I Am a Hero

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***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

When I started reading this manga, I had fairly high expectations going off what I'd heard from people and the other reviews here. Little did I know, the other reviews were written before the manga was completed. I didn't even realize that the manga was completed myself until I got to the end. if that last chapter hadn't been uploaded and I was under the impression that the manga still had many more chapters to go, I would have easily given this a 9, or maybe even a 10. I loved this manga.

Unfortunately, it was just too good to be true.

This manga ... was exactly what I was looking for. It had very real characters who you could empathize with, a compelling story that always had you wondering what was around the corner, and the author even took a very interesting turn regarding the origin and motive of the zombie virus that I was eager to learn more about. I couldn't stop reading, and before I knew it, I had reached the 'end'. If you can even call that an 'ending'.

I'm just going to say first off that I don't know the circumstances behind this ending, whether the publisher decided to axe the manga, or they forced the writer to reach an ending as quickly as possible at the expense of a real conclusion. Perhaps the author decided that he did not care about his work anymore, and tried his hardest to sabotage all that he had built. Disregarding the reasoning, the truth is in the paper: THIS ENDING ANSWERS NOTHING, GOES NOWHERE, AND SATISFIES NO ONE.

Right after the final climax (i had no idea that it was the final climax, mind you), suddenly the threat is completely gone JUST BECAUSE, the hero decides "oh well!" and just goes off. All of the questions that you had, all of the big mysteries that were just starting to reach clarity, all the amazing events and concepts that the author was building up to reach some spectacular culmination... gets completely tossed out the window as if it never mattered in the first place. The ending reads like a slap in the face, as if the author is laughing at the foolish reader who wasted their time reading all 264 chapters just to get trolled.

You become attached to these characters and intrigued by the plot, all for nothing.

One of the most ironic parts of this manga is found in one character's lines. One of the characters introduced towards the end of the story is a fan of the MC's manga (the MC is an author of an obscure, unpopular manga before the zombie apocalypse). In reference to the MC, the aforementioned character comments on how "it's so sad for an author to be forced to end his manga in a way that he wouldn't have wanted".

Are you serious? it's almost as if the author knew that his manga was going to have a garbage ending. I CANNOT possibly believe that this author thought this was a good or even satisfactory ending.

To conclude, I want to remind you that this really was a great story before the sudden end. While I won't tell you not to read it, Just remember this warning and expect to have almost no questions answered.

Thanks for reading!

I didn't really like this. This is not a manga for people like me, who value meaning, ambition, purpose, ya get it. However, even I can recognize that this manga is amazing. It is the scariest manga that I've ever read, it beats out the "disturbing" scary of Junjo Ito, the "gory" scary of your stereotypical apocalypse survival horror manga, and the "existential crisis" scary of psychological horror, it comes close to jumpscare shock. Why?

Because everything is so goddam pointless. I believe "I Am a Hero" is actually one of the most realistic tellings of an survival horror story. The realism is precisely what gets ... to me. The freaking monotony of the dude's life before and after the event, his averageness (to be generous,) the fact that people just get super well adjusted to having crazy dead people around very quickly just freaks me out. I thought there would be more delusional people or people who just snap, but no. They even treat the zombies as people, like what the hell?

Anyways, I finished it but I'll never touch it again. It's too weird, I don't think I'll ever come to terms with it. I don't really wanna think about it either. Whoever wrote this is a madman. Insanity.

And that, folks, is how to scare someone out of a fandom.

I'm gonna let this would-be masterpiece pop my first review cherry.

TL;DR: Imagine yourself chewing a fresh piece of gum. First couple of chews were all hard and boring. But as its flavour starts to release, it motivates you to want more. This continues to build up and up. Until when you've finally chewed and moisturised it enough to have that pleasant squishy feel with its flavour at its prime. Absolute Bliss. But wait. Right now, you are getting told to stop and spit it out. A mix of disappointment, dissatisfaction and perhaps anger, right? That's my experience with I Am a Hero. Dissatisfaction and disappointment ... with a dash of anger. End TL;DR.


Alright, I'm going to assume that I can let loose from here. I'll sync my thoughts as I type and try to keep this short.


After finishing a romance zombie manga, my interest with zombie manga rose a little. So, I ended up reading I Am a Hero's summary through recommendations. A little bit of blah blah here, I dislike reading or watching multiple stories at once because my memory will get mixed up and the feelings will jumble up annoyingly. I had already started reading another romance manga at this point but decided to start reading I Am a Hero anyway, especially since that shotgun on the cover picture probably means some good ol' F U zombie actions.



Art - 10/10:
I'm not a picker. The faces were drawn very differently comparing to the other manga/anime I've read/watched. I had a hard time getting used to it but the attention to the details of the many sceneries in this series more than make up for it. Plus, since we're getting a lot of gore here, it helps a lot for me to separate I Am a Hero from my other Happy, Feel Gooo..Great manga/anime. Actually, I'm just going to say it bluntly, the faces were drawn ugly but they are also very unique. Anyhow, it's not like everyone in real life are beautiful or handsome anyway. Take my 10 with no shame.


Character - 10/10:
Not a picker. I don't really pay attention as to whether the stories behind the characters contradict or make sense at all. They were all believable and it was interesting how their relationships progressed. No complaints, so no penalty from my default 10/10 score.


Story - 8/10:
Honestly, I think I could give this a 0 because I absolutely hate bad endings. Bad as in incomplete or illogical endings. As you may understand from my TL;DR, I Am a Hero felt incomplete to me. There were quite a few cues throughout the story that MAY have indicated that the author needed to cut this story short or worse. I'm going to be naive and believe that there is a FULL version of I Am a Hero and by judging the series' direction while mixing a bit of estima... imagination, I'm giving this an 8/10 for its high potential for a masterpiece ending. What's a masterpiece ending? It's any ending that leaves a gapping hole in my heart with a pint of satisfaction for finishing the series.


Enjoyment - 8/10:
Reading it was a bliss. Finishing it was a nut job. I'm going to imagine that I Am a Hero does not end where it ended.


Overall - 8/10:
Should be 9, right? No. I'm still salty from that sorry excuse of an ending. Actually, I should rate this at below 5/10. I seriously dislike it when a story terminates abruptly, especially when I'm so engaged to it. It's like a school excursion getting cancelled just as every arrived at the destination. "We're finally here. But we are leaving now."


Ol' me can't take this unbelievable turn of event. I'm going to believe I Am a Hero has not end. The next chapter will see the return of our gal, a more in-depth explanation of the final climax and a mention of one of our last heroes in the series - the quiet heroine.



PS. Sorry for screwing up the overall score that represents I Am a Hero. It doesn't really deserve an 8 and I truly am bad at rating. I still have hope for this and I gave my overall score based on what I hope. Sorry for that.
I hope we can find a manga/anime that can top this, and still have a befitting ending.

PS2. Sorry, I'm really out of time now. Please endure my grammar mistakes if applies.