Higanjima

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Higanjima is an intriguing manga. Not in a good way. I really thought people were being overly critical, there’s no way a manga *that* bad could keep ongoing without getting axed, right? Wrong.

To summarize the nature of Higanjima, it’s a manga that’s wholly dependent on the rule of cool. Yet the author keeps missing the cool check roll most of the time. This results in obviously atrocious storytelling that just keeps being so annoying. Random bullshit keeps happening to delay anything being solved. The plot moves nowhere, only introducing more and more contrivances to divide attention elsewhere. Things are either not explained at all, or ... explained and then this explanation and laid rules are forgotten by both the characters and the author.

Personalities change at drop of hat, humans are weak when plot needs them to but become laws of physics breaking masses of power in other cases for some reasons, vampires are unbelievably overpowered so humans have no chance of escape but when the vampires attack en masse suddenly their power level is just of an easily disposable stock underling that pose no real threat.

What’s worse is, this isn’t constantly terrible. Once in a while there is in fact a cool moment that actually works. But then there’s nothing for dozens or a hundred of chapters, which makes it feel like the author managed to pull it out just by sheer luck and chance rather than any skill. Though credit where it’s due, many of the monster designs are quite original and actually interesting, and I wish it could have been used for a better manga. So yeah, this isn't like 100% awful, this is something that might have had a potential but has an awful execution.

Regarding how much of the story gets actually resolved in such huge amount of volumes, let me quote the protagonist from the last chapter of the last volume: „There’s only one vampire village left. This is the final battle”. Yet there’s 53+ more volumes for this at the time of writing this review. 53 additional volumes of the already lengthy 33 volumes of this series. Something tells me we won’t be getting the „final battle“ for a while.

In conclusion, as much as I’m grateful to the fantranlators that are working hard on bringing this mind-boggling series to the English-speaking audience, don’t pick this up if you’re looking for a good reading experience, only if you’re curious about the absurdity of it.

This is the first time I've taken notes reviewing a Manga because of how much I disliked it. THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS AT THE VERY END


First, a review based on the existing categories.

Story:
Higanjima has a basic story outline and idea that quickly becomes convoluted and boring, and stereotypical. Around chapter 50-100, somewhere in there, the story quickly stops being a 'Survive vampire island' and turns into...something. I don't know what to call it.
Tropes are used ALL the time, annoying tropes. You'll have characters fighting, deal a major blow, then go 'HEH, this battle isn't over yet!' then the battle continues for more annoying chapters. You'll ... see the phrase 'I'M YOUR OPPONENT NOT HIM' then they start fighting them, then the other person in the fight goes 'WHY ARE YOU FIGHTING THEM, IM YOUR OPPONENT'.
'THIS IS THE FINAL FIGHT'
etc.
Very annoying things to hear in a story

Art:
The art isn't all that bad, all said. The characters don't look fantastic but the backgrounds can get rather in depth. The monster designs are okay but some are much better than others, it appears the author doesn't draw animals as good as he does human-ish monsters.

Character:
The characters are either terrible or bland, with little development between them. Outside of the main character becoming a cool guy bad ass I can't see any development to be had.

Enjoyment:
I stopped liking this Manga after around chapter 60 or so and finished it to completion just to give a thorough review and recommendation.
Should you read this?
Probably not.
Who would I recommend this too?
If you are looking for a shounen-styled plot with seinen level nudity maybe this would peak your interest, but I sincerely doubt it.



Spoiler section.

First off: The author's kinks
This is mostly a joking heading but, I honestly believe the author has a piss kink.
Whenever a vampire bites you it makes you light in the head, and in some cases feels good. This is explained in the lore. However people don't tend to enjoy being bit mid combat, it's scary as hell.
Everytime someone is bit in combat, or in a stressful situation, the author draws the character being bitten pissing their pants in copious amounts. ITS A LOT OF PEE. It borders on a fetish.

This part is less of a kink and more of a complaint about the story: The cuckolding.
The author has Alice and Kyle. The protagonist is in love with Alice but otherwise they don't chat much through the entire story. In fact, despite Alice being involved from the beginning she basically disappears till like chapter 120 or so. Alice then says to the protagonist, who has done nothing but gotten 'strong' and not talked to her, that she has fallen in love with him and they begin kissing and what not. Alice and Kyle are still dating.
This is a dumb decision on the author and we are more or less watching Kyle get cucked.
Kyle is still dating Alice when he inevitably dies. They don't ever break up and Kyle never finds out.
The problem I have with this is Kyle dies pretty soon after Alice and the protagonist start kissing and what not, so they could have easily had this happen after his death so it isn't borderline a cuckolding fetish.


The story and pacing are just awful.
I had high hopes for the beginning of this. It felt like a 'survival horror' story. They would be on an island full of vampires and have to survive!
It very quickly turns into dog-poo-poo and resembles a wuxia novel more than it does whatever it was supposed to be.
The main character is a human yet uses a katana to cut through solid trees, FULL GROWN TREES, and at one point a stalagmite. He cutes through iron bars with a katana. He does feats that are beyond human. This isn't a setting where humans can do this, this is every day humans and he's an every day human, yet after '8 months of training in the woods' he's able to chop trees down with a damn sword.

There are scenes where they feel like filler to fill the page.
Main character: Hello my ally, please go grab me a weapon
Ally: NO I CANT IM SCARED
Main character: I'm going to repeat myself four times and spend half the chapter saying this
Ally: Ok but I'll still be a scaredy cat the rest of the manga.
It feels like they are just wasting time?

The characters FORGET rules conveniently.
Vampires turn into demons when they are not fed blood. One of the characters from the vampire island captures a vampire and says, verbatim, 'Oh no, I forgot vampires turn into demons'.....why? The character is fighting a demon, and like vampires can only be killed by having their heads removed, and goes 'WHy isn't it dying yet!'...he knows why it hasn't died yet, you have to cut off the head! I was wondering why this had happened but then someone runs in and provides lore/plot for the demon ("it's my mom!")...so the author had the character conveniently forget how to kill the demon so this guy could come up and spout backstory.

The AUTHOR forgets rule conveniently.
The vampires turn into demons when not fed blood, right?
Well there is a group of vampires who have been living in a cave and haven't had blood in a long time...but they aren't demons.

There are 'born' vampires that don't turn to demons but still need blood to live forever.
Yet one of the characters, who is secretly one of these vampires, hasn't been drinking blood to maintain his immortality and hasn't gone nuts or gone crazy yet. But he's been hiding the fact he's a vampire. They could have just mentioned he let a few people known and he was drinking their blood but they gloss over it.



This is one at the very beginning and I left it for last.
This woman wants these people to come to the vampire island and help her free it. She lies and says it's only 2, when really it's like 100+.
The group who comes with her decides to tell their friends they are going on vacation and grabs 30 people and doesn't tell them whats up.
They can only fit 12 on the boat and head to the island.
They get destroyed instantly.

There are so many issues with this.
The woman who brought them to the island, as it is revealed, ISN'T an idiot and ISN'T evil or trying to kill the humans. Why would she let them bring a bunch of unarmed, unintelligent college students to the island with vampires?

Why would the group, who has seen a vampire in action, bring people who have NO IDEA what is going to be happening to them? They more or less got these people killed. Even if it was only 2 of them, and the main character points out she is lying when she says this, it's still very dangerous.

The only reason I can think that this scene happened is because the author had no idea what he wanted to have happen till he got to these portions of the plot. The woman who invited them disappears for like 150 chapters so I imagine he later went "Ah yes, I will have her be a super good guy" when in actuality she's responsible for many deaths.

It's bad. Don't read it.

Higanjima is a horror/action manga about a bunch of people going to a island with a bunch vampires. I read almost half of the manga so my insight.

Let's first state the vampirism rules from this story: The vampires aren't killed by sunlight and only can be killed damaging their brains. To became a vampire, you must be infected by their blood. Vampires need blood so they can halt a mutation that can transform them into demons (A powerful creature, but without inteligence). They apparently have bad eyesight and good nose, but, besides the beginning of the manga, this never is brought up again. They also ... can make their hair go white if excited, but we never see this apart from the beginning. (Considerating all vampires also wear hats or are bald, this it's difficult to know by certain)

Despite the manga being labeled a seinen, the plot really like a generic shonen. I guess is just a seinen because of the violence and nudes.
It's pretty much, our main cast trying to defeat our main antagonists.

The art is nice. The gore stuff are very detailed and I love the design of the demons and vampires, despite being kind simple, it's creepy. I think very noticeable is that the mangaka has probably issues to draw the caracters differently. You can see this when the main cast spend 8 months in the island and apparently wear the same clothes or Rei and her CannotRemoveMakeUp wearing the same outfit even in flashbacks! (Kind funny seeing everyone wearing kimonos and she's there wearing a jacket and dress).
All background characters are just the same character draw over and over.
Also another issue is, because this a seinen you'll see a lot female nudes, but is it really necessary show, everytime a vampire bite someone, the person pissing themselves? I get the point in the first times, but this happen everytime! I think the mangaka has a piss fetiche.

The Main Cast is pretty much:
Akira, the main character, his job is to be Emiya Shirou and constantly cry because he want to save everyone, but he can't. Interesting thing: in the beginning of the manga is stated he's very smart and very perceptive, he can pick up stuff that no one can't (Like knowing if someone is lying or predict the vampire would escape the car)...this is never brought up again.
Kato, he's the brawl, but he never fight against the vampires so he's useless.
Nishyama, he's the brains, he's job his to give random informations for the reader.
Ken, he's the comic relief...
Yuki, she's the girl of the story. Her job is to be the Damsel in Distress.
Pon, he brought a gun and give character development to Akira.
Atsuhi, he's the badass brother. He's there to save everyone, because everyone is useless.
Miyabi, he's the antagonist...He's evil.

The character don't have much deepness, they are pretty much how I described them. No one actually has a character development or get strong, besides our main character.

Another issue I have with this manga is every chapter he does a recap of 1 or 2 pages about what happened in the previous chapter. It's very weird if you have the physical copy and you see the previous chapter on the right and the next chapter on the left. You can even notice he recycle some panels!

Sometimes I think the mangaka think the reader has amnesia. In some point of the plot, it's revealed a character became a vampire. Problem? We already knew about it, but the manga treat this like is some big revelation. Even the main cast treat like it was a big revelation despite they saw the character being infected!

Well, my overall until now is 4. If you like high violence and cool action scenes you will probably like more.
Despite this, I'll still try to read this. I mean, I have no hope the manga will get better, but I want to see how much the mangaka can stretch this story. It's 33 volumes, and this is just season 1! It also have a sequel with 16 volumes and another sequel with 14 volumes until today (2018)!

PS: This manga make me research if Katanas can cut metal. ProTip: They can't.