shiba

The most surprising thing about Shibatarian is that you can legitimately finish this story in six hours. Or three if you're a monster like the main villain of this manga. It only seems "long" because of the waiting period between chapters, but binging it drives home the tone of the whole comic as a B-movie horror spectacle filled with both contrived tropes and beautifully haunting imagery that makes every word and action palpable.

And because it was always meant to be a short run from the beginning, there's no need to wish for more, making for the most fun kind of double-edged sword to wield. Shibatarian is a balancing act, but one where you don't know what's being balanced until the next chapter drops. And even then, the unpredictability is often replaced by a strange sense of foreboding where you can tell Iwamuro is treading down the same B-movie paths as his betters, but trying to predict it feels like predicting the weather for more than 6 days. There's a pattern, but how that pattern pops up feels so "wrong" somehow.

Because nothing in Shibatarian "feels" right. The road is linear, but zigs and zags before looping on itself. The characters range from lovely and lovable, if reliant on tropes (headstrong Hajime Sato, final-girl Michika Watari, spunky Rabuho Yoshida) to mere cardboard cutouts and animatronics -- that is to say, they feel "hollow" and "artificial" even when the logic of the manga is sound. Even its plot and thematic progression tends to fall back to safer shores even when it's clear that Iwamuro is more than comfortable playing with the devices of its genre, to a point where, even when he WAS experimenting in the final act, it's become stale enough to grind into bread crumbs. It's at once emotionally draining yet half-empty, kinda like a packed-to-the-top can of Pringles or Pik-Nik.

It's probably why, despite me being massively invested, I wasn't all that *interested* in Shibatarian. Because this kind of movie -- this kind of *story* -- simply wasn't my cup of tea. I follow it, but only because it was my personal fiefdom while everyone else was tearing their hair out in the *Oshi no Ko* thread, not because I was gripping my armrests in fear. I can be fine with missing out on a weekly vigil because there's not much to hold onto, at least until Iwamuro decides to give one. But when he does, it makes me wanna binge back, to scrub the seek head to the start again and see if I missed any clue, or failing that, to start from the beginning and see how far these three humans have come. It is scary enough to give e a physical reaction, but it's not so much an alienating or chilling feeling as it is an isolating one, helped by panels that contrast the Shibata army with the humans they massively outnumber and oppress.

Shibatarian is best enjoyed as a once-a-week romp, an oddly comfortable slice of darkly weird in a forest that has gradually become a bit too familiar. To be clear: it's not that unique a tree, but it doesn't really matter. Hajime Shibata is still on the ground and you can't help but pull him out, and keep doing so even if they multiply and branch out into weirder and weirder forms of the same idea. Iwamuro doesn't have to do much, and it's in that economy of emotion that makes you freeze where you sit or lay. This makes Shibatarian one of the more effective quick-shot horror manga of our times, but it's one that you'll keep on your DVD shelf until someone asks for it.

Light to decent 8, tran--

zishun: Have you given this manga a read? Did you love it? Did you hate it? What would you rate it? You're the best, you're the best. What should we read next?