Cradle of Monsters by Kei Sanbe

 That is the end of Zombie Awareness Month 2016, I hope it gave you some insight on how to survive the zombie invasion when it comes. There is a really good tip in this manga, too.

When up against zombies, always go for the neck if you can.

I won't be posting next week because it's my birthday then and I don't feel like it. Plus, it will let me get ahead a little bit, which is good for a lazy person like myself. With school almost out, though, I won't have to worry about work anymore either. I should get some longer manga read finally.



Cradle of Monsters by Kei Sanbe


Genre: Seinen, Horror, Ecchi
Length: 6 Volumes – 41 Chapters

Art and story (c) Kei Sanbe

           I want to say the art is as good as the story, but there are a lot of extra lines in the clothes and background that I found distracting. The faces have a unique look to them, snub-nosed and grim but expressions aren't all that changeable. The eyes and hair have a lot of different looks to them, though, and the eyes especially show expression best

even if they look sinister when they don't need to. The action is follow-able and the gore has a good balance. It's not just guts everywhere or the like, but the blood and wound detail gives exactly what is needed in a zombie story. The backgrounds are there consistently, and really add to the dilapidated feel of the setting, even if it isn't immediately recognizable.
           When a maniac goes on a killing spree on a cruise ship, a group of high school classmates have to band together to protect one another, but when a tremor adds to the confusion and their ship capsizes staying together becomes the least of their problems. It seems like its more than just one man who has gone crazy and is killing people on sight. Is it simply coincidence that so much happened all at once? And can the small bands of survivors make it out alive?
           The last manga this year is the most 'horror' one of the three zombie stories. It has a proper plot that continues in a logical way and it has lots of characters to zombie-fy and murder off. I really enjoyed it, despite it being one of the type that shows panties (and towards the end just full naked shots) randomly. The zombie angle wasn't just expected to fly with no type of explanations and it

gives a good take on the process. There was a little bit of things getting convoluted towards the end when all the ends were being tied off, but nothing logic breaking. Everyone gets theirs so its pretty satisfying. Especially the long burn on a few of the more annoying characters that make you want to strangle them, in that fun-hate way, who get it in the worst way. The psychology was done pretty good, too, though at times it was repetitive, it wasn't too preachy. I was worried in the middle it would be a story that ends in tragedy and no one makes it out despite the terrible struggles they went through to try, and I would have liked this a lot less had that been the case, but its nice to have a horror manga that isn't just depressingly ended with no survivors. Not to say that everyone you expect to make it does, though. No deep spoilers, zipping lip. Well, except to say that one of the main characters randomly grew up in a circus and it just sorta seems to come out of left field with a tiger and from time to time other strange character actions or plot twists do happen like that but again, nothing breakable to the story.  The beginning is a little slow, though the terrible misspellings on my version of the manga did not help that, the story keeps things moving pretty good with the extra shots of random zombies and bad guys showing up at good intervals. Its not just that I didn't enjoy the first two zombie manga that make this one look good, I assure you. Zombies hungry for flesh on a sinking boat, it takes survival horror up one more notch.



4/5 Enjoyable and bloody escape story.

BioMega by Tsutomu Nihei

Went and saw Captain America: Civil War today. Now that Deadpool came out, though, I'm just going to keep hoping he'll show up like Spiderman did in that movie. I really gotta stop waiting until Saturday to post these, but re-reading One Piece is just a time suck that I don't want to end. Also, very short review of this manga via a zombie gif:

BioMega by Tsutomu Nihei 

Art and story (c) Tsutomu Nihei

Genre: Seinen
Length: 6 Volumes – 42 Chapters


           The character designs are rather interesting, the faces have a unique look to them, though the most expressive is the character who is a bear, otherwise facial expression isn't very varying.
Everything is suitably distressed and worn looking for the story, and the backgrounds are pretty much all there. As a zombie, more like a strange science fiction version of zombies, story, it is also filled with plenty of gross visuals. Lots of plant-based looking blobs and pustules that are only there to be disgusting and have no other purpose are present. The detailing, though, was a put off for me. All the shading, especially in the environment made everything look really cluttered more than it made it look real. It's good art but it wasn't perfect.
           A virus from Mars is turning people into drones, dead corpses taken over by the disease, and a looming threat of it overwhelming humanity has set several super powers of the world into motion. Each has a different idea on how to fix the problem. One agent is on a recovery mission amid all of this to find a girl who seems to be immune to the virus, but with the drones, her guardian, and the other agencies all against him, things are sure to be bloody.

           Most of the time while I was reading this manga, I had no idea what what going on. Its pretty much just fights but the enemies and their motivations are pretty much never given until the very end. Even then it seems like gibberish. Speaking of the “bad guys” they liked to show up and die in quick succession and couldn't tell the difference between some of them because they were spiky with aprons on. The enemies also tended to get larger and larger until the scale became impossible to visualize, as well, and it just makes no sense how the one guy and a single gun does any damage at all. I know it's there were times it might have been the same guy more than once but I literally cyberpunk, but like I mentioned in the art review, there is almost too much going on at times and the

Side note on this picture: Barf.

clutter makes it hard really see what is happening. About halfway though, as well, the whole planet disappears and turns into a giant umbilical cord floating in space and the zombies are forgotten for a while, but understanding this world is even more confusing than the one before, so… prepare for that turn around. Within which there is a random chapter that I still do not understand where it is supposed to fit into the rest of the narrative. There's always something happening in BioMega but exactly what is going on can sometimes be a chore to understand. Strangely enough, I really liked the main character, Zoichi, a synthetic human who is immune to the virus and super resilient against a beating; he's cool and stoic and shoots a really big gun sometimes but that only goes so far when there are random things happening all the time. Had things been explained more I think I would have liked it better but not by much, and even the action was hard to follow at times. You can only see so many guys heads exploding before you want a little more from the plot. If you wait four volumes to explain anything, by that point I have lost interest. I only finished it because zombie manga are pretty scarce… and Zoichi was pretty bad-ass.





2.5/5 Not enough story to keep interest.

And this thing shows up? What a weird name.

Tokyo Zombie by Yusaku Hanakuma

Zombie posts begin with a shortie. And it is a doozy. And here is a helpful tip on zombies, thanks to Monkey D. Luffy:

He makes it seem so easy, doesn't he? Happy Zombie Awareness Month.

[I don't usually review any manga with explicit things because its less accessible for readers, but when it comes to zombie gore its hard to avoid. So this is the warning, this manga, though it is for comedic effect, contains several instances of nudity.]


Tokyo Zombie by Yusaku Hanakuma

Art and story (c) Yusaku Hanakuma

Genre: Adult, Gag, Horror

Length: One Volume – 9 Chapters

           This manga has a careless look to it. The art is boldly simple and sloppy, and as such there is no point in me trying to explain it. That sounds lazy, but one look will show you exactly what you're getting art wise from this manga, so there's really no point in me trying to use words.
           Thanks to the Black Fuji, a huge pile of trash and corpses that everyone uses freely, the zombie apocalypse has begun in Tokyo. Two brothers? Who's favorite pastime is to practice wrestling must now survive the changing world.
           Okay, so, besides the strange art, as you might expect, the story telling is just as strange. Its just as careless as the art, which is a good and bad thing. I means that the funny faces enhances the  jokey parts but it also makes it hard to love. More than anything, this manga is a fighting manga, but the fights really are just guys rolling around and the "action" (if you want to call it that) is impossible

to follow. Its so strange I liked it but I don't think I'll ever want to read it again. You may think you want to see a dude with an afro fight zombies but really, its not as cool as it sounds. There is just peculiar stuff happening constantly. There are literally random panels of the main character's dog doing nothing but sitting still. Just suddenly it cuts to the dog's expressionless face. Don't get me wrong, Tokyo Zombie is amusing but I don't know why it was written or why so many people like it as much as they do. It is on every list of recommended zombie manga ever. Its an experience, that is the best way I can put it and while a veteran of manga such as myself found the style an interesting experiment, I don't see that many people would enjoy reading it again and again. Perhaps it isn't my style, but the humor is true. What else can I say but, pig surfing dude.


2/5 Weird. Zombies. Weird zombies.

I'd be jealous, too if I sucked at pig surfing. I'm super rad at it, tho.