After he escaped his zombified girlfriend, Hideo Suzuki travels away from bustling cities to escape the zombie hordes. However, the Aokigahara Forest, known as the suicide forest, might not have been the best idea. He runs into a teenage girl named Hiromi Hayakiri and she ends up helping him more than he helps her. Enjoy more of Hideo's cowardice and inept adventures.
After I hated the first volume in this series, you might ask why I bothered to read the second. I bought both at the same time and it's a short read, so I decided to give the series one more chance. This volume was a little better, but not by much. It starts right after the first omnibus left off. Hideo gets on a train. He is exactly the same spinless slimeball. Despite his rants and rage, he finds it incredibly difficult to be rude to people or break the law despite the fact that the world is falling apart. A zombie gets onto the train and instead of telling anyone, shooting it, or pushing it off the train, he decides to curl into a ball and let others get eaten around him. Another scene has a couple pressuring him to share a cab with them even though they are both infected. This part is pretty funny, but he really shouldn't have survived any of it. Despite his incompetence, Hideo makes it to the Aokigahara Forest. One night of wandering around almost makes his lose hope entirely until he meets Hiromi.
Hiromi is by far the best character in the first two omnibuses. She's a high school student with incredibly toxic relationships with her friends, which makes it pretty easy to kill them as zombies. They are all basically mean girls, but they are worlds better than Hideo. She sees him in the forest and tries to comfort him and talk him down from presumably killing himself. Unfortunately, Hideo treats her horribly as he has every woman in the series. When they first meet, he berates her about gender equality for asking for help despite their age differences. When a group of unsavory men force her to show her thighs for a ride, Hideo simply lets her get in the car even though it's pretty clear that they plan to sexually assault her. I feel so sorry for Hiromi and I hope she becomes the main character of the series (even though it's not likely).
I Am a Hero Omnibus 2 is only slightly less infuriating than the first. The very ending finally shows a message from the CDC basically saying they are aware of the threat and actively researching while encouraging people to stay away from the infected. The only development in the zombies here is that they seem to have some memory because one of the high school girl zombies attacked the one she had the most beef with. The misogyny is toned down a bit, but still very present in Hideo. Everything about him makes my skin crawl and I can't fathom why anyone would like him. I am officially giving up on the series. It had such potential, but the gender politics and Hideo as a whole just kill me inside. Others may enjoy the manga (as seen by all the high ratings), but it's just not for me.
My rating: 2/5 fishmuffins
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