Doubutsu Ningen

I have no clue how this was recommended to me by the internet as the hot new horror manga around. It is both too light on the subject matter, no suspense, a tiny bit of mystery, and flat characters (the two protagonists are just "father" and "daughter" respectively) - also while going in way too heavy with the allegories and metaphors.

"Humans eat animals, so what if uh animals eat the humans???? And keep them like animals, whohohoho, never seen that before, what a commentary on consumption of meat and humane species-appropriate animal husbandry!"

Except it isn't. It struggles between shock value and obvious metaphor, and the little bit of mystery that is introduced is not properly, nor satisfying solved. The final chapter really drives home an eye-rolling message that has "oh so smart" written all over it. Honestly, if this was to be the message, I feel like a murder mystery in a city, or another type of story would have been a much better fit.

On a side note, as it is a popular trope often analysed and dissected: Raising humans for meat is absolutely ineffective. Humans need 18 years to be fully grown, a cow 1 year, a rabbit about 1 year, a pig 6 months, a chicken 12-24 WEEKS. The investment to turnout ratio is atrocious. The amount of water, food, shelter and time you would need to invest into one "human meat unit" does not pay off in the slightest. I would have liked for the story to comment on this, or explain how to solve this conundrum, but it doesn't. Huge missed opportunity to bring a fresh approach to an old idea.

If we want to talk about human and animal rights, about food and cannibalism - but now with intruiging animal characters, a great plot, fantastic worldbuilding and more complex themes - then look no further than Beastars.

I can recommend this only to someone new to the horror genre, the art is fine and serviceable, but otherwise, this was a total flop to me. Not enough content for this amount of wanna-be graphic shlock.