Manhole and Alive

After finishing the epic 20^th/21^st Century Boys manga, I needed to move on to some quicker titles. The first one I tackled was Manhole and the second one was Alive, both are similar in that they are seinen horror/mystery titles. For the sake of their brevity I decided to combine each manga’s review in one posting.

    Manhole is a 29 issue seinen police drama, horror story that takes place in modern Japan by little known mangaka Tetsuya Tsutsui. The story begins as a naked, disorientated and bleeding man crawls out of a sewer and begins shambling through a crowded shopping district before bumping into a college student, hitting his head in the resulting fall and dying. Upon investigating this bizarre event the local police discover it is more unusual than it first appeared.

    The ‘victim’ in the attack was a troubled man in his 20’s who had been sent to a reform clinic by his frightened parents. The clinic said they had a therapy for their son that would end his gambling and violent rages. As detectives investigate this ‘clinic’ the coroner discovers that what had really killed the man was a blood born parasite which had bored through his eye and had begun eating his brain, most notably the part associated with emotions. They widen their search for the college student because the ‘victim’ had spit blood on him and the authorities now fear an outbreak of this deadly and rare parasite. Soon though, they discover that the outbreak is exactly what the person who infected the ‘victim’ wanted. Now the police and the ministry of health must rush to contain the parasite and stop the madman from unleashing more of them on the city.

    This is an interesting concept and is well drawn and executed. I am unfamiliar with Tsutsui but he is very detailed, especially when it comes to anatomy. While short, you get a firm understanding of the story and a feel for the main characters. This manga could easily be made into an entertaining summer blockbuster movie. It has all the requirements for a live action film that would draw a modest crowd. Edit it a little bit so it flows better on film and you’re all set to go. While it does fit into that category I still enjoyed it, it reminded me more of 28 Days Later than Independence Day. It is a creepy story and it had me thinking the night after I finished it as I lay in bed, jumping at boogie men. Nature can really mess you up if you run into it in a foreign environment, or if someone purposely introduces it. While the story was well done I have a few issues with some of how it ended…it really is primed for Hollywood, but I would definitely watch the movie version. This is a semi-mature story dealing with some moderately adult content. There is a little bit of nudity and some well detailed bodily harm. Yet in some ways it also reminded me of the Saw franchise, which are not for the weak spirited or immature.

Alive is a very short horror seinen title by mangaka Takahashi Tsutomu, who I have never heard of, but has done the following as well; Tetsuwan Girl, Bakuon Retto and Blue Heaven.

    The story follows Yashiro Tenshu who is about to be executed for murdering 5 people, one of whom was his girlfriend. As he approaches the death chamber he is offered the chance to live by a secretive agency. He chooses to take their offer and is transported with another death row inmate to a secret underground facility. They are given two rules, they can have anything they request unless forbidden and they can not leave the room they are in. Yashiro questions whether he has truly earned a new lease on life as his roommate drinks the time away. One day they notice that one of the walls is partially open and on the other side is a beautiful naked woman. The roommate starts talking to her and she tells him that if he wants to get to her he has to kill Yashiro. As time goes on the tension between the two captives increases as they debate the truth behind her words. Yoshiro only cares about escaping this new prison and finding out the reason for being brought to the room with the other murderer.

    This is a pretty short manga, at 10 issues, and near the end I wasn’t sure if it would actually end and not just get cut off. It did end though, which was a relief. This is an ok manga, the art isn’t the best, reminded me of styles found in the early 90’s or late 80’s. Looked a bit like Crying Freeman at times. It was a quick read, just over 30 minutes total time, so don’t expect anything ground breaking or earth shattering. Yet this one incorporates a supernatural aspect into its story and once again we consider what happened when things are taken out of their natural inhabitants. The delivery wasn’t anything fresh or new, the characters didn’t grow or become better people and you only learned the minimum background information needed to get the whole picture. At one point I feared the story would take a shonen adventure turn, with Yashiro wandering the world as an assassin for the government, always running from his past. Honestly, for its length you’re really not going to regret reading it. If it were some 300 issue epic series, like something akin to Fist of the North Star I’d try and dissuade people from checking it out…but it’s only 200 some odd pages and a lot of them are filled with just art. So as with Manhole if you liked Elfen Lied or if you liked Crying Freeman check this extremely short story about humans lack of self restraint. This series really reminded me of all the old seinen titles from the 80’s…