Animan: Manga Review

Who deserves to be eaten? Who truly holds the power in society? Okada seeks to answer these questions in the horror manga Animan. I went into this story completely blind. I haven’t experienced this kind of shock reading an opening chapter in a long time. If you’re into horror/gore, then I would advise you check this out without any more information, but if you’re curious regardless, keep reading.

Content warnings: gore, cannibalism, graphic sexual violence. | Spoilers for Volume 1.

The Story

Animan opens with a car crash, where a father and his young daughter have an accident in front of a farm and are rescued by the people there.

These people are, apparently, wearing hyper-realistic animal suits. They are very hospitable and kind to their guests—that is, until dad wants to leave. He quickly finds out these people aren’t people at all, but literal animals, and they breed humans for consumption in this farm.

There are a lot of turns that occur in just this one volume. Consequentially this means we must grapple with different postulations from the author as we read. At first, it seems like a simple role reversal—where animals consume humans. Allowing for a critique of the cruelty of animal breeding and meat eating. However, with the explanation behind how these anthropomorphic animals came to exist, the lines between human and animal are blurred, changing the nature of the original critique. Lastly, the author takes it even further by showing these chimera working alongside humans at the end of the volume, subjugating any creature deemed “weaker” regardless of their species.

The Twists

To its detriment, there are too many twists in this first volume.

I lost track of what the author was trying to say. Of course, he’s just setting up the story and it might become clearer down the line. But, I think the original postulation was more interesting to analyze than where we ended up by the end of the volume. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised by what I read, and I’m definitely intrigued enough to keep reading. Just beware this is a very graphic, gory horror manga before you decide to dive in.