I Am a Hero, #7

I Am a Hero

by Kengo Hanazawa

Ele conheceu Hiromi Hayakari... uma estudante que havia fugido de sua excursão escolar. Eles sobreviveram juntos e decidiram subir até um mirante no Monte Fuji. No caminho, ao passarem por um santuário lotado de pessoas, Hiromi acabou mordida por um bebê infectado. Hideo se juntou a um fotógrafo e eles decidiram seguir rumores da internet e se refugiarem em um shopping center com outros sobreviventes. Porém, logo na estrada, encontraram corpos carbonizados com o "anel de fogo", um método de execução como em guerrilhas. Por ter uma arma de verdade, Hideo foi bem recebido, mas já notou que os jovens líderes do lugar não são exatamente "boas pessoas"..."

Genres: Manga, Horror, Comics, Zombies, Seinen, Fiction, 漫画

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2011

About the author

Kengo Hanazawa (花沢健吾 Hanazawa Kengo, born January 5, 1974) is a Japanese manga artist known for his seinen works. He won the Topic Award of the 2005 Sense of Gender Awards for Ressentiment and was nominated for the 3rd, 4th and 5th Manga Taisho for I Am a Hero.

Reviews

[Tawfek · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this volume
I love how he is writing Hiromi right now she gives us an inside look into the zombie disease which is very unique unlike any other i have ever read about or seen
I love the new girl i hope she sticks around
I also like the new group they are good for the story and it will be great for the story when they get wiped out as well
Hideo is proving to be a great Main character so far
i will also talk about the first 25 pages of the next volume
the writer keeps on making scenes that make everyone look stupid.
survival instincts zero and how long can he keep doing this? i imagine five more volumes there won't be many people left in all of japan so the ones who are left will have to be the fittest to survive will he keep making them look stupid and die by a zombie that they see coming from meters away?
and second the gaps that he makes in the story he actually ignores making important scenes like how sango is going to die or how Hideo figured out how to deal with Hiromi while he still depicts a lot of useless scenes not only to the story but even no literature value at all

[Hossein · Rating 4 out of 5]

تقریبا یک بخش خیلی مهم از آثار زامبی محور این هست که دیر یا زود کاراکتر های ما به اجتماعات انسانی آخرالزمانی و به اصطلاح فکشن هایی که بازماندگان پس از ویروس تشکیل میدن برمیخورن ... که فرصت خیلی خوبی به نویسنده/مانگاکا میده که ما رو آشنا کنه با دنیای آخرالزمانی خودش این والیوم ( و چندتا چپتر والیوم قبل) ما با اولین اجتماع از این نوع آشنا شدیم ... ولی عمق خاصی نداشت امیدوارم طی والیوم های بعدی با فکشن ها و گروه های خفن تری مواجه بشیم ...

[Jon Ureña · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm reviewing volumes 6 and 7.

I won’t spoiler-tag big spoilers from the previous volumes, so consider yourself spoiler-warned. As you might recall if you read my previous review in this series, the best character so far, the anhedonic, solitary female high schooler, got turned into a damned zomb. The author stole from us the sequence in which the protagonist would have found out that the only living person he cared about, and lusted after, had changed political parties and now worked for the demise of mankind. Instead, we time-cut to an indeterminate time later, maybe a few days, maybe a few weeks after. The protagonist and the photographer keep driving through the apocalypse while they carry on the backseat a suspiciously filled sleeping bag. Turns out that the high schooler’s anhedonia, her strange lack of reaction to the horrors around her, and general lack of fear, were setups for her new life as a zombie: she’s the chosen one who despite having mostly lost her mind, she won’t attack human beings, and instead can be guided to attack other zombies. Not unlike Nezuko from the overrated anime “Kimetsu no Yaiba”.


Pictured: Nezuko-chan from the overrated anime “Kimetsu no Yaiba” (click for that scene of the anime, for no particular reason)

I bailed from that anime half-way through because some characters were insufferable (how I wanted to strangle that blonde pissant), but Nezuko was the best part of it: she’s the protagonist’s sister, who had been turned into a demon; she was expected to become a zombie-like agent, but in her case she didn’t and proceeded to help her brother through his mostly demon related troubles. Through the anime, most of the audience, or at least me, hopes that the relationship will turn into some tender wincest. But Nezuko didn’t remain attached to humanity through sheer force of will, but because she got hypnotized by some ugly-masked sensei, which makes Nezuko lamer. In the case of the high schooler of this story, she remained attached to her humanity through her sheer will and idiosyncrasy, which makes her awesome. I suppose that “we live through a zombie apocalypse just to meet and protect the only infected person who will somehow save all” is the only valuable zombie story to tell once you’ve exhausted the metaphor for consumerism which is why this genre exists to begin with; “The Last of Us” did it as well, although they will seemingly fuck it up by woke-ing the sequel.

In any case, I love how the protagonist guides the high schooler to defend them from the monsters, and we get to see the high schooler’s internal life as a zombie: she’s locked in an oniric retelling of her memories, in which the present threats trickle in like symbols from her past. She seems to mostly imagine herself back as a 10-11 year old. In another memorable scene she managed to dismember a zombie by facing, from her perspective, an animated, man-sized teddy bear with its white, spongey guts hanging out. The protagonist also manages to lead her by the hand whenever they need her to move, by sticking earbuds in her and playing some music that she had enjoyed while she travelled from and to her high high school. Conveniently or not for the protagonist, she also now believes him to be her probably long dead, presumably high school aged boyfriend, and repeatedly claims that she’ll protect him from any harm, not unlike, again, in “Kimetsu no Yaiba”. In any case, I love that this character is still around having a prominent role, and she makes for an endearingly cute zombie.

Although the protagonist has to use the high school zombie girl against her kind by necessity, he's worried sick and even stays too close, putting himself in danger, fearing that the zombies will tear the girl apart even though they would have a greater reason to kill him. The photographer has solidified into the hardass kind of person that can survive in that world: you either shoot or you get bitten, you either use your high school aged friend as armed bait, or you risk turning yourself. The protagonist has a hard time adjusting. Despite her female friend having become an useful zombie, she’s still severely ill and requires maintenance. Some of it involves the protagonist cleaning bloody discharges from her private areas. Due to her reactions, that might be contributing the most to her believing the protagonist to be her high school aged boyfriend. Maybe you could solve this zombie apocalypse by molesting all the zombies.

They are driving towards the location of the most reliable rumored shelter in the area: a huge mall (gotta have a mall shelter in a zombie series, and it also makes sense). Along the way, however, they have to zigzag through the burned corpses, left maybe as warnings, of numerous people executed by putting their head through a tire and setting it on fire, a somewhat popular kind of video in gore sites.

The guys drive up to the side of the mall and they face a group of armed, threatening looking goons. Their weapons are airguns, which can still do some damage, but the moment they realize they are facing someone with a real shotgun, the biggest penis firearm around, they bring him up to the mall roof. They need the most useful people still kicking. What follows is one of those stages in a zombie story in which the protagonists have to navigate the balance of power, and a few dangerous and/or deranged people, so they can stay safe. These are usually my least favorite parts of these stories, because they necessarily include characters who are meant to freak you out and make you fear for your beloved characters, and you want those people to get eaten by zombies. Ideally every character in your story would be someone you’d want to survive, but they would also disagree and enter in potentially mortal conflict for completely understandable reasons.

The story is at least a week and a half into the apocalypse, so at this point a certain kind of people have been weeded out; civilization is a minstrel costume hiding a hairy, smelly, cum-/blood-stained body crisscrossed with scars that is just a couple evolutionary steps separated from its shit slinging ancestors. The first ones to go when the façade comes down are the weak minded who believe everybody to be good, who would reject the use of violence even to defend themselves, and would rather hug their enemies and “be nice”, while expecting the universe to give them what they believe they deserve. In a way they do end up getting what they fucking deserve, of course, and many of the remaining survivors are people like the main nasties in the mall group the protagonists have to deal with now: mostly a half deranged punk resentful and envious of anyone he can categorize into having been more successful than he was before the apocalypse. He’s introduced during a stunt in which he judges whether an businessman in his sixties should be allowed to live or be dropped into the zombies below. The businessman sticks to his dignity and old-world principles, while the punk claims that the old man’s generation had blindly forced everyone into hard work and stoic servitude under the pretense that those values would bring them prosperity, but as a result they got the zombie apocalypse. The punk illustrates that they need a new kind of person to rule the post-zombies Japan, the kind that would eagerly kill whoever doesn’t follow his rule.

Interestingly, two of the people who find out that the protagonist’s high school aged friend is infected realize immediately how important she is. They want to protect her. But the protagonist has the most powerful weapon around, and the main bastards end up stealing it from him. By the end of this seventh volume the protagonist has been forcefully enlisted into a raid for food. While the main bastard handles the shotgun, the protagonist has to defend himself with a plastic hammer. The raid goes wrong, one of them gets killed in the pantry, and the others await in an enclosed space the incoming zombies alerted by the shotgun fire.

The infected high schooler remains the most interesting character. Still believing the protagonist to be her boyfriend, she sweetly waits in the dark for him to come back, and sleeps next to him in their tent. There’s a poignant moment I haven’t seen in any other zombie story in which the protagonist, laying next to this half deranged zombie girl, the only “living” person he cares about, is aware that at any point she might end up flipping and biting him, but he figures that of the many ways to go out, he might as well let that one happen if it needs to.

Unfortunately, we end up fearing for her again: once the main bastards steal the protagonist’s shotgun, they pay a visit to the high school girl knowing that she’s a zombie. The co-ruler realizes how important she is, that she should be kept safe, but when she approaches one of the minions, who is threatening the protagonist, and she breaks the hand he was holding a weapon with, and one of his legs, the co-ruler lets a bolt fly, which pierces the high school girl’s skull. She slumps to the floor, probably dying. After the protagonist gets forcefully drafted into the raid, another mostly sympathetic character, a sex slave the protagonist had refused to have sex with (the leader had intended to use her attentions as a way to control the protagonist) grabs the injured high school girl and intends to make a run for it down to one of the working cars in the parking lot. This sex slave character is curiously reminiscent of a parallel character in Shuzo Oshimi’s worst series, “Drifting Net Cafe”, about another group of people getting stuck in a commercial building. That other character even looks similar, and she had also been ordered to fuck the protagonist to manipulate him, which the protagonist had also refused to allow. Odd.

By the end of this volume, a particularly athletic zombie missing a third of his skull, who seems to be stuck in memories of him training for the olympics, has accessed the roof and turned one of the survivors, and the protagonist faces a wave of zombies in the kitchen area.

I wrote this in the morning before my afternoon shift at work. At least today I won’t forget to fill my reading apparatus with the rest of this series; few things worse during these work days than sitting on the train knowing I have an hour to read in peace before I reach the office, only to realize I have forgotten to load the new chapters. In any case, this is a very compelling series and I hope that high school zombie girl survives mostly intact.

[Camilo Guerra · Rating 4 out of 5]

El grupo es acogido por un grupo de sobrevivientes qu eran antiguamente marginados y ahora muestran lo peor del ser humano, mezquinos, violadores, que ven todo como un videojuego...aca Hideo y su grupo se encontraran acosados, en cada pagina sabes que lo que viene sera terrible, y aun asi, se siente todo fresco y nuevo...lo del punto de vista de los zombies es algo nuevo y genial, igual el ultimo capitulo, en el que estamos en el punto de vista de cada personaje.El mejor tomo al momento.

[Tinka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I Am a Hero continues to be an interesting story with a very distinguished art style. This particular volume however feels more like a filler, even though a needed one. It introduces new characters and shows how people react in desperate situations. It wasn’t quite as intriguing as the previous volume, but still goes into an interesting direction.

[Ignacio Senao f · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esas páginas adentrándose en el supermercado en primera personas todo el rato, ha sido demasiado bueno, diría que épico y una obra maestra.

Hay comic que buscan el terror, o la aventura, la comedia, provocar… La mayoría no lo consiguen. Este tiene todo esto, y lo mejor: BORDA TODAS LAS TEMÁTICAS.

Es acabarlo y querer releerlo, no me ha pasado con ningún libro, película… sólo con alguna comida y chica ^_^

[Vittorio Rainone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se da un lato colpisce a strana convinzione di base, e cioè l'assoluta superiorità che si raggiunge possedendo un solo fucile, e ci si chiede costantemente come mai le armi siano così poche, pur essendo il mondo andato in malora (esempio: armi da taglio: è sicuro che siano così inefficaci? nessuno le porta), dall'altro Hanazawa si conferma efficace sia nello scavare nelle relazioni fra umani (interessante la gestione del gruppo di folli che continua a nascondersi sui tetti del centro commerciale), ma soprattutto ci fornisce ulteriori elementi per il mistero degli ZQN. Hiromi, o meglio, la sua versione contagiata, è un personaggio dannatamente magnetico, con i suoi squarci mentali che assomigliano a ricordi e incubi al contempo, e la sua percezione alterata che non si limita all'aggressività, ma si spinge a un senso genuino di affetto per Shinji / Hideo. Interessante anche il rapporto con gli altri ZQN, che non sembra a senso unico, come si ipotizzava nel primo scontro per strada. A fine numero, infatti, Hiromi e uno dei mostri si confrontano senza attaccarsi. Insomma: IaaH continua ad essere una lettura di genere, ma costruita benissimo.

[Angel 一匹狼 · Rating 3 out of 5]

And here we go with our prototypical end-of-the-world cynics-stupid bunch.

After getting to the mall, our 'hero', Hiromi and their partner discover that the people that are there are not your most welcoming kind, but a bunch of selfish and self-absorbed people which one has to wonder how come they have survived for so long, as they seem intent on making survival complicated. We get the 'who-cares-about-things' speech, the head-scratching-ly stupid plan, and a couple of the most obvious plot developments out there. It is still fun to read, but not a highlight in the series so far. Luckily for us, the end of the volume seems to hint to better things.

PS: the drawing style keeps the top notch quality, with a couple of very well depicted moments, like the mission to the kitchens.

6.5/10

(Spanish translation by Marc Bernabé)

[Leonel Buelvas Garcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Para sobrevivir hay que usar todo lo que tengamos, ya sea el cuerpo, la cabeza o la violencia. No importa los títulos ni el dinero, solo tu cuerpo... en cierto sentido hay igualdad"

De mal en peor. No hay pasado mucho tiempo para notar que las organizaciones humanas que quedan son un desastre, y para destacar que siempre lo peor es lo que queda arriba en el poder.

Una buena continuación en esta edición que recopila los números 69-81 de la obra de Hanazawa, que nos relata las dinámicas dentro de la sociedad improvisada que Hideo y Hiromi les toca vivir o sobrevivir.

En cuanto al arte, impecable como siempre, con atención al detalle y al movimiento. Muy en especial el el movimiento de los zombies, el cual es extra y familiar a la vez.

[Paulina ෂ · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.5]
Me gustó bastante pero siento que me faltó algo... Este tomo desenmascara a los personajes, dejándonos conocer su verdadera esencia. Hide sí fue separado del rifle y tuvo que acompañar a los demás a la zona de restaurantes (donde Hanazawa hizo un muy buen manejo del POV de los que ahí se encontraban).
Sin embargo algo que llamó mi atención fue que el zombie saltador no atacó a las muchachas ...podría guiarme al estilo TWD y decir que fue el olor, pero en un tomo anterior se mencionó que atacaban a las personas, entre ellos y después se "comían a sí mismos", ¿el caso de las compañeras de Hiromi fue aislado? ¿en verdad pasa eso o sólo fueron meras suposiciones? y de nuevo ¿por qué no las atacó?

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sango is the leader of the group of survivors living on the roof of the mall. He has a big mouth, but one of the actual leader is a guy named Iura. After seeing a healthy man be thrown to the zombies below for allegedly betraying the group, Jideo realizes they need to leave fast because his presence (and that of his gun) unsettled the balance of power of the group. They make the first move and grab his gun by force, then attack Hiromi who has the ammunition.

With the new gun, the group leaves the roof to gather food. Things don't go as planned. The away team gets surrounded and a zombie manages to jump to the roof.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ab diesem Teil ging es ein wenig Bergauf - hauptsächlich weil die ganzen Arschwichser von Kerlen endlich das kriegen, was sie verdienen :D aber auch weil es endlich eine Charakterentwicklung bei Hideo gab.
Man muss dem Manga lassen, dass er zumindest beim Main Charakter eine ziemlich nachvollziehbare Entwicklung macht - ab diesem Manga schießt er nämlich das erste Mal wirklich auf Zombies. SEchs Bände lang braucht der MC, bis er sich überwinden kann, auf Menschen zu schießen. Das find ich super, deswegen kriegt es einen Stern mehr. Ich kann nämlich nichts mehr leiden als Chars, die ganz einfach von jetzt auf gleich Menschen abknallen können - das ist super unlogisch.

[Juan Carlos malik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aunque este tomo se me hizo algo lento e introductorio a la historia, debo decir que me gusto la manera en que el autor maneja la critica hacia la corrupción de las personas en cuanto al poder. Todos cambiamos, y no por estar infectados, nos transformamos al sentirnos poderosos y olvidamos de donde venimos.

El más grande mal, no se encuentra en los zombies, sino en el dominio y en el poder que nos corrompe.

Algo que me pareció estupendo, es que el autor sabe manejar muy bien las escenas gore, de una manera sutil y las escenas sexuales, son muy bien cuidadas.

[Gustavo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este tomo tiene tantas cosas interesantes, que solo voy a nombrar algunas (y no muy específicamente porque no quiero arruinarle nada a nadie): el punto de vista de Hiromi y las observaciones sobre los ZQN, la forma horrible en que se organizan los supervivientes, la escena de el operativo en el patio de comidas... Esta es una historia de zombis que vale la pena leer.

[Daniel Franco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creo que después de tanto tiempo sin leer la historia, éste tomo en especial fue perfecto. No revelaré nada de la historia, pero simplemente es tan acelerado e impactante como tranquilo y hasta semoviente. Excelente jejeje.

[Anto ϵ( 'Θ' )϶ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Carlos Ceballos Méndez · Rating 2 out of 5]

And the story goes nowhere...

[Natilin Alpaca Saurio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uh...cagamo

[Cristhian · Rating 4 out of 5]

La pequeña sociedad se desmorona por culpa del hambre de poder.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mulai terasa perbedaan signifikan pada volume ke-7 ini dengan yang sebelum-sebelumnya. Terutama di sini, dialog antar karakter menjadi lebih irit. Banyak frame yang lebih menceritakan sekuens kejadian berurutan, seolah semakin menegaskan gentingnya suasana di Gotenba. Namun seperti biasanya Hanazawa bercerita, suasana yang pada awalnya terlihat tenang dengan seketika berubah ketika muncul krisis. Kondisi psikologis karakter-karakter utama tergambar jelas lewat ekspresi dan dialog. Satu keunikannya yang patut diperhatikan adalah ketika kejadian-kejadian kemudian digambarkan lewat sudut pandang orang pertama yang rutin berganti-ganti, sehingga pembaca terkadang seolah dipaksa menebak siapa yang sedang berbicara hanya dengan mengandalkan aksesoris yang sedang dikenakan karakter tersebut. Sulit, tapi tetap terjaga ketegangan ceritanya hingga di halaman akhir.

[Jesus Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aqui estan en un centro comecial, que es parte clasica de los zombies



Once integrated with the mall people, Hideo receives a vist from a woman that confess she is a bait to try to steal his shotgun. After faking having sex they go to a meeting where they stole Hideo's shotgun. They organize a food raid into the food zone of the mail.
Tragedy hits twice, one when a zombie bites the guy who worked in the mall guiding the expedition, and two when a jumping zombie reaches above the mall and bites one person.

Its sad to see the way the people at the mall went into a bad society so fast.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agak sulit untuk tidak membanding-bandingkannya dengan film zombie lainnya, ketika sekelompok penyintas berkumpul di dalam sebuah pusat perbelanjaan dan berusaha menikmati hidup. Pusat perbelanjaan serba ada yang besar dan lengkap seperti mall memang sudah lama menjadi simbol konsumerisme, terutama untuk kota-kota metropolitan layaknya Jakarta. Kali ini, ternyata ada power politics yang sangat besar di dalam volume ini. Ketika sekelompok penyintas dipimpin oleh seseorang yang dipandang punya power besar, lalu ia pun menggunakannya untuk bertindak tangan besi. Semuanya atas nama "survival".

[Celeste · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los zombies de Kengo Hanazawa son GENIALES!

[Pierre-emmanuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Le zombie japonais, en ressemble décidément à rien de connu...

[Biondy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm... terasa seperti cerita transisi. Gambarnya tidak ada bagian yang "epik" seperti nomor-nomor sebelumnya.

[Bernardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

ha bajado un poco la intensidad pero ahí la lleva