Inuyashiki

Writing a review for Inuyashiki is hard because my feelings for the story have warped so much since the days I first began reading it a few years ago. It starts out so strong and ends up spiraling out of control midway focusing too much on what I essentially consider "despair porn" chapters and moments.

What drew me into this series was the idea of an elderly protagonist. It's rare in manga to see something like this, as many writers tend to gravitate towards highschool students to try and appeal to their target demographic. Instead what we got was a fascinating view of the life of a humble, modest man nearing the end of his life, and how he copes with protecting his family and dealing with the idea of having new alien robotic abilities. Through his actions we see him question what it means to be truly human or alive. Coming to the aid of innocent people in order to feel any sense of life and to convince himself that even after the accident, he still has a human conscience.

Another character in Inuyashiki begins to undo the niceties of our protagonist in chapters I previously described as just being despair porn. The story begins to focus less on what it means to be alive and the introspective of personal morality, and more about how many innocent people can we show being brutally murdered to try and nail in the fact this guy is a bad dude. I wont mention the characters name due to spoilers but it's frustrating to see an actually interesting character being overshadowed by another generic highschool student who listened to one too many linkin park albums.

The artist Hiroya Oku has a very distinct and expressive art style to his work. However a lot of his backgrounds tend to look like photographs he just filtered to look drawn. Apparently this is a style unique to him and some are okay with it. I however thought at times it looked very jarring. It also took a lot of the enjoyment out of double panel pages.

Overall I would give this a soft recommendation. If you're like me desperately trying to filter your way through the piles of generic cookie cutter manga then I wont lie and say this is what you've been looking for. But the chapters that revolved around Inuyashiki were always a good read. It's a shame this manga ended on such a dull predictable note, but there's definitely some chapters I'd consider a 9/10 near the start.