Volumes 1-11 (2in1 Omnibus Format) (Complete). Going OOP, getting hard to find
Seinen
Genre: Zombies, Survival Horror, Sci-fi
Summary: Hideo Suzuki is a 35 year old manga artist’s assistant and he’s struggling in life. His name is spelled with the kanji characters for Hero but he’s anything but. His last manga serial was cancelled and he needs to come up with a new pitch to his editor. Meanwhile his girlfriend keeps talking about her ex, whose series has been much more popular. The stress is really getting to him, and then meanwhile, the Zombie Apocalypse breaks out! Before the Apocalypse he was regarded as a loser by some, but he has one big advantage almost no one else in Japan has- a real shotgun! Is now his chance to finally become a hero?
This series won the 58th Shogakukan Manga Award in the General category in 2013.
Review: This series is pretty long, so I will be breaking up the review into parts again. I would say there are at least 4 major story arcs, but depending how you count them there could be more like 7.
Major Arcs:
Volume 1: Introduction Arc: Introducing Hideo and his life before the Apocalypse.
Volume 2-7ish: Early Zombie Survival Arc
Volume 8-13: Mature Zombie Survival Arc and introducing other surviving groups
Volume 14-22 The Zombie Virus Evolution Arc
First Arc: This Arc is a bit controversial, a lot of readers felt like the introduction went on too long and didn’t find his before Apocalypse life very interesting. Personally I can see that, but also it was interesting to see what his regular life was, and also shows a lot of his personality of what Hideo is like when he doesn’t have anyone to ground him to reality. Also, from the other reviews, I thought his hallucinations would play a bigger role in the story, but they do not.
Second Arc: So the Zombie Apocalypse breaks out. I found it a mix of scary and frustrating. The frustrating part is that in the beginning, both the regular public and also Hideo kind of refuse to take the Apocalypse seriously. Aside from a few smarter individuals, people are literally talking to Zombies like they’re just sick or crazy, and people keep calling the police even though they were basically the first to get infected. Meanwhile Hideo keeps insisting on following the law and the rules when it makes no sense to do so. But this is also presented as his main character flaw.
Third Arc: Thanks to guidance from others, Hideo finally becomes a badass Zombie killer. Meanwhile the story shifts several times to other groups, some in Japan, some in other countries, where the Zombie Apocalypse has also broken out. Some readers hated this and felt the side stories detracted from the main story-line, like filler. I would argue it’s not filler since it tells us what was happening in the rest of the world, and I thought they were interesting, but feel free to draw your own conclusions.
Fourth Arc: This part of the story shifts to showing us that the Zombie Virus wasn’t just a random mutation of an existing disease, but is actually a thing that was done purposefully towards some unknown end(s). Unfortunately this Arc ends abruptly.
So all in all, I Am A Hero is an impressively epic Zombie Apocalypse manga, but has one major issue: the series ends suddenly. It ended so suddenly, when I was reading other reviews of this manga, the most common question was: was the series cancelled? Basically the series wasn’t cancelled, but the mangaka’s Father died near the end of the story, and he wrapped up the series quickly and took a break for a while. Unfortunately this leaves us without the final volume or two that the story seemed to be building towards.
Even with an unfinished story, I don’t regret reading it, but I would definitely tell any potential readers about the rushed ending, because it leaves so many unanswered questions. We can only speculate about what the mangaka had in mind. He has tried to restart I Am A Hero a few times in new side stories, none of which are very good (except 8 Tales of the ZQN which has a short story by Junji Ito in it). But I truly hope that one day we get a proper sequel, ending or explanation one day.
I feel like I should also mention, there is actually another main character, Hiromi, a high school girl, who also has Hiro/Hero in her name. She has a major arc in the story but then it ends without ever finding out what happened to her and why.
Recommended: If you don’t mind an ending you can only speculate about, and an ending that only gives closure for like half of the characters, then this was still an excellent read.
But If you want a complete story with a strong ending, you will be very disappointed.
Age Rating: R: mostly for quite a lot of Zombies and related very graphic gore. Also some off-screen rape of one of the characters and some onscreen consensual sex.
OOP Note: This series is going Out of Print and is unlikely to be reprinted, at least for the near future. So pick it up while you can. I think it's still available in ebook though.
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