[Categories: Manga Reviews]
Gyo volume #1: fish with legs!
“Fearless wretch/Insanity/He watches/Lurking beneath the sea…”
As horror manga goes, Gyo: the Death Stench Creeps is one of the oddest. It’s not scary in the conventional creepy sense, but in terms of hoards of unstoppable, stinking sea life scuttling out of the sea and onto the shore, it takes some beating in the revulsion department. The story begins when Tadashi and his girlfriend Kaori take a holiday in Okinawa but encounter some ocean life that you won’t find on the National Geographic…fish with legs are invading!
The premise of Gyo has everything that a monster movie-style manga tale could wish for: innocent victims, a thoroughly repulsive and mysterious threat, expendable background characters, a scientist guy trying to find out the truth behind it all…the concepts are born from a long tradition of shlocky B-movie chillers, making it a mixture of Jaws with a bit of Godzilla thrown in for good measure. I can actually imagine this being given the low-budget horror movie treatment and coming out of it pretty well (one of Junji Ito’s previous works, Uzumaki, has been adapted into a live-action film), albeit being a little cheesy and tongue-in-cheek. Hell, it’s all about fish with legs, for crying out loud!
The idea and characters may be derivative in some aspects but Ito wins bonus points for his artwork. The backgrounds are great and it’s also gritty and detailed in portraying the various types of legged sea life - although the character designs are simple enough they’re expressive and individual, and there’s no badly-placed humour to throw things off either. At times it is pretty amusing in a more ironic and un-manga way, such as one of the shark attack scenes in which bathers flee the water to the safety of the beach only to be attacked when the shark marches ashore. Gleefully twisted chaos ensues. Genius!
The whole concept of the walking fish is revolting and compelling on a number of levels: the threat of sea-borne monsters making it to the safety of the land is one good idea, while the physical melding of organic (the fish) and the mechanical (the legs) is well executed and actually quite innovative. The basis for all this, a virus that creates a putrid gas, stems from the hackneyed ‘scientific experiment’ that crops up in the genre time and time again though, and it’s a bit too convenient that Tadashi’s uncle happens to be the son of the man who might be responsible. In terms of plotting then Gyo requires a certain degree of suspension of disbelief at points, but it’s all worth it in the end.
The first volume centres around a small group of characters, which keeps things simple and prevents unnecessary distractions. Kaori comes across as the stereotypical neurotic girlfriend at first, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for her when she became infected. My only criticisms in this department are when an affected fish in a plastic bag just *happens* to drift from Okinawa to Tokyo and when Koyanagi-sensei and Tadashi are engaged in speculative conversation over Kaori’s condition while she’s just lying there in front of them…surely they would help her out first and look on in curiosity at the fish afterwards? Apart from these minor plot holes and inconsistencies (which are frequent in this genre anyway), Gyo is shaping up to be a refreshingly different and gripping read. Definitely not one for the squeamish!
Posted on November 28th, 2007 @ 12:23 am
Gyo is genius! Viz’s release is great, too. I can’t wait for volume 2!
Posted on November 28th, 2007 @ 5:12 am
You really need to include more images if you’re going to talk about something like this. I mean that’s just not fair. I want to see the legged fishes doggone it!
Anyway, sounds like an interesting story. I might have to check it out. If for no other reason than that I probably won’t be able to sleep until I can actually see these fish myself.
Posted on November 28th, 2007 @ 9:07 am
@Citizengeek: I don’t think the next one’s out until Jan or Feb…a bit of a wait!
@Orion: I’ll try to track down some scanlated frames and add them later today…the artwork’s worth seeing. We need moar fish with legs!