of the omnibus and the rules didn't make much sense. This book failed on almost every level. I normally wouldn't read the next one but I bought them at the same time. show less