Artist Spotlight: Oku Hiroya (NSFW manga)

Hi guys, it's time for something a little different. This post is about Oku Hiroya, who's a fairly well-known mangaka responsible for works like Gantz, GIGANT, HEN and Inuyashiki. What's different this time, is that I'm going to shit on him! I actually mostly abhor his work and you're going to hear about it!

Quick note: I hate most of his work, except for Inuyashiki and I'll talk about that later.

1) hateful main characters

A running theme throughout his work is that the protagonist is usually a superficial, cowardly, selfish little shit (he's also usually short). Meanwhile, the co-lead is usually taller, handsome (think the protagonist of a girls' manga) and heroic in comparison. I know that's the point - you want the protagonist to be a weasle-y little shit so you can show some character development, but he does this ALL THE TIME... It got boring after a while. Also, his series are pretty long (Gantz runs for over 300 chapters) and this character development doesn't usually happen until the halfway mark or even later, so you spend such a long time with an insufferable protagonist who acts selfishly and is so whiny and unhelpful and you want him to get killed but the mangaka isn't ballsy enough to actually get rid of him since his face is on the cover. Examples of traits usually involve lusting after a member of the cast (who's in love with the better-looking, better-character-ed co-lead), obsessing about sex (more on that in a while) and being too afraid to help someone in an emergency and that person getting killed (usually a likable side character, to boot). Additionally, some defenders say that this is just how normal people would act and it's actually good because it's different from your usual manga protagonists. I don't buy this because I can just watch the news if I were interested in realistic persons acting realistically and realistic characters can still be interesting to follow. With this, I don't see a complex character but a walking inducement to facepalm and groan. Personally, I don't even think that the characters usually get that much character development by the end. At least, not enough that the slog together with that unlikable character is justified. Admittedly, that could be a personal thing since I HATE useless people so I might be projecting my hatred of real persons onto these protagonists.

2) feel-bad stories

Another point about these stories is that they usually involve a lot of violence. In Gantz, it's an alien invasion; in GIGANT, it's a giant alient invasion. A lot of people get killed, is what I'm trying to get at. However, that's not the problem - lots of manga involve a lot of death and violence and they're still OK. However, I feel like the mangaka relishes in it! This is partly due to his excellent artistic skill and his ability to draw the human body in gorgeous detail. Pushed to the extreme, this allows him to depict people being brutally squashed under rubble, bisected or melted by acid and it's really horrible. I'm personally not that averse to gore but it looks almost fetish-ised because a lot of the characters are drawn cute/pretty and you kind of like them but then they're killed really horribly. This doesn't just apply to extras that you don't really care about, but also main characters that you spend a lot of time with! Sometimes, this means that their character motivations and arcs go unfulfilled, which is a bit like Game of Thrones but I hate it. Sometimes, I think this is done intentionally just to get a rise out of readers and I think it's a cheap move. It doesn't help when the mangaka's previously sexualised said characters so seeing their bodies (sometimes in various states of undress) get mangled is especially hard to watch.

It's not just the violence. Remember how I said the main characters are really unlikable? Those traits usually lead to a lot of unpleasant experiences like seeing him being jealous about something or other and it's really not fun to read. At other times, it might not be the main characters being unlikable but it could just be side characters doing bad things like really demeaning sexual activity (e.g. prostitution) and drug addiction. I guess there's a market for these things and it's still legitimate storytelling (these things do happen, after all) but it's definitely not for me. Another title, Maetel no Kimochi is about a 30 year-old shut in being taken care of by his late father's new young wife. (Some people find this a very touching story but I just wince every time I read the first chapter.) It just feels very mean-spirited to me.

3) weird fetishes

Besides the gore stuff (and it was speculative to say that the violence was fetish-ised), there's A LOT of sexual content, which is sometimes a plus for me but not usually in this case. For some reason, most of the women in these manga have ginormous chests and tiny bodies (their upper backs must be SCREAMING). The sex scenes are sometimes pretty freaky as well. Besides that, a lot of things are a bit weird. For one, GIGANT is about an AV actress who gets the power to transform into a giant so she can fight with giant monsters attacking the city and her clothes don't expand so she's running around naked and fighting. In Gantz, there's a scene where crowds of humans are stark naked and being chased down by giant insects.

That said, I have to admit that his works are hugely addictive because they're quite exciting and the art is so good that you're almost enthralled by it. The action scenes are also quite well-done. It really is a shame (to me, I'm sure others like it) that it has to be sullied by the more hard-to-stomach scenes.

Here are some of his works you might want to check out. Give them a few chapters - they're all quite interesting and you might find yourself liking it. Just be warned of the above points. If you can stomach it, you'll probably have a good time.

1) Gantz

Two schoolkids die after trying to save a drunk man who'd fallen onto the train tracks. However, they are transported into this room with a black orb that instructs them to equip themselves with special bodysuits and weapons to fight against aliens hiding on Earth. The story gradually expands until there's a whole alien invasion and they have to save the day. Extreme violence and sexual content and there's a lot of upsetting stuff like jealousy in relationships and things like that, but the alien invasion is pretty cool and the action is great. I got addicted to the compelling action, but I utterly hated most of the cast except for a few cool characters. Oh yeah, this manga screws over the best girl (an idol who's drafted into this anti-alien initiative) who's in love with our MC who's in love with some boring girl (she gets less boring as the manga goes on but I just felt really bad for the best girl).

2) GIGANT

A high schooler falls in love with a voluptuous AV actress and begins dating her (despite the large age gap of about 8 years). She gains the power to transform into a giant to fight aliens when they attack the city. It plays with the idea of superhero shows, such as having her get in trouble with the authorities even though she tried to save the city because she caused a lot of damage; or showing how difficult it would really be for a giant superhero to "save the day" without hurting the innocent people as well. There's a lot of upsetting stuff like the deaths and obviously there's a lot of sexual content as well. There's so much sexual content that I can't even show a panel of the fight scenes! That said, I don't think this was entirely a male fantasy (just to a large degree) and it's quite an empowering story about how someone who wasn't really respected can suddenly be respected because she was willing to risk herself for the good of everyone. This is deconstructed a little (in a clever way, in my opinion) by how the mainstream media immediately treats her like a cheap celebrity like those you see on variety shows. For example, even after she's saved the world, she still shoots AV, which I felt was like the author saying, "Hey, you can be a woman who saved the world but you'll still be objectified!" which I thought was depressing but clever satire.

3) Inuyashiki

This one is my favourite work of this mangaka and it's really quite good. An alien ship crashes and kills an old man and a highschooler. The aliens make up for this by transporting their consciousnesses into 2 robotic bodies with special equipment and weapons. While the old man becomes a superhero, the highschooler becomes a crazy mass murderer. This conflict becomes the central issue in the story, but we're also pulled into other issues like feeling human (I didn't particularly like this and it's been done better in shows like Ghost in the Shell); family (I loved this - the examination of the old man's dysfunctional family and how they came together eventually was really sweet); and "with great power comes great responsibility". It's incredibly emotional and there's some very mean-spirited violence (mostly from the mass murdering) but it's ultimately a fantastic read. I especially liked the relationship between the old man and another high schooler who tries to help the old man become a superhero by experimenting with their powers and it's a really good mentor-mentee relationship and the ending scene was so sad.

TLDR: Oku Hiroya is a great artist and a good writer but I wish he'd leave out some of the harder-to-stomach stuff. I get that there's an audience for it so I hope you enjoy his work more than I did!

- Shiota Nagisa