Kachou Hasimoto

I’ve said before in other reviews that digitalized comics just don’t quite work for me. Kidou’s scar needs to be more pronounced, it looks like the artist just slipped and made a mistake on his chin. It has very simple backgrounds, no really dynamic scenes. (Shojou manga can get away with simple scenes, but something like this that’s more in the ‘action’ category, I expect more). In other words, the art just didn’t excite me.

The story is a bit strange (it’s manga!) but once you get into it, it’s pretty interesting. It takes place in an apocalyptic world where a disease has spread causing some humans to turn into giant bugs. A big part of the story involves how exterminators, like Kidou, are despised because of their jobs. I mean, they do kill people who are turning into bugs, when they still retain some of their humanity, so I could see the psychological questions on when it is considered an extermination and when it would be considered murder.

Kidou is a very likable character, playing the ‘reluctant hero’ in the manga. Not much has be revealed about him, but you just know he has some trauma in his past yet to be shown.

Ilie is one of those characters that comes off as a bit too whiny for my taste. But she is young, and by the end of the first manga she started to get a bit better.

There’s also an ‘almost there’ relationship happening between Kidou and Ilie that’s a bit disturbing in that manga way ‘it’s okay’ for older guys to go after underage girls. Please. No.

Overall, the story is there, but it only has mediocre art.… (more)