Volumes: 8+ (Ongoing) (Read: 1-5)
Shounen
Genre: Post Apocalyptic, Survival Horror, Body Horror, Horror
Summary: Hajime Tsukiyoda is in Shibuya one day, filming footage for a short movie he wants to submit to a film contest, when suddenly giant floating goldfish that can swim through the air appear- and start eating people! He survives the initial attack and joins a group of survivors hiding out in a Mall waiting for rescue. They soon discover that Shibuya has been surrounded by a massive glass fish bowl. Can he get out of Shibuya alive?
Review: This series is such a mess I barely know where to start. But first, the goldfish. They work more or less like zombies, because the more humans they kill, the more eggs they lay that quickly hatch into new goldfish. Even a small goldfish can kill as they will lay eggs in humans and then they explode into baby goldfish. But unlike Zombies, which are typically weak individually, Goldfish are tough, and a single one can break through a door or a window.
As a survival horror scenario it feels ridiculously pointless. The Goldfish are way too powerful for humans to fight and their early weaknesses quickly become nullified as they mutate and become stronger and smarter. Meanwhile, the mangaka must have needed a name generating computer script as countless extras are introduced only to die gory deaths just pages later. Some of them even die on the same page. But somehow Hajime Tsukiyoda survives many situations that he ought to have died, and after a while it was just hard to care about any of them except maybe the homeless guy with somehow supernatural fighting abilities.
The plot turns to how somehow capturing and dissecting the Queen of the Goldfish is going to answer the mystery of goldfish mutating, but the whole attempt at Scifi feels weird. After all there is zero way any normal Goldfish can swim in air or eat people. These goldfish and the giant fishbowl appearing out of nowhere can only be supernatural in origin. But the plot is set up as if trying to figure out the mystery behind the goldfish while not caring about any of the characters is somehow enough reason for readers to read to the end.
(This series should have 2-3 volumes left, after it’s done I’ll update this review)
Not Recommended: After the novelty of Killer Goldfish wears off, you’re left with a terrible story with flat characters that frequently breaks suspension of disbelief. But if you're willing to suspend a lot of disbelief it does kind of read like a cheesy horror movie. And the goldfish artwork is really good.
Age Rating: R: many very gory deaths.
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