Bonzo Scalobania wants to be Limbo City’s version of Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, Conan Edogawa, Hajime Kindachi, etc. The problem? Well, in a place full of undead monsters that straddle the line between good and evil, he finds himself unable to find or meet someone with a juicy case. Instead, he might have to care for small children who thinks he should be teaching at the nursery. Or be annoyed/bemused/confused by his detective sidekicks, Vampy Vinegret, who’s a gamer shut-in, and Nero Litchman, a zombie hooked on social media.
It’s not looking like Bonzo’s gonna find any wild stories while in Limbo!
Hella Chill Monsters has a very good idea going for it — all assortments of creepy monsters (versions of Frankenstein, vampires, etc) — and makes it very mundane. The good news is sometimes mundane is good. The bad news for this manga is it leans more toward the bad version of it — boring and forgettable. While the designs and art style make this manga stand out, for whatever reason, most of these stories simply aren’t funny nor evoke much emotion. I think the amount of characters that appear in this first volume contribute to this, but the issue for me is our main leads generate little in terms of caring. Bonzo is a skeleton who sometimes loses his limbs and likes to bake; Vampy spends his time gaming and being cynical; and Nero needs to lay off social media.
These three characters don’t really generate much interest, and the stories they end up involving themselves in aren’t so special. For example, one of the chapters involves Vampy wanting to go see a special movie, but the joke for this chapter is he’s combustible — the type of sun in Limbo City burns him into a crisp. Another chapter involves Nero listening to a mummy princess who wants him to take a specific part from Bonzo, but he fends that off. In theory, there are some cool looking characters, but the actual things they get to do are fairly rote.
I necessarily don’t need these characters to do anything crazy — but there’s little spark for most of this volume, and that stems from following Bonzo. His story, or the joke of him wanting to be a detective but finding zero hardcore cases every time, just doesn’t work. Maybe in a different series this would’ve worked, but you’d be better served to find something else involving some chill monsters.