As always, not a review per se, just me talking about stuff I like and this time, I'm talking about Renda Hitori's OKITENEMURA.
,OKITENEMURA (a portmanteau of the words for "asleep" and the verb for "wake up") is an action-heavy, sci-fi horror manga appearing in Futabasha's WEEKLY MANGA ACTION (where such famed manga as LUPIN III and LONE WOLF AND CUB were originally published) and is available in English on CrunchyRoll.
I had this on my to-read list for a while, a long while, and I wish I hadn't waited, cuz while it's not a particularly deep manga, it's exactly what you'd want from a thriller.
Main character Kanata is a seemingly-ordinary slacker high-school student with a special ability, mysterious even to him. By poking his finger into his ear, hard, he can enter a sort of enhanced state where his vision is so sharp he can see things from miles away. The effort leaves him very drained, however, and he worries about potential side-effects so he does it only rarely. When bizarre deaths in which people's heads transform into animals before going on murderous rampages and then dying themselves, begin to occur across Tokyo, he, like everyone else is curious and terrified. Then, when it happens at Kanata's own school, he reluctantly uses his ability to find more information and gets caught up in the exploits of an organization seeking to put a stop to these weird deaths.
And that's just the first story arc.
You see, Kanata is what they call an okitenemura - someone whose latent potential can be awakened (apparently all humans possess such potential, but most of us won't ever be able to access it, no matter how hard we try), and the External Information Group has been looking for one such as him to study his abilities. As well as the EIG, however, there is also a group called the Singers (responsible for the mysterious disease causing the deaths) that has been looking for him, to exploit his abilities. It's a matter of bad choice versus worse choice for Kanata and when his best friend is struck by the mysterious illness raging through the city, he has little choice but to willingly join up with External Information in exchange for the promise that they'll try to help.
From there, we're lead to further bizarre, sci-fi horror mysteries (mostly body-horror related) and it's basically non-stop action.
I have to say, despite it being pretty shallow, I've enjoyed this series a lot. It moves at an incredibly brisk pace, giving us just enough mystery, back-story and character development to keep it interesting. The writing effortlessly blends these elements together while the artwork balances incredibly-detailed, grotesque horrors and realistic human beings.
It's a great series to sit down with when you just want light entertainment and I hope some American publisher puts it into print eventually, because I wouldn't mind owning it.
Recommended!
I had this on my to-read list for a while, a long while, and I wish I hadn't waited, cuz while it's not a particularly deep manga, it's exactly what you'd want from a thriller.
Main character Kanata is a seemingly-ordinary slacker high-school student with a special ability, mysterious even to him. By poking his finger into his ear, hard, he can enter a sort of enhanced state where his vision is so sharp he can see things from miles away. The effort leaves him very drained, however, and he worries about potential side-effects so he does it only rarely. When bizarre deaths in which people's heads transform into animals before going on murderous rampages and then dying themselves, begin to occur across Tokyo, he, like everyone else is curious and terrified. Then, when it happens at Kanata's own school, he reluctantly uses his ability to find more information and gets caught up in the exploits of an organization seeking to put a stop to these weird deaths.
And that's just the first story arc.
You see, Kanata is what they call an okitenemura - someone whose latent potential can be awakened (apparently all humans possess such potential, but most of us won't ever be able to access it, no matter how hard we try), and the External Information Group has been looking for one such as him to study his abilities. As well as the EIG, however, there is also a group called the Singers (responsible for the mysterious disease causing the deaths) that has been looking for him, to exploit his abilities. It's a matter of bad choice versus worse choice for Kanata and when his best friend is struck by the mysterious illness raging through the city, he has little choice but to willingly join up with External Information in exchange for the promise that they'll try to help.
From there, we're lead to further bizarre, sci-fi horror mysteries (mostly body-horror related) and it's basically non-stop action.
I have to say, despite it being pretty shallow, I've enjoyed this series a lot. It moves at an incredibly brisk pace, giving us just enough mystery, back-story and character development to keep it interesting. The writing effortlessly blends these elements together while the artwork balances incredibly-detailed, grotesque horrors and realistic human beings.
It's a great series to sit down with when you just want light entertainment and I hope some American publisher puts it into print eventually, because I wouldn't mind owning it.
Recommended!
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