Type: Manga
Chapters: 241 chapters in 21 volumes released & scanlated as of November 9th 2016
Status: Ongoing
Genres: Seinen - Action, Drama, Ecchi, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Romance, Sci-Fi, Smut, Supernatural, Tragedy
Author: Hanazawa Kengo
Artist: Hanazawa Kengo
Serialization: Big Comic Spirits
Awards: 3rd, 4th & 5th Manga Taishō Award (nominated), 58th Shogakukan Manga Award in the General category (won)
Spoiler: Description From The Volumes Back
| Story: 8/10 |
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I Am A Hero is a story about survival and human interaction and relations in a world suffering from a zombie apocalypse of unknown origin.
Despite what the title may suggest is it much more a story about a person trying to stay human in a world that is falling apart and simply buy keeping that up, being a normal person, trying to do the right things, becomes a hero. Much rather than Hideo Suzuki, the protagonist, actvely fighting his way through the world and safing people. Something you'd expect from a hero in the conventional sense. The story takes a lot of time to build up, by that I really mean a lot of time. Something that might make people drop reading before anything big actually happens, but the build up is always rewarded by an interesting climax that drives the story forward. Changing it's pacing between survival, unavoidable fighting and simply trying to stay human in a world that is falling apart. |
| Synopsis: 7.5/10 |
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Hideo Suzuki, formerly a manga-ka himself , is now working the tiring life as a manga-ka's assistant. Trying to bring peace between the struggle of doing well at his job, having a happy life with his girlfriend and coping with his very own fears. Yet is Tokyo slowly brought into the grasp of an upcoming zombie outbreak, that goes largely unnoticed, until it is to late. Hideo has now to survive in a world were social order is no more and everyone simply tries to stay alive. Not the most original plot for a story, but very well written and with an interesting focus on certain things you usually don't see like this.[/left] |
| Characters: 7.5/10 |
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[align=left]The series features a very diverse cast of characters that is mostly well explored and offers different perspectives to the world they find themself in, making it overall interesting and intriguing to follow the characters through the story. Most characters have similiar motivations for their actions, due to the circumstances of the world, yet are the different approaches to achieve their goals what makes the characters really different, aside from different personalities that try to cope with the ruined world all in their own way. The cast features enough different mindsets in the characters to cover a lot of different ideas and ways to handle the new world, making it hardly boring to get introduced to a new member of the cast. This also leads to a rather colourful world of many different ideas and different ways to explore I Am A Hero's reality. |
| Art: 10+/10 |
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Let's start with the bad thing about it. It's at the beginning not as good as at the end. That's it.
It would be quite the understatement to simply say that the art is good. It is great, gorgeous, by far the best art in a manga, manhwa or manhua I've personally seen so far. I'm not sure if it is drawn by hand and then edited or in some way edited and then having put details into it by hand, but it is just great. All of it looks just right. The perfect way between realism and artistic freedom. The only thing that lacks a bit are the faces of the characters. They sometimes feel out of place with the beatifuly drawn backgrounds. Yet do they also often convey a characters emotions and intentions extremely well. You can really see how a character feels and what he intends in his face. Together with shots that appear sometimes as if you made a photograph of a peron that does not expect it, catching their faces making a weird grimasse. It somehow adds an interesting touch to the art that is really outstanding. Spoiler: Early Examples |
| Personal Take: 9.5/10 |
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By far the best survival/zombie manga I've read so far. Well written and realistic characters that struggle with the situation like real humans would do instead of being instant-badasses. A dense and great atmosphere that surrounds the world and the several characters that inhabit it. A rather slow pacing that is great for building up great climaxes. Yet would I recommand to read I Am A Hero in volume portions, instead of reading it chapter by chapter., because of the slower pacing that comes with it. Enough horror of each type to have a nice mixture that builds up tension. The only thing I don't get along with that well is how the characters behave sometimes. No idea if it is me, part of the western audience, that is not used to how japanese people act usually, but it feels really weird sometimes. Except for that is there the deal as to how people handle the situation with the infected. The story plays in shortly before 2010 and zombies in form of media should be wide spread, so how people react to them feels a bit weird sometimes. On the other hand are the zombie rather unique and still maintain human-like traits that possible explain why the humans behave like they did at the beginning of the series. |