"Happiness" Was Just Okay

Greetings, my adoring fans.

I know it’s been a while since we last spoke (hell, it’s practically March already), but there have just been so few new quality manga available at my local bookstore.

So…many…isekai.

So, even though it’s not necessarily “new”, I bring you my review of Shuzo Oshimi’s vampire horror manga “Happiness”.  (And yes, I did only pick it up because it was new on the shelves of my local library.  So sue me.)

You may remember this author/artist from his other series “Inside Mari”, which I believe I topped off last year’s posts by reviewing, and from his even earlier psychological horror work “Flowers of Evil”.

Note that I specify “psychological horror”, because that is, up until this point, Mr. Oshimi’s bread and butter.  His works don’t usually fall into the realm of action or serious gore, so I found myself pleased with how he carries off both of the former in this new and current work.

Makoto Okazaki is your typical loser, shorter than his classmates and easily pushed around by them (and, yes, just like all his other protagonists, he’s also a low-key pervert hiding behind an innocent mask).  One night, on his way to return a DVD to the Japanese equivalent of RedBox, Makoto ignores the warnings of his concerned Mom to be careful and runs into some trouble.

As it turns out, his Mom was right to be concerned.  Apparently, there’s been a mysterious murder committed right nearby where Makoto is going to be headed.

And then anime happens.  (Or manga.  Whatever.)

Long story short, a mysterious yet pretty fanged girl draws his blood out of him.  And, unlike many other, sanitized versions of vampire where it’s played only for hotness, this blood frenzy is graphic and painful for poor Makoto and played entirely for horror.

The girl asks him if he either wants to die or else become like her.  Not knowing, Makoto begs for his life and the girl leaves.  He passes out and wakes up in the hospital from his gushing neck wound.  He is later discharged with only an acute light sensitivity and a strange thirst for his troubles.  That is, until he gets to school, where his bullies mock him for being attacked by a girl.  In the hallways, Makoto finds himself assaulted by the scent of blood, mostly from girls who are presumably on their periods.  The overwhelming sensations cause him to stumble in front of his bullies while he takes their orders, only making things worse with them.  But, this time, Makoto fights back and manages to bloody his opponent Yuuki’s nose with a single punch.

When he tries, overwhelmed and unsuccessful, to attack a girl, a Ms. Yukiko Gosho, she plays it off as him sexually harassing her and quickly turns into the messed-up bully girl from Flowers of Evil.

A few years ago, I read another manga with a much similar premise called Kuro Zakuro, except the vampires were more Hollow-like creatures called Ogres and the protag became one by swallowing one of their creation seeds in his sleep, but you get the idea.

In the aforementioned, the protag found himself overwhelmed by his desires for violence and meat.  In Happiness, we can also see Makoto becoming overwhelmed by his desire for blood, but in a very different way.  We don’t just hear him inside his head crying out for blood; we see it visually as his world distorts around him, denoting his confusion and placing us, somehow, even more in his head than any mere thoughts could.

(That is, we the readers know it all represents his desire for blood; we ended Volume One with him still in the dark over what he is and what has happened to him.)

Another thing that sets Happiness apart from other monster transformation manga is that we also get to see the aftermath of the fight from Yuuki’s point of view.  By the end of Volume One, his girlfriend Nao has enlisted Makoto to come save him from some other bullies because his loss of confidence has turned him into their new punching bag.

Thus far, the series breaks little new ground in the monster transformation horror genre, but, as I’ve said, it is interesting to see such a story put in the hands of Shuzo Oshimi.  I predict lots of psychological horror, tortured whining and pervy fanservice before the series reaches its end.

That being said, this will probably be another series that I only pick up/notice whenever it’s new at the library and not one that I will excitedly scan the bookstore shelves for every other month or ever think to own.

But, if you happen to disagree, then by all means pick up a copy for yourselves.