Sorry about neglecting this thread. I think it's very valuable to have a pile of interesting recommendations and little reviews from people you consider worth listening to. The longer this thread gets the more options you all have.
So... what have I looked at lately. Bio-Meat is a favourite, you know I like monsters and such. I've looked at a few zombie manga over time and
one of them I really liked.
The one I liked was
Not Fort of Apocalypse. This manga is shit. Do not read it. It's a stupid story about nothing that abandons its own premise almost immediately and becomes a retarded shitshow about nothing that seems embarrassed about its own existence and rushes to an end like it just wants to get out of your way. Bizarrely bad story. It looks
fine enough. The artist and writer seem to collaborate beyond this, which seems like a waste of visual talent to me. Nothing outstanding or too remarkable, but I can at least say the guy drawing this can do his job to a professional standard.
Next one I
didn't care too much for; 'I AM A HERO'. In which a man who looks like the chigyu meme with a bunch of neurotic inwardly directed complexes mentally tortures himself during the apocalyptic breakdown of society. I can't call this one incompetent. It's being what it's intended to be. I can't fault the realisation. But I could only read so much of this before losing interest. It's a giant nerd sperging out and hating himself refracted through the apocalypse. Will his life find resolution, order, and meaning through these new circumstances (like all neurotic spirals of self recrimination, no. This goes nowhere slowly as far as I can tell. But maybe you'll enjoy the ride more than I did).
Okay so what
did I like?
I've looked around, and it really does peak here.
If you've heard of this, you probably heard of the anime. And you probably heard that it's completely fucking retarded.
And maybe you saw this image/scene.
Is it retarded? Yes and no. It's very "retarded" in the sense that its appealing to some very base tastes in crudely simple and direct way. So simple that it doesn't offend or bother me. There are girls in this thing and they have big retarded colourful hair and giant tits and short skirts. They are constantly finding themselves in bizarre poses and states of semi-undress. This is not a surprise this thing springs on you. It's the selling point. So if you're looking you have no good reason to be offended.
Now why I am offended, is that the selling point of this thing is the girls, and they do so little let you know how much serious work went into it beyond that. If I'm interested in the other parts, how will I know to look here? I knew about this manga for years before I read it and I feel stupid for putting it off now.
Because it's great.
This manga is not really "retarded". It has a wide and stable base appeal in retardation. It has the half naked girls in distress on the cover. Under that it's an autistic survival story in the vein of Saito's
Survival and
Bio-Meat made by a man who clearly adores George Romero's work, has seen and thought about a mountain of horror/survival media, and wants to make what we might call a
fan work in that vein, but with what strikes me as a healthy respect for the past works and driving vision of his own to make it work. He's not playing on or riffing on past works, he's just working in a field with history. He's not a
fan in the sense his work is a retarded fawning orbiting work that only makes sense and has any appeal if you're a retarded faggot
fan of the original works. He's a
fan in the sense he clearly likes and appreciates certain pieces of old media a lot and is trying to capture and channel what he liked in them.
A truly
retarded work we might say is something like 'The Walking Dead' (which also started as a comic and got a tv show), in which nothing that happens makes much sense, events are devoid of any kind of material gravity and stuff just happens like a retarded soap opera. I get the impression this manga's creator (Daisuke Sato) really hates that stuff in horror media, and really loves things like Romero's social breakdown and resistance sequences.
Compare:
"The entire US Military all died at once because they just did. Fuck you this is just stuff we have to get out of the way to get to our frontier soap opera story."
While George Romero wants to show you exactly what's going on and why this situation is complicated. Sorry about the gorey thumbnail. The latter scene is far more interesting. You can actually follow the action. A situation is unfolding. Events lead into each other. Far more cinematic and far more pleasing to an autistic male mind. Do you understand what I mean when I say I believe Sato hated the former kind of scene and loved the latter? Highschool of the Dead is like a Romero film. Character-driven, but it doesn't compromise its action to put its characters where it needs them. The challenge is in creating coherent action that facilitates a character-story. And that's something I believe he did incredibly well. Better than any other post-romero "zombie" media I can think of.
I don't really like saying "zombie" like it's a genre or goal, but it's a broadly similar field in intentions. I understand different works have different goals, so I can't call every other work inferior. But what this work is doing is very interesting and not actually that common. And I think it's probably what a lot of "zombie" people really love and want out of this stuff but can't pin down.
So how is the thing? It's a methodical action and horror story about teenagers surviving a sort of George Romero scenario in which the dead are rising and eating people and they have to think, deal with each other and other people, and fight to survive. The manga looks very visually extreme in a few key elements. It's very violent, the women/girls are all designed in a very over the top way, but I wouldn't call it overwhelming. "Extreme" is the word. Amplified by the full-colour release, which I read. There's also a black and white run if you prefer that. Or the anime of course (also in colour, of course). Look at the detail on these guns. There were clearly fans working on this.
I happened to get the colour release when I looked it up and read it. Why not? Something different. Feels like an appropriate match for how the characters look. But if you prefer typical manga style here's how that looks.
I enjoy messing with my media and perhaps disrespecting creative intentions now and then for a more interesting time. If you're interested choose for yourself what looks more interesting and readable.
And if you're an anime person, the whole thing is on youtube for whatever reason. Have fun. You can check that very easily and the dub is kind of amusing.
Now, the anime was just 26 episodes of tv but was able to cover most of the story. It was able to do that because...
the author died after 7 volumes.
And they discontinued the series.
This manga had a great run, it was like a more fleshed out and expanded opening to a George Romero zombie movie that didn't have to fuss with film budgets and shooting difficulties. But it's clear that what we got was only a kind of extended opening act and there was far more ambition beyond there. Large plotlines set up, characters established but yet to act, the fate of the world up in the air. There was a world of this stuff waiting to be told. And then the author had a heart attack.
It's sad stuff. I think this work can at best be a cult classic now, but if it was really allowed to come into its prime I think it could have become a global shaper of culture quite easily.
While looking into this stuff to get my images for this post I found another zombie manga. This one completed. Don't know if it looks promising but it's something to do. Maybe I'll report back soon with my thoughts on
Infection.
Promising first page if you ask me.