Inuyashiki

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first 45 chapters were good, pretty good story, good mc. went downhill in the second, mediocre ending, the realism art style matched the tone n theme n was a good fit but it was done poorly imo, there were some scenes where the characters looked absolutely horrendous and it had a terrible fit in the background. i still think its a good read if youre interested in sci-fi.

dog was 10/10 absolutely peak character tho

i also think when the characters start crying it looks pretty funny n not sad at all but i might js be abit picky thoo.....

Inuyashiki is just so... bland. The premise is interesting, but that's about it.
Characters are alright: the two main ones are fairly multifaceted and engaging, but not enough to provide any interesting moral struggles or to clash with each other in ways that aren't extremely unsurprising, while the supporting cast exists only to be narrative devices whose job is to highlight the main characters, and they do that job efficiently.
The story goes exactly like you'd expect after reading the premise, down to the ending. This linearity isn't necessarily a bad thing, since there are still many interesting fun scenarios that are cool to witness, but not ... much else. Nothing that happens is incredible or never seen before, just like there are no particularly interesting psychological developments.
The art of Hiroya Oku, just like in Gantz, is perfectly functional. The action scenes are perfectly clear and efficiently convey everything that's happening, but they lack an artistic personality due to Oku's overly realistic style, which feels quite cold and lifeless.
Inuyashiki is just that: nothing exceptionally good but nothing exceptionally bad either. The epytome of mediocrity.

Hiroya Oku's follow-up to Gantz continues his exploration of nihilism in a hyper-real Japan, with an enticing premise and promising protagonist. There's not enough older folk utilised as main characters in manga, and Oku relishes the chance to shove Mr Inuyashiki into excruciating scenarios and to pull him out in cathartic fashion. He's joined by a malevolent antagonist who has a heavy presence all throughout the tale.

Which is a problem. But more about that later. Let me get some positives out of the way.

Oku really nails the banal cruelty of internet comments that you see everywhere online, from 2chan to reddit to MAL itself. We ... saw this in Gantz, and he continues his skewering of 21st century online discourse to entertaining effect here.

I sometimes see people complain about the backgrounds in his manga, because they seem traced, but the realistic backgrounds serve to immerse you in the story that feels very familiar, despite all the outrageous shit going on. When the antagonist of this story goes on a killing spree, it's all the more horrific to witness when it's set against mundane realistic backgrounds.

The antagonist is so menacing, so obscene in his nonchalant method of dealing death to everyone around him, that Oku himself becomes mesmerised by him, sacrificing the protagonist of his own story. Mr Inuyashiki is relegated to the background at a certain point and becomes super passive, even disappearing entirely from the narrative.

Oku establishes some rules to how technology works in this story, how Mr Inuyashiki can hear people in trouble. And yet, during one of the many shocking massacres in the story, for some baffling reason, Oku decides not to include the protagonist in the ensuing sequence. There is no in-universe reason for why our elderly protagonist would not have heard the cries of dozens of people being shot to death, and rushed to do something about it. But for whatever reason, Mr Inuyashiki is not involved at all.

Mr Inuyashiki himself is sorely missing for a substantial portion of this manga and it's infuriating.

So much mayhem happens, so much misery, and the entire time you'll be wanting to scream at the manga "where the hell is the protagonist?". The antagonist is so fascinating, it makes you wonder if Oku should have made the entire story about him to begin with. To have a tale about an antihero, like Light Yagami, up against the world, to see his rise and fall.

Anyway, at some point Oku remembers his protagonist and gets him involved again, but his passivity never really goes away, he has to be pushed by exterior circumstances or people in order to do anything remotely meaningful. The last half of the manga is disaster porn, populated by useless characters doing nonsensical things within repetitive and inefficient panels. It's like Oku forgot how to be a mangaka.

The climax of the story is also insulting and without coherent thematic meaning.

Inuyashiki is unfortunately a narrative failure and a disappointing follow-up to Oku's magnum opus Gantz.