Scumbag Loser (Rank 3)

Publisher: Yen Press Volumes: 1/1 Omnibus (3 in 1), In Print Seinen (reads like) Genre: Horror, Scifi

Summary: Masahiko Murai is overweight, bullied and an obsessive stalker of a girl named Haruka. Life is terrible, but he’s convinced that it’s alright as long as he’s not the “Biggest Loser” in his class. Between himself and Yamada, who smells extremely ripe, he’s only the second worst. But one day Yamada claims to have a hot girlfriend, which would make him the biggest loser! Desperate not to fall to the bottom, Murai claims to have a girlfriend too, and he shows everyone photos of Haruka on his phone. Much to his surprise, a girl who looks just like the photo shows up to class the next day, introduces herself as Haruka and claims to be his girlfriend! But the slight problem with that is that the photo is one he made himself on the computer… and the real Haruka it was based on died 5 years ago... He confronts “Haruka” with this information and she admits she might not be human… but he doesn’t care. He begs her to go out with him and make his lie real. And she agrees… on the condition that he helps her by introducing her to the biggest losers out there. Meanwhile Yamada, who called him bragging about how he was going to sleep with his hot girlfriend, suddenly screams over the phone. And the next day Yamada smells and acts like a different person, but no one else notices. Can Masahiko survive whatever the hell is going on, or is he next? And what are the Replacements up to? Review: Masahiko at first seems like a crazy delusional stalker who has trouble telling apart his delusions from reality. He is extremely judgmental and believes losers should just die, even though by his own criteria he is a loser as well. His only unique quality is his fetish for bad smells that others would consider disgusting, but it becomes important because he can even pick out someone from a crowd and identify them based on their natural smell. At first he goes along with Haruka’s requests even though he suspects that something is wrong. But after he finally connects with someone, a girl classmate named Satou who shares his weird interest in smelling people, and then finds she’s been marked as the next victim, he feels conflicted for the first time. He changes and becomes a person who wants to try and do the right thing. From this point on the story takes a lot of twists and turns and I don’t want to spoil it. The majority of the plot is driven by the mystery of the Replacements, and this story was very interesting as well. Overall this is such a strange but fascinating story that slowly and completely transforms itself. It starts off as something like “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and through dramatic reveals, changes to something completely different and surprisingly wholesome for horror by the end. It starts off kind of gross, both because Masahiko and others who believe they can decide that some people have no value to their lives and are better off dead. And also literally gross between the bullied demands for feet licking and also as the people eaters are slowly devouring people in secret and replacing them with impostors. As more and more is revealed about Masahiko’s past though, he changes into a more sympathetic character who is revealed to be warped and traumatized, but not actually a bad person. But the biggest twist is right towards the end, where the whole truth is revealed which puts the entire story into a new context. By the end, the manga argues that all lives should have value, even so called losers. And humans are the true monsters because they are capable of such cruelty. Humans bully those based on who they perceive to be below themselves, they lie, and they cannot love their children unconditionally. But they are redeemed somewhat by loving others and being someone who is needed by someone else. And then finally the ending turns into a sort of fucked up romance, but still again, surprisingly wholesome for horror. IMO, it was well done, just can’t say more without spoiling the big twists.

Recommended: TLDR; All in all, I was really pleasantly surprised by this horror series. It starts off trying to convince you that there are losers that the world is better off without, but then takes a sharp turn and argues that all lives have value. It ends up being a story about love and redemption. Age Rating: R for violence and gore, and also some amount of nudity and underwear sniffing. But it’s not as dirty as it sounds, Masahiko remembers people from their smell and the Imposters bait men with sex to eat them.