Early Manga Review – Inuyashiki by Hiroya Oku (4.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Manga/Science Fiction
Length: 200 pages
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: August 25, 2015
ISBN-13: 978-1632361219
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Inutashiki series
Source: ARC through Amazon Vine
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

I got a copy of this to review through the Amazon Vine program. This was a well done and intriguing start to a new manga series. I ended up really enjoying it and being very curious about what will happen next.

Inuyashiki’s life is pretty awful. Him and his family have just moved into a new house, but he obviously gets no respect from them. He looks very old for his age and this translates into him not getting respect in a lot of areas in his life. His only joy is a small dog that he adopts. Then things get even worse, he’s diagnosed with stomach cancer and only has a short while to live. His luck takes a strange turn when he is struck by light one night, light that explodes everything around him…yet he emerges strangely unharmed. As time goes on Inuyashiki finds out that he may not be as unchanged as he thought.

This is a strangely compelling story. It starts out like a pretty basic seinen and then towards the end gets very sci fi. Inuyashiki comes across as somewhat pitiful, yet is very compelling as a character and lends the story a strangely melancholy, yet hopeful, feel. His canine friend is very cute.

The manga is really well drawn, has a lot of detail and is easy to follow. I enjoyed the illustration and found it very engaging. The look at Japanese society in these pages is a fairly bleak one; there just aren’t a lot of nice people or characters in the story.

The story takes some truly crazy turns and towards the end things have gotten very interesting. I would love to talk about this more in the review but it would include major spoilers…so I won’t.

Overall a very engaging and interesting manga. It’s starts off as a seinen about a middle aged man who leads a somewhat pitiful and aimless life, but ends up being a story with some crazy science fiction aspects to it. I would definitely recommend and am incredibly curious as to where this story is going.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Graphic Novel Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge