Inuyashiki

I've never written a manga review before, and this one will be brief--I just felt that I had to write SOMETHING after reading the reviews for Inuyashiki on here. At the time of posting this, there are only two other reviews, and they use words like "hilarious" and "heartwarming" to describe this series that is "recommended for everyone". Having read that, I went into this thinking that it was a lighthearted action-comedy. It is definitely none of the above.

Once you get past the exposition and into the midst of the story, this is an extremely dark manga with many parts that the average reader would most likely find very disturbing. That being said, I've enjoyed reading it so far. The story and characters aren't the best you'll find in the manga universe, but overall it is quite good, and makes you want to keep reading. The art is pretty good too; it's a more realistic style which goes well with the overall tone.

To sum up, I'd recommend this manga to people who can enjoy dark, graphic stories. It's a page-turner and is worth reading--the chapters go by pretty quickly, so you can always give it a try and see if you enjoy it or not. Also, it's by the same author as Gantz, so if you're familiar with that, then you have an idea of what to expect.

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This manga...is something else.

I was drawn into it entirely by the cover and the synopsis, but I was expecting something like a slice of life where an old man becomes young again and gets a second chance to achieve a happier life with a family who actually cares for him. Instead, I got something quite unexpected.

You know that concept where a senior protagonist is presented in an environment with a bunch of thuggish, unruly teenagers and the work sort of presents as if modern days is getting more dangerous and reckless? Imagine if a mangaka gets a hold of that idea and you'll get Inuyashiki.

In this manga, our protagonist, Ichirou, gets killed accidentally and rebuilt into a metal body. He looks exactly the same, but is now, well, a robot and has all the perks that comes with that. What would you do in his situation? Because he decided to become the Japanese robocop.

His environment is FULL of unruly and thuggish teenagers who goes around seemingly attacking adult men. Inuyashiki appears just in time to save them and punishes the young evil-doers. However, he has a nemesis with the same capabilities who is committing crime. The nemesis is, of course, a teenager and it is up to our hero to save the good people of Japan from the unruly teenager! Can he do it?

How is the story, though?

It is genuinely appealing. For one, there is a lot of humor, but it is the kind of humor that comes from the sheer absurdity of the situation. You'd see Ichirou taking his shirt off in the park in order to use his jetpacks, punch the lights out of some reckless hoodlums that is twice his size, and use the video recorder in his head to ruin some kids trying to murder a homeless guy.

That doesn't end it either. At times, things that are happening are so bizarre (or perhaps daring is a better word?) that you're left wide-eyed wondering if you're actually seeing this. Here's an example: In a typical battle manga, how would the author pump up a new villain to be someone strong? Something along the lines of have him beat a known powerful character and have other characters talk about how strong he is, right?

Want to know how the author of Inuyashiki, Hiroya Oku, does it? Well, I won't reveal it, but I'll say this: try not to gag.

Moving on, though, another great part of what makes the manga really good is that it's genuinely heart-warming. Ichirou is the kind of 'down-on-his-luck' person you can really get behind to wish him a second chance. The way he bumbles about trying to figure our his new powers and trying to use it to help people simply to feel as if he did something wonderful in his life really makes one smile at times and adds greatly to his 'ordinary person' persona.

Another thing to note is that the art is something to be appreciated. It inclines towards the 'realistic' to begin with, but at times, it will intersect drawn images with real life shots, which lends a strange feeling when reading the manga. I suppose it's to help make the manga even more realistic (and do it inexpensively). Does it work, however? To be honest, it doesn't blend in well as it's always immediately noticeable, but it doesn't become distracting either so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Overall, though, I rate Inuyashiki as a great read and highly recommend it. I've stumbled onto it by luck and I'm thankful to be able to read it.

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This manga...It's...AMAZING!!!
This manga may be the most, exciting, beautiful and most story rich manga I've ever read!

The characters, the setting, everything about it!

One thing I *disliiked is that I don't get so much information about Inuyashiki's life. I know the basics but I would like to know more about him and hi's backstory, like why does he look so old? He's only what, 56? Younger? But he looks like he's 86?! (But they may tell us more about that further in the series, idk.).

I also absolutely LOVE the artwork. It's just fantastic!

I really enjoyed this manga and I hope you guys also like it! ^^

this could be considered as the most hilarious/unique manga of all time.
imagine with me.........when you become an adult, your life is boring, your family doesn't like you, your wife is ugly....and to top it of you still have only 3 months to life because of a stomach cancer....but one day you wake up and you find out that you became a machine ( jetpack - invincible - your life is not in danger anymore....)...yeah i don't know what you would do in a case like this, but this manga manages to answer this stupid fantasy question:
Inu Yashiki is an 50 years old but looks like an old geezer, he already have backache, he have a wife, too kids,and passing with the same situation i mentioned before. of course he is the MC for this story. after realizing that he's life is at the border in the same night he is already killed in a crash landing of aliens (you probably didn't expect that). next moring, he wakes up not realising he's already dead, but soon after the accident he discovers that he was rebuilded by those aliens and now he became a machine.
here is a little idea about how strong he got.....you can say he is far more stronger than the terminator ^^.
so how will his life change now that he is a machine?
ok then, the arts here are the kind of realistic and suited for everyone arts. the characters are not that beautiful.. actually they get really ugly sometimes, so it's clear that the manga here tries to approach he's drawing to reality. i personally like this kind of style since it does a great job at emulating human facial.
charcters:
this is where the manga really shines, while the drawing try to approach the reality from one side, the characters do the same from another side. you got your main protagonist geezer who is very emotional hate violence and does his best to erase it.
the normal reaction.....or should i say, the real reaction of his kids to their old father, it almost brings me to tears in the 2 first chapters.....wait right now you're thinking about whether there is an antagonist with the same power or not...well yes there is one. Hiroshi Shishigami is high schooler with the same superpower became a serial killer rather than been a hero like our MC.
this is not a comedy manga but still there are some scenes that don't give you a choice other than laughing so hard especially those double pages scenes where an old men is beating up a other people, a gang , or even yakuza!

overall i enjoyed reading Inu Yashiki, it was a quick read since there's only 29 chapter and still on going but hey you don't see a manag with an old man beating up people with a super machine fist right ?
story: 8
art: 9
characters: 9
enjoyment: 9
aaaand an overall of 9/10 year! definitely recommended to everyone for a change of pace :)

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