The perfect series to destroy your appetite.
I’e and his friend Kazu are taking the bus home from high school just like any other day. After they mysteriously pass out while aboard the bus, they wake up in a new bus full of dead bodies which are being transported into an underground facility utilizing butchered human meat for stomach-churning purposes. The place is run by dangerously powerful people serving an even more terrifying master.
Aligning themselves with other survivors, I’e and his new companions make it their mission to break out alive while being confronted with one nightmare after the other within the demonic facility. The truth of what’s truly going on underground is even more awful than they’re prepared to handle, however.
Starving Anonymous starts off as a pure gross-out gore manga, but progresses into an insane science fiction psychological thriller with some genuinely fascinating characters and surprisingly emotional moments. Even through its weaker plot elements, the series keeps up a constant momentum of explicit horror, brutal action and bizarro nightmare fuel.
The villains are chilling, but the heroes aren’t exactly right in the head either. The two leading men Natsune and Yamabiki who support I’e with his escape are extremely disturbed while still being empathetic and very interesting. Natsume is a monstrous combat expert with a childlike understanding of the world while Yamabiki is a deranged genius whose morbid fascination with science often overrides his morality. The relationship between these crazy guys is what really brings the mystery, thrills and tension of the story to their full potential.
There’s a few moments where the logic behind the facility and the reasoning behind the strange world-building is a bit iffy, but the ridiculousness of the plot and the strong character work is solid enough to make up for its shortcomings. There’s some harsh commentary about global warming, treatment toward livestock for meat consumption and the increase of health problems in the modern world due to the way our environment is treated and the garbage that’s put in our food every day.
The finale is also surprisingly emotional and satisfying, being ambiguous enough to leave some of the darker themes up to the imagination.
My rating: 4.1/5