Zombies, Manga, and Body Horror: I Am A Hero

One of the tropes of zombie stories I had never noticed before was that the main protagonists in most of these stories are sane.

Part of the narrative arc of many zombie stories is just how the main character--usually an everyday person with a dull job and comfortable life--deals with the horror and unreality of the dead rising and feasting on the living. From Resident Evil, the remake of Dawn of The Dead and the small, rarely heard about comic and television show The Walking Dead, the trope remains the same.

But imagine if the hero wasn't sane? Kengo Hanazawa did,  and illustrated that idea with the lead character in the thrilling and very disturbing I Am A Hero.

Hideo Suzuki is a failed manga artist who messed up his one chance at the spotlight and now gets by doing support work on another artist's manga.  He suffers from a cacophony of mental disturbances, including OCD and auditory and visual hallucinations. He's in a troubled relationship with another artist, living in a cramped bachelor apartment and putting in long hours on another creator's work. He can barely get through a single day without a crisis. Every single hour for him is a struggle.

And then the dead begin to rise.

Dark Horse has collected two Japanese collections for this initial volume, and it's a wise decision, since Hanazawa spends several chapters detailing Suzuki's life without any undead horror. Which isn't to say there isn't plenty of horror in those chapters. Aside from the internal tribulations Suzuki endures, he's surrounded by people who seem just as mentally precarious as he is. In fact, everyone in this story is dealing with something.

All the time spent showing Suzuki's life makes the impact of the zombie aspect of the story all the more horrifying. Since Suzuki is so introverted--and the people he works with are equally so--the realization that something is wrong is slow to dawn on them. From small snippets on quickly ignored newscasts to strange figures glimpsed at night,  it's clear that the supernatural horror is present from the first chapter, but no one really notices until it's far, far too late.

As for the zombies, Hanazawa changes the expected trope here as well. Yes, they attack the living, but there is another degree of horror, one that gives each confrontation an added  depth of sadness. These are not anonymous monsters, but horrifically ravaged victims.

I Am A Hero Volume One is disturbing and horrific, but with a hero that makes you just sit back and go, "Oh, no. Not him." The sad truth is that Hideo Suzuki was a hero long before this story began, simply because he got through a single day.