Zombie seconds
Creative Staff
Story & Art: Kengo Hanazawa
Translation: Kumar Sivasubramanian
Adaptor: Philip R. Simon
What They Say
Hideo and Hiromi try to make their way to Tokyo on a bicycle, as the ZQN virus continues to change humanity across the globe. A small group of survivors, led by former manga creator Korori Nakata, considers breaking from a large, organized group of humans who follow the cult leader “Asada” and have taken control of a high-rise apartment building in Japan’s biggest city. On a collision course with our two main survivors, the high-rise survivors face extremely powerful ZQNs and strange ZQN-human hybrids that may hold the key to unlocking the global zombie epidemic! Hideo and Hiromi bond, hoping to share a moment of romance while the rest of Japan falls apart. This omnibus collects two thrilling original Japanese volumes into one huge Dark Horse Manga edition!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
I’ll be upfront about this: there’s underage sex in this volume and it’s about as inappropriate as underage sex should be in any situation. What made the dynamic of Hideo and Hiromi so appealing in the first place was that they’re such an odd couple that would have only ever found each other in a situation as specific as the zombie apocalypse. Personality-wise, Hideo is this reluctant hero that has the means to fight, but is constantly getting down on himself to the point that his skilled marksmanship starts feeling more like an annoyance than anything else. Meanwhile, Hiromi is almost the polar opposite to him– she lives in a society that downplays the accomplishments of women, but is suddenly given these abnormally useful capabilities upon surviving the ZQN virus. The two are very different flavors of hero, and that’s what makes their odd-coupling fun to read through.
So when Hiromi is suddenly seen as a romantic interest directly after the death of Oda, it feels less like a natural romance blossoming and more of a relationship of convenience. With Oda now dead, Hideo must take out his sexual urges on the only other female of the group. Not only does it frame Hideo as this (deservedly) creepy, desperate man in the middle of the apocalypse, but it also frames Hiromi as this pathetic younger woman, who goes with the situation out of “like” more than “love.” Perhaps if the sex scene itself was framed as this pathetic final urge between two pathetic people, it could have been less wrong (still wrong, mind you), but as-is, the relationship itself is done more as the means to an end. In this case, the end is Hiromi transmitting part of her ZQN capabilities onto Hideo– an interesting turn of events, but something that could have been reached in literally any other way. Which is a shame, since there are some legitimately endearing moments the two share this volume that are immediately undercut by the forced sexual tension (the two riding grocery carts only to decide whether they should steal condoms or not being a shining example of this).
Meanwhile, the omnibus shares the remaining protagonists’ screen-time with some loosely related characters we’ve heard of but are only now seeing. The first half of this omnibus feels like a back-to-basics moment, as we follow a new batch of survivors, each quirkily living out their post-apocalyptic days in utter boredom. Manga-ka Korori is a self-proclaimed pervert that yearns for the days before the outbreak, his constant whining being the sole source of comfort to the other survivors in hisparty, who’ve resorted to following the orders of a self-proclaimed god. With its blend of slice-of-life humor mixed with the dark humor you’d expect from the genre, Korori and co is the first that I Am A Hero has felt like its old self in quite some time.
Add in some very brief hints at new zombie lore (Amalgamation creatures? And they can reach the size of a house?) and you have an omnibus that has equal amounts of good as bad, awkwardly spread out among the volume.
In Summary:
I Am A Hero omnibus 9 is like a soft reboot of sorts. While new characters now carry the ethos of mundane life among the apocalypse, mainstays in Hideo and Hiromi are reintroduced and reframed in a different light, for better or worse. Either way, the next omnibus has been announced as the penultimate to the series, so hopefully things come to a head and something in the way of closure begins making its way to this occasionally charming but otherwise meandering series.
Content Grade: C
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Manga
Release Date: February 27, 2019
MSRP: $10.99
