I Am a Hero

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I am a hero is an amazing manga. It follows thirty-five year Hideo Suzuki who constantly feels as if he is being sidelined within his own life, and all he craves is to be the main character, a hero, of just himself.

The story is extremely character driven and personally I think a slow-burn. It doesn't have awesome fights with interesting tactics, it's just a guy who was lucky enough to carry a gun the day the world ended and him figuring out what to do from there. The art isn't sub-par but it certainly isn't amazing either. It never takes away from the story, moreover ... the panelling is one of the best experiences I had while reading and elevates the way you read and take in the world so much. Plot developments are interesting and keep you on your toes throughout the whole read and are paced relatively well barely feeling boring or like you've been stuck dragging on the same story beats over and over. (beside what some people may say about the beginning, that I personally disagree with.)

The characters feel real, human and like they actually exist. I mean the main character is just some loser, it can't get any more real than that. It can switch to other characters views with relative ease and show what's happening within the world and how it's changed the daily life for the remaining survivors. Though sometimes these change of perspectives can be meaningless, they are still very interesting. The horror is also done very well and simply. The horror is basically just the fact you're in a zombie apocalypse and everything is going to shit, thus it feels real. The actual horror elements are there, especially with the typical seinen overuse of weird and bizarre gore but overall it's practically just the realness of it all.

The manga is not without it's faults obviously. I've heard people say things about not liking the art style, though I think that doesn't matter too much, especially when the panelling is so great. I feel like there are many missed opportunities within plot points however. For example Hideo has some form of schizophrenia and it vastly improves the horror aspect in the beginning but it disappears soon after for a large quantity of the manga and I feel as if it could've added some type of physiological horror aspect and given a different interesting, atmosphere. Hideo effectively becomes a kingdom with an entire army by being one of the very few with a gun within this apocalypse, but him going from what he considers a 'side character' to a 'main character' are rarely explored despite him saying so much about what he wishes in the beginning. He could've been someone who goes from a loser to stuck up, entitled but ultimately realizing that's not going to help him survive, or maybe he'd never realize. Nonetheless, I just wish more was done with those plot points a bit.

I've been reading manga for more than 15 years now and never write reviews, even for absolutely terrible or fantastic manga. I'm making an exception here due to how long this manga is, and how great it is throughout 90% of it, but also how the ending impacted the story and overall quality.

This is less of a review and more of a warning to any would-be reader. The ending is objectively bad--it's not bad in a 'oh it's up in the air how a person interprets it kind of bad'-- it's bad in a man who calls his wife by his ex's name ... during intercourse sort of way. It's horrendously rushed and provides no answers or resolutions to anything that happened over the course of the entire manga; essentially, it feels as if there is no ending at all and had its serialization axed or the author died prematurely. If you can deal with a good manga but an abrupt ending (just along for the ride without a destination) then I'd honestly still recommend it, as it does a lot of things better in the survival/zombie front compared to other manga.

This was one of the most exhausting and unrewarding reads I have ever sat through. I really can't recommend I Am a Hero to anybody, even those who are okay with nothing but running from and killing zombies. With all due respect to the author, he had a really strong concept to start with and most of the characters were actually interesting, but really unfortunate pacing issues and out-of-touch artistic philosophy really hinders the series. Not to mention the plot that gets major traction only to land absolutely nowhere. You can only look at a double-spreader of a city landscape with zombies roaming around so ... many times before getting absolutely sick of it.

The only saving grace of this series, to me, is the art at least being consistently good... until the last volumes. Quite a few of the pages were clearly rushed and borderline unfinished or straight up anatomically incorrect near the end, but with how sour the ending already is for every other reason imaginable, I didn't even find myself caring. If you want a straightforward gory survival story with frequent cool, creepy, and/or pretty illustrations, then I guess I Am a Hero is an *okay* choice. But only okay. The pacing still makes even that aspect diminish substantially by the halfway point.

Many of the supporting characters were potent, yes, but way too many of them were completely dropped out of nowhere. Because Suzuki himself takes a backseat in the latter third of the plot, this feels reeeeally terrible sometimes. On top of the story about the zombies itself just... literally not being resolved at all, I cannot name a series I've read that's left me with larger dissatisfaction. It's almost as if the author imploded everything on purpose because he grew to hate what he made for some reason.

There is almost nothing to take away when finishing the read. I've read a few series that are loose-ended and/or aren't obvious with what exactly they stand for at the end (Blame! is the most obvious one that comes to mind), but I Am a Hero is anything but either of those things. The author somehow wrapped up everything with a clear ending while also not delivering on any of the previous setups at all. I do not feel there was anything to be gleamed from here at all. The series ends up not respecting itself, and at the end it doesn't bother to give the reader what they might've been hoping to stumble upon.

If you love this manga yourself, all the more power to you. I don't think it takes away from you as an enjoyer or critic of the medium. I simply cannot, in good will, give this the thumbs up to any prospecting people at all, and I am kind of appalled that something like this is even remotely close to an 8 in public score.

Edit: I'm re-uploading my review after reading some positive ones from across the web. I am even more appalled. This series was not scary at all. The scariest part was when Suzuki was having schizophrenic delusions in the first chapter, which almost never pop up in the story ever again afterwards. I would never call this a horror manga because of it. Also, "realism" is not a good basis for how well-written a series is. I thought we got over this as a collective people a few years ago. If anything, attempting realism almost always comes across as a superficial attempt to buff up how "mature" the series feels, but this manga is not even remotely realistic even outside of the zombie stuff, with the exception of a very small handful of characters. I cannot believe what I have read.

0/10 for a thoughtful read. 4/10 for a casual read if you just want to kill a lot of time with zombies.