Giant goldfish terrorize Japan and a small group of survivors try to figure out what to do next.

Shibuya Goldfish is an impulse buy that I never heard anything about. The premise made me laugh and I had to see what it was about. Giant goldfish fly around, say inane phrases, and eat everything and everyone in sight. What's not to like? The entirety of society has halted. Anything that moves is eaten, including rescue helicopters. Only small patches of humanity exist now, struggling to survive. No one knows where they came from or how this happened, but it seems to be contained in Shibuya. Somehow, the city is contained within a giant fishbowl and it no longer has access to utilites.

As the story goes on, the abilites of the goldfish are slowly revealed. They are quite nearsighted, relying on smell and sound with the help of the lateral line organs to find food (ie people). The creatures travel in schools and sleep at night or in the shade. They also lay eggs everywhere, which adds a layer of terror when there are miniature versions of these creatures running around. Plus they can be laid inside living people who wouldn't be aware of it until they hatched. I love this body horror aspect that makes the survivors distrust other people as well as the obvious threat.

The survivors are a range of people, including high school students (Hajime Tsukiyada and his crush Fukakusa), a wannabe teen idol Alisa Usui, her middle school aged fan, and police officer Anko Yukino. Each person reacts to the crisis differently. Some try to charge out and get eaten. Others try to circumvent the goldfish by dousing themselves in perfume and moving silently. Some fall in love while some pretend to fall in love or make friendships. Still others simply sacrifice those around them to survive. I enjoyed seeing truly different types of people who range from incredibly selfish to self sacrificingly altruistic.

Shibuya Goldfish is a fun horror manga that takes the threat of giant man-eating goldfish seriously. This is what I wanted from Junji Ito's Gyo, which had more weird aspects that went way off the rails. Many of the situations are pretty typical for apocalypse situations and I hope the next book will expand outside of that. I am excited to see where else this story is going to go and the next one will follow different characters. The second book isn't out until October 30th. I will pre-order so I can read it the first day it comes out and mope around until the next one comes out. ( )