Well here it is, probably the last manga that I will review that has a lot of blood and gore for a while. I Am a Hero is on Berserk level with the amount of gore it has, but it evens goes much farther. It's a wonder I even read it, but it was recommend and I appreciate the story.
The story is about the protagonist Hideo Suzuki, a normal underachieving manga artist with a terrible relationship with his girlfriend. Hideo has a vivid imagination that leads him to have hallucinations and talk to imaginary friends. This disturbed me. Greatly.
Eventually, zombies began to infect Japan. Hideo first encounters a zombie when he witnesses a horrible traffic accident where the victim is badly injured, but is able to get up and walk way. Hideo is not sure what was seeing and thinks he's hallucinating. Eventually he goes to check on his girlfriend who is turned into a zombie and tries to eat it. From then on the story of I Am a Hero really begins.
I Am a Hero starts of slow, so slow that I could have fallen asleep. I would have stopped reading if it wasn't so highly recommended which is something that I count as a negative. The pacing of this manga starts off slow too and another negative is that it is that it's about zombies.
After seeing all these zombie games and zombie moves and zombie books, I was done with zombies. Again, the high recommendation won out for this manga. I do appreciate the slow way they introduced the zombies. Sometimes in a zombie story, the writer jumps several months to the aftermath of the zombies emerging, but this manga doesn't do that.
What was even more interesting was the way Japan handled zombies. Even though these people were seriously injured, dead, and not right, the Japanese military considered them to be sick and wouldn't defend themselves seriously against them or kill them. This wouldn't have happened in American. The Japanese government considered these people grievously unwell and tried to help them.
It was interesting to see the ruination of Japan and how so many people died so quickly. These zombies are also more than ordinary zombies. They try to follow the routines they had when they were alive, they still have special skill sets, and they aren't afraid to run so they are above the basic slow walking zombies.
While Hideo might have been, dull in his previous life, his post zombie life forces him to transform into something else. It's a long term sort of pacing that I Am A Hero has and it doesn't rush through things like character development.
So far, I Am a Hero is an interesting manga. I have cringed so much while reading this manga because of the zombies (and that dude who is always in his underwear) but I'm making it through. If you want some fighting, a realistic post-apocalyptic story, and don't mind characters who aren't immediate warriors after not fighting or defending themselves a day in their lives, then you might want to check out I Am a Hero.
But be warned. You will cringe and you will get freaked out. I wouldn't advise you read this with little kids in the room. It has a slow build up on some things, but it makes things more reasonable and realistic in a way. I Am a Hero is a mature story. Sometimes.
It's still made by Japanese people, which I guess explains the grown man in what looks like a diaper wailing on zombies, but oh well. It's a zombie story made in Japan taking place in Japan. Get ready for weirdness. And more of this…
Or this:
Or this:
You tell me, which picture was the worst?
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