I Am A Hero Omnibus vol. 8

When we left off with the main characters of this series, things had become really weird even by its standards.  Having Hideo partially swallowed by a mutant ZDQ creature and not be digested was strange.  Finding out that his current situation not only allowed him to exert some mental control over the creature, but to link with the other Kurusu-type characters we’ve seen so far sounds just plain crazy.  It’s not, because the series has long hinted at the fact that all of the ZDQs are connected in some way and Hideo’s interactions with the other Kurusus is just one way of visualizing it. We see this done another way late in the volume as a little girl in Italy winds up finding shelter with a group of people who have managed to avoid becoming infected in the midst of an outbreak.  One of the group even has some very interesting ideas about how this situation came about as there might actually be more direction to it than it seems. Oh, and that the Kurusu-types may not be part of the plan but their own special kind of chaos.

All of this is good since it shows that there’s a method to the madness that mangaka Kengo Hanazawa has been serving up to this point.  There might even be some satisfying payoff to it by the end of the series, meaning that “I Am A Hero” won’t have to just get by on our investment in the plight of Hideo, Hiromi, and Oda.  It’s an investment which is severely tested here as things take a bad turn in the middle portion of the volume. After Hiromi and Oda go out on a scavenging run and reveal certain issues they have with each other, the former nurse gets some bad news that threatens to split her off from the group.  What news could be so bad that it would cause Oda to strike out on her own in the middle of the apocalypse? Something pretty understandable, to be honest, and the rest of the volume deals with Hideo and Hiromi coming to grips with the fallout of her actions. It’s something which is realized pretty convincingly and balances nicely against the insanity bookending this volume.