Surviving in Zombieland: I Am A Hero

Hello everyone, I wanted to share with you a new manga, I found myself not being able to put down. I was introduced to it by my little brother.

If you love post apocalyptic manga and unlikely heroes, you will definitely love I am a Hero. It was a fantastic read and I was glad I picked it up.

I personally think this is the Japanese take on the zombie survival genre The Walking Dead and it reminds me of Gantz for some reason.

Synopsis

Insecure 35-year-old Hideo Suzuki is forced to work as a mangaka’s assistant when his own series fails due to low sales. As he struggles through a mundane life plagued by hallucinations, he comes to realize that his relationship with his girlfriend isn’t that great, suspecting that she may be cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend. After confronting her about the possible affair, however, Hideo feels bad about his inquisition and decides to visit her house to apologize.

But the world as he knows is about to be overturned. At first, not much seems to have changed, but he soon realizes that society has become a living nightmare, as the horrifying reality of what is taking place around him finally begins to sink in.-MAL

I Am a Hero also has three spin offs;  I Am a Hero in Osaka, I Am a Hero in Ibaraki and I Am a Hero in Nagasaki, which are all really good too. So you’re going to have a lot more to read after you finish reading I Am a Hero.

Why I felt it worked

The story wasn’t rushed and look at our protagonist.

He’s a manga artist in his mid-30’s who his pretty much a nobody. A common pretty much regular guy that you’re pretty sure will die at the very beginning.

He really is not your usual hero. And all this made him a more identifiable character, that we can all see a bit of ourselves in.

Like I said earlier the story builds up slowly and really makes you have that nudging feeling at the back of your mind that something bad is around the corner and going to happen. Which some other series can’t just do.

The art is dark, gritty and often times very detailed. Its a very realistic manga with no overly excessive fan service i.e for example girls with large breasts and daddy issues, harems, chibi or adorable mascots.

Our hero Hideo feels like one of the greatest losers and he suffers from hallucinations, which adds and extra level of guessing from the readers, wondering if what we see is also real or just in his head.

And honestly it can be really dark, sad and very depressing but there are moments that remind us of things we have forgotten

You will really get glued to the plot, sympathize with the characters and it all just reaches an abrupt ending that feels unexpected and you keep asking yourself

“is this really the end or did the author just get sick of creating this manga”.

And it really mades me feel the author did this to me, after all the hours we spent together;

It was a really nice ride but the ending did feel rushed, open ended or maybe it’s just that I wanted more. Me and everyone whose read this manga, I guess felt this way.

The story was over before we knew it, I mean after all the weirdness, the fights for survival, the mysteries left unanswered, motives, the laughs, the tears and just the whole journey in general.

It really had me salty for days wondering what happened next or what could have happened, I really really do hate open ended endings.

But I finally thought that maybe the story wasn’t really about what happened at the end, but about the moments and the limitations of us humans.

Let me try to explain what I mean;

This story was realistic we couldn’t find all the answers out in the end. The story was not really about that but about the ride and not the destination. Our protagonist was just an average guy at the end of the day and there really is so much he could really do.

It was a story about a man harmed with a shotgun who was disillusioned, felt like a side character in his own life that tries to find some sort of meaning or resemblance of being a hero (be it a reluctant one) in zombie flesh eating world, that he’s thrown into.

Thank you for reading. Till next time guys, like, share and read my other content.