Generally speaking, there are manga that happen to involve characters with some sort of power aiming to save the world from the upcoming apocalypse.
Then there’s manga involving regular humans where it’s an ordinary day. Nothing spectacular is happening. Then, boom! An area’s split in two. Demons fly through the sky. A virus destroys a city. And we happen to follow characters caught in the middle of it.
Highschool of the Dead is one example. Its focus on the girls and the absurdity of its situations lends itself to be fun, but unrealistic. I Am a Hero and Gyo would be the realistic scenario where we follow people caught in the middle of an apocalypse. The problem is I can’t say for sure because I haven’t read those yet.
So the closest manga to that scenario is Shibuya Goldfish. Ignoring the volume 1 ending, it’s an absurd manga where goldfish emerge out of nowhere to wreck Japan. We follow characters attempting to survive the situation, but outside of the hook of GIANT goldfishes and the humans serving as their food, it’s meh. That’s likely because the characters are hard to either like or remember. There was one character I did like the entire time I read it, and that character was promptly killed off.
Which brings me to Creature!, the manga where essentially, the monster apocalypse happens.
Known as Hakaijuu in Japan, this series debuted in Monthly Shonen Champion in 2010. Before committing to horror, Shingo Honda did two sports manga — Ping Pong Dash!! and Nounai Kakutou Akiba Shoot. I’m going to assume some of the early signs that Honda’s passion for horror were in both those manga. Hence why since then, the author’s worked on nothing but horror series.
After reading the first three volumes of Creature!, I see why.
Akira Takashiro’s a high school student with two things — a rivalry with his basketball teammate and friend, Eiji, and a crush on another friend, Miku, who happens to be at another school. The manga begins normally: Akira is at practice, lamenting Eiji’s talent and status on the team while he’s a reserve. He chats with classmates, is happy to get a text from Miku, super simple stuff.
Opportunity strikes for Akira though: one of the starters is sick, which means he gets to start the game. Now he has a new chance to prove himself. For Eiji, this leads to him making a proposal: who will confess to Miku depending on who scores the most points in the game. Yep, typical high school stuff.
Then right as Akira professes that things are going to change, a massive earthquake occurs, enough to knock things down in the equipment room and knock him out. When he awakes, he’s hurt. He slowly begins to regain consciousness and a sense of where he’s at. That’s when, as the door was slightly open, he catches a sight of Eiji’s arm.
Akira only sees Eiji’s arm, blood, and then a set of absolutely grotesque looking arms facing him.
That’s how Creature!’s story begins — how does a normal human survive when he has no idea what’s going on? When Akira escapes the school, it’s not just one creature that emerges — there are more roaming around the city of Tachikawa. There doesn’t seem to be much, if any hope of surviving.
What has made Creature! memorable and thrilling to read than other works of this type is the characters and the creatures. Akira has survived the initial brushes of death, but now he’s met up with new people as they try to gather their bearings.
The first is Nao Shirasaki. She’s the class president at Akira’s school, and the first interaction we get of her, she comes across a bit curt. When we next see her, she’s the only survivor amongst a pile of corpses. The only reason she survived was because Akira ran into her, and since then, they’ve worked their way out of enough troubles. The next we meet is Tadokoro, a delinquent, but in this scenario where the creatures are all around Tachikawa, he becomes a reliable guy as they try to survive.
Ultimately, he’s the only other reliable member they have as there’s one character they meet who’s awful, and another guy they meet on their team now who’s a deviant…and a gym teacher from another school. Normally these are characters, especially the teacher who’s likely a sexual abuser and a control freak, that you’d stay 20 miles away from.
But when a massive, ugly looking creature opens its mouth and wants to eat you, you just start thinking about survival.
Which gets to the other reason Creature! stands out — the designs are often creepy, nasty, and look as if you would be scared of actually seeing it in real life. Also these creatures look to do two things: kill or feast. So the violence in Creature! is quite high, and how the humans have been killed so far is shown in gruesome detail.
In addition, everyone is trying to do their best to survive, which means there’s little time to rest. That translates into how you read it too, as this series is a quick read — you could finish each volume in less than 30 minutes. That can be bad in certain cases. For Creature!, this works in its favor — between the macabre creatures to Akira hoping Miku is alive, the fast pace means you can’t wait to find out what’s next.
Creature! also gets your attention because of its cliffhangers. The end of the first volume leaves the characters in a bad spot: they hoped to find the rescue team and the self defense force in Tachikawa Station. They not only didn’t find them, but found more dead bodies instead. They eventually did find survivors.
Survivors running away from a towering creature. And then it ends!
Now, whether Creature! stays like this we will have to see — with 18 more volumes to go who knows what kind of twists are coming. But if you’re looking for a horror manga that will surprise you at how engaging it is, then this is worth your time.