The manga that inspired the hit Hulu series finally lands in the US!
Creative Staff
Story and Art: Masaaki Ninomiya
Translation/Adaptation: Alex Kon
Lettering: Vibrant Studios
What They Say
Gannibal, the thrilling and terrifying manga horror series by Masaaki Ninomiya, on which the Hulu TV show is based, is published in English for the first time!
After the mysterious disappearance of a countryside cop, the role is reassigned to Officer Daigo Agawa. He finds the remote village quaint, and he looks forward to an easygoing post among the warm and welcoming citizenry.
Then… He gets a call. The body of a local grandmother has been found.
The scene immediately sows doubt for the young policeman. A human bite mark has been left on the corpse, and any voiced suspicion of Agawa’s is met with a strange, sudden, and intense hostility.
Something dark is lurking under the idyllic façade of the charming mountain village. But can Officer Agawa spare himself and his family from it?
Stream Season One of the Gannibal TV series on Hulu now!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Gannibal is a horror manga series that debuted in Japan in 2019. In 2022-23, a television adaptation aired in the US on Hulu (Disney+ internationally) and proved popular enough that Ablaze Publishing picked up the US license for the manga. This review was written based on a PDF copy of the first volume provided by Ablaze.
Tired of the city life, police officer Daigo Agawa has moved his family out to a remote village in the hopes of finding some quiet comfort. But the move doesn’t come without anxieties. The man who was the police officer prior to Daigo disappeared under mysterious circumstances (the official story is that he was a gambler and alcoholic that got too far into his vices), and there are persistent rumors that the residents of this remote part of Japan are cannibals. Daigo is predisposed to laugh off all of these claims, but he isn’t in the village long before it becomes apparent that whatever the truth is, life in this village is not normal. The quiet life that Daigo is hoping to find is not on the cards.
Honestly, the first thing that jumped out at me with this volume was the quality of the artwork. Horror manga does tend to be more detail oriented than other genres, as it’s in the details where discomfort and terror are established, and Gannibal really revels in it, even when the horror isn’t present. We open with Daigo eating lunch in a café and then biking through the village and surrounding countryside, and there’s no such thing as a detail too small to express. The panel at the top of page 11 of Daigo heading inside his new house alone must have taken longer to draw out than entire chapters of some manga (and I don’t say that to disparage other manga at all!). Honestly, since the medium tends to normally be very select about the details that are drawn out, what this does is establish a sense of ill-ease even before anything happens that would actually put us off, so then, when things really do begin to go off the rails, we are already in a heightened sense of discomfort, making the terror seem even more so.
Plot-wise, it’s a volume that really hits the ground running. We first see Daigo eating in a café, where he has a random run-in with one of the villagers, and even though it’s quickly smoothed over by the villager’s brother, its an inauspicious start to the story. When an old woman is killed, Daigo is called in to investigate, but the other villagers already have a story ready. When Daigo’s interpretation of events contradicts there, he quickly finds himself at the end of the barrel of a shotgun having to apologize, and things don’t get any more comfortable for him or his family from there. He joins in the hunt for the bear that supposedly killed her, and then is forced by the others to ritualistically eat part of the bear as that will help the old woman rest in peace. When the daughter of the prior officer who disappeared shows up to the old woman’s funeral and reveals that the old woman is not in the casket, it just increases Daigo’s uncertainty about everything in the village. By the time this volume is over, it’s clear that he and his family are in serious danger—and there are still twelve volumes to go after this one!
In Summary
The first volume of Gannibal sets the tone and story out well. It does not waste any time giving us exactly what Daigo and his family are up against in their new life, and the art style does a great job of helping to establish and build that tone. To this point, I don’t know that I would call it the sort of horror that scares, but it is definitely a tale that twists the norms in a way that creates anxiety in the reader, as Daigo clearly understands that he is in danger very quickly, but his sense of duty pushes him forward. Add in the vulnerability of his family, and those levels of anxiety increase. It’s a great first step into this world, and I really look forward to seeing where it goes from here. Highly recommended.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: N/A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Ablaze Publishing
Release Date: June 11th, 2024
MSRP: $12.99
