Crueler Than Dead, Vol 1

Crueler Than Dead #1

by Tsukasa Saimura, Fernanda Mestrinho (Translator)

Ninguém sabe onde começou... Mas, há um ano, quando o mundo finalmente se apercebeu do que se passava, já estava tudo arruinado.

Quando Maki Akagi acorda num laboratório cheio de cadáveres, fica a saber por um soldado moribundo que foi sujeita a uma última experiência para curar os seres humanos de um vírus que os transforma em zombies.

Acompanhada por um rapaz que escapou miraculosamente, deve tentar chegar ao centro de uma Tóquio devastada e cheia de monstros sanguinários.

O estádio Tokyo Dome contém os últimos seres humanos que ainda restam, cuja sobrevivência depende apenas de algumas gotas de vacina milagrosa.

Genres: Manga, Horror, Graphic Novels, Zombies, Comics, Adult, Dystopia

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Born in Tokyo, Tsukasa SAIMURA (Japanese name: 佐伊村司) grew up in Hong Kong. His favorite zombie is Tarman. As a scriptwriter, Crueler Than Dead is his first manga. He has worked on the one shot Dango Mushi Dream as an illustrator and writer, for which he won in early 2007 the Tetsuya Chiba Prize from Kôdansha.

Reviews

[Gianfranco Mancini]

Ennesima apocalisse zombie in salsa manga con inizio in media res stile 28 Giorni dopo/The Walking Dead, ma la storia è intensa e piena di colpi di scena ed i personaggi crescono e si sviluppano psicologicamente, caratterialmente ed a volte anche fisicamente nel corso di essa.
Il livello di gore ed ultraviolenza è semplicemente fuori scala, quindi se siete impressionabili non provate neanche a sfogliare questo volume... io non vedo l'ora che esca il secondo ed ultimo.

[Chad]

Your straight up, standard zombie apocalypse fare. There wasn't much of a story, plot, or characterization. Just lots of running away from zombies. The art was good though.

Received a review copy from Ablaze and NetGalley

[Syeda Sumayya Tariq]

I have a never-ending love for all things zombies, and what better than a graphic novel to help me fill my hunger (pun intended!) This was a fun story and the adventure started from page one. It got a bit confusing somewhere in the middle but other than that it was an interesting read. The best part, as is in most graphic novels, for me at least, was the graphics. The attention to detail is super. Deliciously gory! (pun intended again!). I would have loved it more if the graphics were colored though, I think that would have added so much life to the story (I am very punny!). would love to see where the story goes from here.

Thanks to Netgalley, and publishers for the eARC :)

[Dawie]

Start up had potential, but lost me close to the end. One story just stops and another takes place some where else with no real plot going on. At least some more info could be given here and there right?

[Marianna Botticchio]

Il primo volume l'ho trovato interessante e serve a capire un po' se si possa guarire o no da questo virus. Come storia secondo me è buona e le tavole sono ben fatte.
Come primo manga tema zombi direi che è molto valido.

[ame]

Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of this book. It was okay I guess, but nothing special. I really liked the idea of the main characters being cured zombies. It was a really interesting and unique twist on the good old zombie apocalypse genre and it was really promising. Personally, I wasn't a big fan of the art style, but that is more of a me problem. Both that and the characters themselves fell a little short for me and they felt a little flat in my opinion.

I do like zombie content, and as I said it earlier, the premise was really unique, but the story didn't quite live up to its potential. It started out with a good idea, but became a little flat as it went on. It was action packed and it did deliver the zombie scenes that you would expect from this book, but I couldn't really care about any of the characters so it didn't really held my attention and I found myself constantly checking how much of the book was left because I just wanted it to be over and start reading something else. I saw a lot of people mention this already, but I have to agree with them about the pace of the story being a little confusing and hard to keep up with.

With that being said, I wouldn't exactly recommend it because I didn't enjoy it that much, but if you're into the horror apocalypse theme, and love zombies, plus if you don't mind some gore and violence, then it might be worth checking out. However, personally I don't think I will go out of my way to read the second volume.

[sarahthebibliomania]

2/5
I read this in English but they didn't have that edition on here.

The art was the saving grace of this manga and it was incredibly beautiful but unfortunately, the plot was lacking for me. It's super fast-paced and the way something different was happening practically every page got a bit frustrating to me as a reader and I couldn't enjoy it. I love reading horror and stories to do with zombie apocalypses but this one fell flat for me. Overall I personally wouldn't recommend this story but I do think that some people could really love it. Thank you to Netgalley, the authors, and the publishers for giving me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Daniel]

A little 28 weeks later, a little world war Z, A little George Romero. Nothing deep but nice gore and the lead characters are like a likeable.

[The Library From Scratch]

This is a good example of a manga set in a hypergore style zombie apocalypse where not even the nipples are censored.

We begin the volume with Maki, a woman who awakes in a Lab after being cured of the zombie infection by a group of scientists that have seemingly disappeared. She slowly comes to and finds a little boy, Shota, whom she’s determined to bring with her in this journey of rediscovering Japan. Soon after she lays him down a person is heard banging on the door, asking if someone is in the room. Maki opens the door, and is greeted by a horrific scene of a man missing a leg and some fingers. This is where her journey begins to the Tokyo Dome, last refugee encampment of the remaining population of Japan, vaccine by her side.

A lot of reviewers gave this novel 3-4 stars, and I get why. While I did wholly enjoy this first volume for its artwork, world building, and seemingly unique premise, it was undermined by the pacing of the story. There are a lot of moments where it could have had a page turned into a chapter of its own, perhaps making this two volume total closer to 4-5.

Overall I am giving Crueler Than Dead 4 Stars, given that the second volume may be able to redeem the series as a whole with better pacing, and a satisfying climax.

Thank you for reading! If you’ve made it this far please be sure to check out our social media @thelibraryfromscratch and keep an eye out for longer form content in the future. Be safe, and happy reading!

[Stephen]

As we head closer and closer into spooky season, I saw this in my queue and decided – “why not let’s look at a Japanese take on Zombies”. To be honest, I’m kind of burned out on zombie fiction; I feel like Hollywood has beat the dead horse over and over until there’s almost nothing left. Is this the answer to my woes? Could this be a fresh take on it, or is it just the same old stuff? Sadly, a lot of it’s “the same old stuff” with little deviation from typical Romero zombie mythos. They hint that the zombies are nocturnal, and a few other minor changes, but nothing Earth-shattering. Even that change is dropped when zombies show up during the day and everyone is like “I thought they hated the sun!?”

“No one knows where it started … But when the world finally realized what was going on, it was already too late.

When Maki Akagi wakes up in a lab full of corpses, she learns from a dying soldier that she is the result of a last-ditch experiment to cure humans of a virus turning them into zombies. Accompanied by a young boy who also miraculously escaped, she will have to try to get to the very center of a devastated Tokyo filled with bloodthirsty monsters. The dome located there contains the last survivors of mankind. And humanity’s very survival depends solely on a few drops of this miraculous vaccine…

Inspired by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), The Walking Dead, Romero classics, and new zombie films like 24 Hours Later, Crueler Than Dead delights in the meticulous detail of decomposed flesh, with a wicked and hungry eye…evoking a modern vision of a zombie world that is terrifying and tension filled. (published in Japan by Tokuma Shoten)


There are pro and cons for this book – on one hand I LOVED the art style – it’s definitely a more “old school” look, and the body horror stuff is truly grizzly. The writing is fine, and the story moves well. However, it’s somewhat derivative of most zombie things, even opening in a similar manner to 28 Days Later or even Day of the Triffids. You can tell the author was definitely inspired by Romero Zombie stuff and possibly the recent Resident Evil movies. The plot sort of time-jumps around a bit, making it hard to really get to know the characters very well in the first half. right when you get used to something, suddenly the characters have entirely different appearances due to haircuts and new clothes and the reader is left like “what?”. The main character even goes from being naïve And fearful to a zombie killing badass in like 3 pages.

By the time the book reaches around the halfway point, I really enjoyed it. Everything becomes far more grounded and less jarring once Maki’s group is basically forced to enter a large refuge from the zombies called Paradise. It’s a huge city-block sized skyscraper that is defended from the zombies due to a high voltage electrical fence. As long as they don’t lose electricity everything will be fine! You can see where this is going and bad things predictably happen. All-in-all this is an uneven, but enjoyable zombie book somewhat akin to The Walking Dead, or any Romero Dead Film. I honestly did not like the first few chapters very much, but the comic finds its footing eventually, and had a solid second half. I’d be interested to see where the story goes, so I will try to be on the lookout for more.

[Lucas Robledo]

Crueler than Dead es un manga de terror creado por Tsukasa Saimura y Kozo Takahashi, con edición en Argentina de Editorial Utopía. La historia es bastante simple, mostrando un mundo apocalíptico donde los zombies han tomado, por así decirle, gran parte del mundo, y la acción de este manga se centra en un soldado que se encuentra con una joven y un pequeño y juntos intentan sobrevivir. Hasta ahí todo normal, y la verdad es que no ocurre mucho más. A medida que los personajes avanzan, se cruzan con otros zombies, con los clásicos humanos que se han convertido en monstruos al dejar salir sus deseos más oscuros, e intentos de nuevas estructuras sociales que no dan resultado.

Como les venía diciendo, nada nuevo en este caso, ni original, que proponga la historia. Pero se disfruta igual, al menos aquellos que sean amantes del mundo de los zombies o aquellos que quizás no hayan consumido demasiado del género, seguramente lo van a disfrutar. El real problema, a mi parecer, es la narrativa. Tiene una dinámica muy confusa, donde hay cosas que pasan sin contexto alguno, saltos grandes de un momento a otro, y cosas que son contadas de una forma un poco brusca. A mi gusto, le falta desarrollo, no solo de los personajes, sino de todo lo que va pasando. A nivel arte es impecable. El ilustrador sigue una línea muy similar a los trazos del gran Katsuhiro Otomo, y logra algunas imágenes realmente aterradoras e impactantes, teniendo un muy buen gusto al elegir cómo contagiar terror mediante diferentes planos y momentos puntuales.

La edición es muy buena, las diferentes tapas, las solapas, el gramaje de las hojas y el trabajo del lomo denotan mucha calidad. Quizás el hecho de que esté traducido “al argentino”, por así decirle, no es algo que a mí particularmente me entusiasme, me choca un poco ver a un personaje llamado Maki Akagi decir “che” o cosas así, muy “rioplatenses”. Pero esto es solo una cuestión de gustos, y entiendo que cada vez más editoriales eligen seguir con esta línea de traducción. Este es el Tomo 1 de una total de 2 tomos, que además agregar un episodio cero en forma de precuela.

[rafaela]

Waking up in a lab full of corpses with zero memory of who you are is a genuinely strong opening for a zombie survival manga, and this delivers on atmosphere from the very first pages. Maki Akagi discovering she's the result of a failed experiment to cure a zombie-making virus, then having to navigate a devastated Tokyo alongside a young child she finds along the way, hits familiar beats but does them with real visual polish.

The art is easily the standout here, the Akira-inspired linework leans hard into decomposed, meticulously rendered gore, and it's genuinely effective at building tension and dread without feeling gratuitous just for shock value. Maki herself is also a solid lead, competent and hardened without tipping into an emotionless action-hero cliché.

Where this loses ground for me is originality. Corrupt authority figures, humans turning out to be scarier than the zombies, failed attempts at rebuilding society, it's all present and handled competently, but none of it does anything the genre hasn't already done plenty of times before. It reads fast and pulls you along, but very little of it actually surprises.

Knowing it wraps up in just two volumes going in makes it more appealing though, this doesn't overstay its welcome the way a lot of long-running zombie series tend to, even if that tight scope means some plot threads clearly needed more room to breathe.

A well-drawn, competently told zombie story that hits its genre marks reliably without doing much to stand out from the pack.

[Theediscerning]

Read in English.

I'll be honest and declare I would never have downloaded this if I'd known it was a manga, but this was much more up my street than the usual dross of the format. That being said, it is very much a standard zombie survival thing, with a young woman and a tweenage boy waking up in some kind of institution. The world's gone to Apocalyptic shit, and only those two have reacted well to a vaccine against being a zombie. They'll need a full-on survival instinct, and the strength having turned gave them, and enough daylight, to reconnect with what's left of Japanese humanity and start from there.

And for once, this is the manga exuberance finally justified (I know, I know, there must be a thousand twenty-part titles exactly like this, but I just haven't stumbled upon them, OK?!). The dynamism is in fleeing the undead, not flippy-flappy-hairdo people; the bravura in each panel down to the threat level the people face, which is never seen when you have a piddly little cartoon head version of the characters voicing quippy asides in the corner of the frame. Yes, as it stands this isn't great, offering little new and a large yawn when nasty human survivors are encountered, and ending in the middle of nowhere plotwise, but this is much more my kind of park-your-brain fun. And at least you know it's going to offer more of a conclusion than the usual thousand-page story. Three and a half stars.

[Bernie Gourley]

A teenage girl regains consciousness in a bland institutional setting to discover that she has been part of medical experimentation. Her mission, should she choose to accept it, is to get a vile of vaccine tested on her and the young boy who will be her traveling companion (as well as, on a bunch of people who didn’t survive) to a stadium in the heart of a Tokyo, a city overrun by Zombies. This is a manga-style graphic novel (i.e. black-and-white panels read right to left.)

I found the work to be in the meaty middle among the vast Zombie subgenre – neither among the best nor the worst. What I think the book did well was set up stakes for intense action. They have to journey to the center of the world’s most populous city to the only un-Zombified people known to remain living. So, the stakes are the continued existence of our species. What the book doesn’t do so well is maintain pace and a clear narrative thread. Textless panels are used to make transitional jumps and it’s not clear to me that most readers will follow the flow smoothly.

If you enjoy Zombie stories and manga comics, you may want to look into this one. It has a video game like aesthetic and feel which may (or may not) appeal to gamers more than the average reader. If you find Zombies overplayed and are looking for only the best of the best in Zombie stories, you’re unlikely to find that here.

[Raychel]

I really wanted to like this one but it unfortunately did not stand up to expectations. The saving grace of this graphic novel, in my opinion, is the art. The zombies are illustrated incredibly to depict a bleak, dangerous, and violent world. The genuine horror comes out in these illustrations and they should absolutely be celebrated. Unfortunately, the plot is what failed for me. The summary says this graphic novel was inspired by The Walking Dead, Romero classics, and movies like 24 Hours Later. The problem is that you can really tell. This plot feels like it was taken directly out of one of those inspirations and just illustrated anew. There was also unnecessary nudity of just women and references to r*pe. Any story, but most definitely a post-apocalyptic story, can be told without these elements but that was unfortunately not the case.

**I received an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher!

[Ryan]

The planet is still in the midst of the Covid pandemic. It is nowhere near a resolution. And as bad as we may think we have it now, it could be worse. It could be a lot worse. In Crueler than Dead a virus is turning people into zombies or Oz as they are called in the book. We open and find out that one woman, and one boy have gotten an experimental vaccine and it worked!. Now they must survive the trip from the laboratory to the Tokyo Dome to get the vaccine, replicate it, and get it to the Oz and turn them back into humans. There are some holes in the plot. The main point of the book is the gore, so it makes me wonder if you gave these Oz the vaccine to be human again, what about the holes and pieces of flesh that have been torn off? You would have to read the book to get why I ask that. Over all this book is interesting. It’s not fresh or new, but it’s interesting. And it leaves the reader wanting volume 2 right away.

[Sam]

This is the Zombie story that feels like something that hasn't been seen. We always know the survival side of Zombie media, but never something that encompasses a resolution to the problem.

The only piece of media that I can honestly say compares is Warm Bloods, and not because it's a romance. It's the only other piece of media where the Zombies are actively part of the media and are allowed "salvation."

This book is super interesting because we get the standard fanfare of a Zombie story through the eyes of a revived zombie trying to get the Vaccine from Point A to Point B. While not shying away from the fact that our protagonists spent the last year as zombies, and they remember it.

This manga captivated me from beginning to end and given that it is part 1 of 2. I will be hunting down the second volume so I can see the ending.

[Brittany]

I received a eARC of this title from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

This was a decent zombie story! I though zombies being afraid of sunlight was a little silly but I still really enjoyed the story. It was very gory but the black and white art helps to dull the shock of it. I was a bit disturbed with the main characters appearance at the very beginning and I was triggered by some scenes in the Paradise building. If you are sensitive to or triggered by rape I would probably avoid this book because there are two panels showing sexual assault and a fair amount of rape talk. I was able to push through and finish the book. As far as zombie stories go, it's was easy to follow and it definitely gave me the creeps.

[Brandy]

The artwork is amazing! The scenes are detailed and the atmosphere gritty. The world created is harsh, hard, and everything falls back on survival. I love the unique twists where zombies don't like sunlight and there is a cure that's so new, who knows where this may lead!! The suspense!

Unfortunately, I did get lost a time or two and feels like there are parts in the story that need filled in. It also feels so similar to zombie stories out there, almost like a continuation of The Walking Dead but on the other side of the world. The familiarity is nice but I hope it doesn't hold this story back.

Otherwise, a good story and excited to see what's next. Thank you to Netgalley and Diamond Book Distributors for allowing me to review.

[Gabby]

Crueler Than Dead is a classic zombie story that was refreshing to read in manga style.
While I initially didn’t realise this was manga, once I got the hang of the unique reading style, I started to enjoy the story.
It has all zombie lovers favourite elements; survival, a vaccine, gory zombie content, a safe haven and an impossible mission. Easy to read in one sitting and I would definitely like to pick up volume 2.
I wouldn’t say this brought anything new to the table, but if you’re looking for a classic zombie story, Crueler Than Dead will certainly scratch that itch.

Thank you to Diamond Book Distributor for providing me an e-copy of this manga to review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[RSC_Collecting]

This was a neat little volume. Obviously a zombie story, which don't tend to be my favorite. But I had fun with this one. It's less of a zombie story and more about the people around the zombies. We see a couple different characters and how they've been dealing with these zombies. Even with the short volume, we get to see some good character development and drastic changes from a traumatic event. The main storyline revolves around a woman and a boy who were cured from being zombies. They are now tasked with taking the three remaining vaccine samples to Tokyo. It's a neat storyline and I'm excited to see where it goes. Because this volume already had some huge struggles and battles. Next one should be great!

[Rory Wilding]

Throughout the last decade there was a resurgence of zombie media spawning through films and television. Series like The Walking Dead are staples of the phenomenon, and as that show approaches its final season it is a possible sign that the phenomenon is losing its edge. That is not to say everybody is going to stop making zombie content as we recently had Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, but maybe there is not as much of a mainstream appetite for the genre. This brings me to the manga Crueler Than Dead.

Please click here for my full review.

[先素妍]

Thank you to NetGalley, I thought it was nice and the idea of the main character being a cured zombie was really cool and new to me. The art is also really good. I felt that pacing was kinda odd and I like that the characters are kinda morally grey but it did feel weird when some of them were being really selfless like when one of the antagonist just had a complete 180 after seeing that the main character has a vaccine. I still enjoyed reading and I'm interested in seeing where this story goes.

[Urbon Adamsson]

It's Impossible to not compare this to "The Walking Dead". It's basically TWD if it was a Manga. But it doesn't have the same character deepth that TWD has.

The action scenes and illustrations are great. Takahashi does a great work on both.

I enjoyed the story but it could be more meaningful. Everything sounds very shallow. Other than that it was a great read.

I recommend it if you're looking for a light read with good action scenes.

[Regi Caldart]

This was clearly crafted by people who know and love zombies! I'm only knocking off a star due to some odd pacing, but otherwise, the story hooked me from the start. I love that it focuses on the recipients of the vaccine trying to deliver it and how their encounters both hinder and help their objective. Looking forward to volume two!

[Thom]

This book doesn't earn any of the choices it makes. The shock value isn't shocking when the scenes are constantly at 11/10. It is relentless but never gives the reader a reason or even a chance to care about what is going on because no care is taken with the shallow character arcs, sleazy background characters, and casual devilishness on day one of the outbreak. Really disappointing.

[Nuno Ferreira]

Tsukasa Saimura é o autor e Kozo Takahashi o ilustrador de Crueler Than Dead, um mangá sobre uma epidemia zombie, publicado pela Gradiva em Portugal. Não é fácil escrever sobre zombies sem parecer uma réplica, mas mesmo para um fã de The Walking Dead como eu, este mangá revelou-se uma boa aposta. Não gostei tanto das ilustrações, apesar de ser mesmo uma questão de gosto pessoal.

[Kay ☾]

3.5 stars for me. The artwork was truly impressive, showcasing great talent. However, the storyline followed the typical path of a zombie apocalypse, with a twist – the existence of a cure. Despite this intriguing element, the plot failed to fully engage me and left me with little motivation to see it through to the end.

[Masha]

The story felt like a basic zombie book. It was a bit too fast-paced for my liking.

I wish there were more scenes about how the vaccine affected the body's changes. Since Yugo got infected and Maki inserted the vaccine into the back of his neck, I kinda wanted to see the transformation from zombie to human, but alas, it didn't happen.

The art style is cool tho!

[amanda]

It’s gorey and the art is beautiful but the plot is lacking. It simple goes so fast and is kind of ridiculous in a way by the way it over explains itself. But I love horror manga and I’m always on the hunt for more to read. Sadly, this was more than a miss. Thanks so much for the chance to review.