Anything with zombies is a big plus for me. So the first chapter were boring to me. I thought it was a poor choice of the author to start the first chapter with nothing happening with the plot and it was boring. The whole psychological thing that was happening to the main character was so confusing and a turn off for me. Thinking about it, I get why the author did that because he wanted to build up the story. Like what auriga below me said the story gets crazy all of a sudden after the first volume.

To the people reading this manga and are saying it is boring, read the first 12 chapters and things WILL start to pick up so fast that your mind would boggle. The main character is a wimp and coward but i really hope he gets some balls later because I dislike the main character already.

I give this a 8.5 for now because i hope the main character gets some balls.

... Last updated on November 4th, 2011, 2:35pm

Really like this manga. Goofy yet great. Artstyle remind me of old manga feom the 90s yet with modern look to it. not mutch to say. Just enjoying the story and puzzle. maybe the manga does drag on and kind wish the story just focus on the main character but oh well. plenty of other manga out there that have flaws to. Im always looking foward to each vol. The ending was a huge disappointment like the author wanted to end there stoey just there and cancel it.

... Last updated on July 25th, 2017, 8:10pm

I've read the whole series over the past couple of days, and I just don't get it. People talk about this like it's a masterpiece and I can't see why. The only real positives I can give it are the reasoning behind the zombies, as it is a rather original take which makes the horror elements and worldbuilding a bit more interesting, and the art being utterly horrifying for the zombies at times making them feel like a genuine threat. I would compare it to the titans in Attack on Titan, another horror series from the same time. Generally humanoid but they're always just a bit... wrong. Odd anatomy, proportions, and moving in generally inhuman ways. Concept and scares can't carry you for 265 chapters though, you need some actual meat.

The characters are utterly abysmal. No one feels believable, despite supposedly having a diverse cast of people everyone is pervaded by a general 2ch feel. Incels abound and literally everyone calls zombies a ZQN (wordplay on DQN, 2ch-speak for a dumbass) even those who show no signs of interaction with the site and have only been a couple days into the apocalypse. The incel aura really does exist throughout every facet of this manga, with people constantly bringing up how it shouldn't be mens job to go into dangerous situations just because they're men (even when they're literally the only choice) and women are treated as either objects to be won over or complete trash. This mentality is also rewarded with women basically throwing themselves at the protagonist once he has done a few things for them. (Oda Tsugumi had so much potential and then was relegated to "love interest" and "plot forwarding device" )

The worst of all is the main character. It starts out very strong -- he is socially maladjusted, frequently talking to himself and generally having unhealthy attitudes to interacting with other people, even those close to him. He is also schizophrenic or similar as he has multi-faceted hallucinations which frequently play into his struggles to socialize. Great! Genuinely appealing for a start, you have a guy who is not a good person and is in a bad place mentally, and the series has you set up to watch him learn through the apocalypse and become a better person with a better grip on himself. To become the titular hero, go from simply saying it to ground himself to actually embodying it. Except... he just doesn't. He never really becomes a hero. He only helps people when he sees benefit in it for himself or sees something he likes in them (boobs). His hallucinations also just kinda... stop existing? Yajima never appears again and they're never addressed in the plot. They just stop once the apocalypse kicks off, barring a single scene partway through that never explains why. His mentality never really gets better out of trying to adjust himself, he just has less reasons to hate people once the only people around him are women who wish to have sex with him. The only place he really improves is in his self-confidence, but being confident alone doesn't make you a good person.

... Last updated on October 17th, 2023, 10:04pm

I guess everyone knows that it is a Zombie story, and zombies are current. However, the protagonist is truly insane. I don't remember ever having read anything this bat-guano insane. Shaun of the Dead? Its Shaun of the dead and, I don't know, Welcome to NHK or something. I keep finding it impossible to take, but every few months I seem to return to read a volume and just feel depressed.

The manga ended in a deeply moving and intelligent way. From the beginning to end, the main character represents cultural HERO of the enlightened age, Robinson Crusoe on his (mental) island. The main character's end and beginning are the same, but with a very meaningful difference emerged in between: all the other people from the city are gone to the collective world of ZQN. In a way, all the other people already were like zombies to him. The collective mind will keep on as one, without sacrificing two-for-the-sake-of-one, in contrary to what the main character keeps on doing. The manga sets the deep question about the meaning of civilization and culture, of individual and collective mind. The return-to-nature ending is a way of ending civilization and culture, in the collective consciousness which could be seen as the perfection of collective life. In the end the civilized-cultural technical individual keeps on doing his mechanical tasks: farming land, making weapons and killing animals to please his hunger: to sacrifice nature to himself. He only communicates with lifeless monuments and treats them like living beings, as does the civilized man of letters who keeps to himself and his books. Mechanical person is a schitzophreniac, who has lost his touch with other people and nature, and keeps on sacrificing it. In the end he is a punished by ZQN by abandoning him to survive on his own, because he's not worth rescuing from himself. The main character represents pessimism against mechanico-individual human culture, while the ZQN-collective represents optimism for the collectivo-natural animalism. This doesn't mean the manga is purely opting for the ZQN, since there is also the third medial option of the islanders: close-to-nature small community living, rising children, creating art and fishing with simple tools. This represents another kind of island-living, as opposed to the robinsonal city-heroism. The Robinson-Hero of mechanico-technical enlightenment is shown to be cut off from nature and communal ties to his fellow humans: he pointedly keeps on living in his city-wasteland, because his city originally already was a wasteland in his schitzophrenical individualism. The real being of this robinsonal hero is and always will be city-wasteland, not an island: he is an island in himself, and so his city already always was wasteland as the place void of other people, a deserted city-man in his habitat with his fields, guns, lifeless monuments and technical ego.

... Last updated on June 3rd, 2018, 9:30pm

Good stuff.
Did i say it again? That means it's a fact.
Even though it's not my genre since i rather play Arma 2ayz than reading someone else story.
But still, i enjoy it and even give it a "9". It's realistic in term of psychology.
And even i am not eager to wait for new chapters, i still feel obligated to give it a "9".

The first volume is highly psychological, and mostly a slice of life. It depicts the usual life of the main character. He is an odd guy, with fears so strong that, when alone, he mixes his dream world with reality. He is the "hero" of his own half-dreamy life. So, when the first hints of horror appear, they look like the outcome of his fears: is he dreaming again?
After this excellent beginning, the action and horror take a larger place in the story, but the psychological part doesn't disappear. Up to volume 4 included, the behavior, feelings and attitude of the main characters are an essential component of the series.

The turning point is volume 5. There is a major twist there, a smart and disturbing idea from the author. Unfortunately, this volume is also the beginning of a new arc: 40 pages totally disconnected from everything else, with absolutely nothing interesting. Just scenes of zombie horrors interleaved with an online chat. But, as the last chapter of v5 went back to the main characters, I thought these 40 pages were just a one-shot filler.

The volumes 6 to 8 were less original. Indeed, I felt the story was very similar to several classical survival manga like Metro Survive. Yet the art was still brilliant, and the tension was still there. While slightly disappointed, I was eager to read forward.

Then this manga seriously began to go astray. Half of volumes 9 and 10 were about the new arc, and the whole v11 went on. Why did the author build such detailed "heroes" to ditch them suddenly and focus on a gang of stereotyped characters? This new arc is plain and boring. No one has any depth. No psychology, very little action. Even Illuminati-manga wrote that "not much is actually happening" in the v11 they scanlated. I feel sad, as if the author betrayed the manga and let it die. I'll probably have a look at the next volumes, but just to flip through the pages out of curiosity. I have no hope this manga can come back from the deads.

EDIT: I've just read vol.12. Brainless action, with nothing original. The last 2 pages go back to the characters of the first arc. If it was not for that, I would have dropped this series. Now I have some little hope v13 will revive my interest on IAAH.

... Last updated on September 1st, 2013, 7:12am

The premise and progression of the manga is interesting. Despite unsteady progresses, the manga develops multiple perspectives of characters and sometimes unifies these characters' meaning into a whole (whether the manga does it sufficiently coherent is to be debated, I feel). There are some unique character traits in these characters. Unpredictability is really a factor you can count on in this manga. Although I did somewhat enjoy this manga for the most part, the exploration of the manga's world wasn't really thorough. I'd recommend this manga if you like slice of life or unpredictability.

Oh man....

The 1st volume of this manga is actually only an introduction
U can see in the background somekind of sickness going around but the zombie thing only revealed on the last page of the volume! And zombie is supposed to be the plot of the story!

The story is progressing soooooo slowly, even after zombies are introduced. You also can find some Gantz feeling there as u witness people dying and other people are just watching and don't give a crap.

The final thing u might want to know is, the characters are FUGLY, it seems that the characters drawn to be realistic, but they're FUGLY. Sometimes u just wanna vomit when u see these characters, even those whom supposed to be beautiful are FUGLY

But the Idea and artwork (aside from the characters) are beautiful, and talking about realistic, the characters' thought are very realistic

... Last updated on January 25th, 2011, 9:39am

The core of the manga is a survival series. Feels like a hybrid of Freesia, Gantz, Battle Royale and high school of the dead all rolled into one.
Definitely not a feel good series as this manga has a kill em all vibe. Besides Hiromi and Hideo every one else is just cannon fodder.
Another warning besides extremely high character turnover, as in most survival media there is a fair share of sexual exploitation, back stabbing and physical intimidation by those who have power. Also plenty of adultery takes place in the manga.
Our MC is not quite right mentally as are a lot of the other characters introduced.
The grotesque horror combined with the quite loony nature of the characters almost make this feel like a gag manga until another tragic moment occurs which quickly sobers up the mood.
A very interesting read but there are a number elements in the series which make it feel highly unrealistic.

... Last updated on October 28th, 2014, 6:04pm