#0-man

Ch. 1

Omg I'm loving this so far! The art is so dynamic and cute and the dialogue is really colorful too. The protagonist Ricky is adorable ;w; I love his tail.

That was a pretty badass and hilarious opening with the two soldiers fighting a pointless war while also low key bonding over a baby they saved.

Ricky crying when his dad told him his tail was something to be ashamed of broke my damn heart! Glad the dad isn't fully evil though. Just misguided...

Kind of weird that the dad is like "I swear I'll find you a doctor!" Like dude...you've had many years to do that and it probably would have been easier when the kid was an infant.

Ch. 2

Obvious parental death is obvious. Ricky sure got over it quick lol.

So, so far we know that 0 men can survive extreme temperatures, are really fast learners, and have great agility. I think this is an Elfen Lied scenario where they're supposed to be "evolved humans." Making them squirrel like was kind of a weird choice but oh well.

The professor's design where he basically just has a cloud for a head reminds me of Dr. Uranus from Cyborg 009. Peak old dude character design lol.

Losing one dad and then instantly meeting your real dad is pretty wild. The emotional whiplash made it all feel kind of rushed and silly. It's nice that Ricky doesn't feel like a freak anymore tho. Kind of an ugly duckling story.

Ch. 3

Woah, suddenly the story gets very different. Forget the evil scientists, it's time for robot demons apparently! New bad guys are Enma (Buddhist God of Hell) and Satan. Fun for the whole family!

Enma kinda looks like one of the guards from Squid Game lol, simple but menacing

The scene where Enma and Satan make an entire lighthouse disappear and the keep jumps out to save his life was effectively frightening. I wonder if that guy will come back as a witness?

All of Tokyo is ripped apart and put back together in like an hour and everyone just shrugs it off!? I know Japanese people can be complacent, but not THAT complacent!

This chapter felt like an anti-communist message with every house being exactly the same but "something's missing." I googled it and apparently Tezuka was a communist, but only for a short time before he changed his tune, so it's still possible that's what he was going for.

Ch. 4

So apparently the professor is a good guy now (despite first impressions) as he teams up with Ricky to investigate Enma.

We learn that 0-men are closer biologically to squirrels than they are to humans...riiight. The adults definitely looked more squirrel-like at least.

Pretty savage of the professor to shoot up his friend with a gun to "check if he's human" (including a shot to the head!?) Reminds me of the original Stepford Wives when the MC stabs her friend in the crotch.

The way Tezuka draws the prime minister feels very Looney Tunes. He's very rubbery.

Ch. 5

This manga is very text heavy so the average chapter takes me a bit to get through. Luckily, the Japanese has been very easy so far! (Rare for an older manga...)

Ricky and the Professor escape the clutches of King Enma who was planning to kill them if they didn't reveal the whereabouts of the 0 men. They end up in the forest where Ricky finds his mom and dad again. They ask Ricky to return to their country with them but he turns them down because he's vowed to be an "ally of humanity."

I can see why King Enma wears a mask...he's pretty dweeby looking under there. I like his mad scientist hair though. The fact that his face is a little disfigured gives Darth Vader vibes.

Ch. 6

Ricky and the professor try to alert the public about King Enma's take over. People start to be swayed, but then Enma just kills anyone who tries to join the resistance, so they don't get very far. By the end of the chapter Ricky is captured again by another power hungry person after the 0 men. Gdi Ricky...

I know it's for plot convenience but Ricky's tail pops out so easily that you'd think they'd come up with a better strategy for hiding it than stuffing it into his pants by now.

Ch. 7

Ricky splits up from the professor and finds himself captive on a boat. His 0 men parents come to save the day (apparently this was like a 0 men slave ship) and they knock out their captors.

Ricky just did a dramatic goodbye to his parents in chapter 6 and now he's back with them again? Make up your mind, story!

I was proud that I was able to read the kanji 船長. The videos I've watched of Marine-Senchou (vtuber) helped me out with that one.

We end the chapter in the jungle of the Himalayas. Maybe we'll learn more about 0 man culture?

Ch. 8

Uhhh wtf!? Ricky's dad just dies in an avalanche and they're like "meh, whatever!" Seriously Ricky and his mom recovered from that way too quickly. He might not really be dead, but they believe he is!!

It was cool seeing how the 0 men have been evading humans by living in a place that's only reachable by their species. That felt believable. I bet their land is nicer than the weird place Ricky was living before anyways. No dictators (I hope lol)

Ch. 9

Lol my previous statement was immediately proven wrong in this chapter. Ricky basically went from living in 1984 to Brave New World. I quickly went from enjoying learning about 0 men culture to being like...oh...that's not good.

Kind of confusing that Ricky's mom would intentionally bring her son into this world if she knew how messed up it was? She even is like "here's our apartment where we'll live as a big happy family" but then Ricky learns that kids are separated from their parents super early in this world and sent to live in a children's village. Like...did she not think of that??

Why was chapter 9 like 3 times longer than chapter 8? Well, I've been enjoying the kanji reading challenge. This manga has no furigana...

Ch. 10

Man this story is cyclical. They escape, they get captured, they escape, they get captured. Tezuka also seems to have ditched who I thought was the main villain for now. Will this whole thing be episodic or will we get a real plot?

They come across some yeti in their travels who say "yeti yeti" like Pokémon lol. I wouldn't mind seeing them make friends with all the cryptids, but the visit was very short.

Ricky's mom asking him to shoot her tail off with a gun was pretty dark. It does seem like it would make their lives a lot easier to remove their tails (in hopefully a less painful way), but I guess it's the principle of it.

Dude at they end looked like a Cyborg 009 character with his giant buttons and fancy hair haha.

Ch. 11

And just like that we gain another random party member (and Ricky's mom gains her 2nd adopted son in like 2 chapters). Ricky and Pete bond over their daddy issues.

I was wrong, they did bring Enma back. He reveals that his new, Communist version of Tokyo was inspired by the 0 man way of living, so I guess that explains that.

Like I said, we're going in circles here. Now we're back to looking for the professor Ricky befriended in earlier chapters. After the gang finds a safe place to live, then what? Are they going to save the world from oppressive regimes? Is the goal to just be a normal, happy family?

Ch. 12

So apparently the professor they eventually find is some kind of fake (even though he passed Ricky's needle test). Can Tezuka decide if this dude is a good guy or a bad guy already!?

Kinda funny how when they found a safe place to hide out they're like "now let's confront the evil people!" Like...weren't you running to hide from the evil people? Well I guess heroes gotta hero.

Ch. 13

So now it's doomsday via Mt. Fuji erupting. Although the gang succeeded in destroying Satan's clone factory, they now need to worry about the fate of humanity.

The version of this that I got from Bookwalker is 4 volumes but MAL has it at 7 volumes, so this must be an omnibus. I wonder where the original volume 1 cut off?

Ch. 36

So now Liz is just buddy buddy with her dad again because "he's my only father!" Filial piety has its limits lady!

There was a weird bit of exposition this chapter that appeared to be Tezuka speaking directly to the reader. Like there was just a random paragraph thrown in between panels. That's one way to do things I suppose.

The 0 Man origin story was like a mix of the Bible story with Adam and Eve and the story of the first pilgrims that came to America lol. I wonder how much time has passed since the first Venus residents traveled to Earth?

There's a new human character named Charcoal Black...gratefully he's not Black lol

Ch. 37

Ah, I was fooled. Ricky did not crash land on Mars, it was Japan all along! Dun dun dunnn...Apparently most of Earth is just a big ball of rocks at the moment, no countries, towns or roads. It's kinda giving Dr. Stone vibes. They gotta start again from scratch!

Ricky goes all "shaggy dog" in this chapter when...absurdly...a sheepdog provides him with a dog suit so he can disguise himself around humans who want him dead. Sure, why not? Seeing the dog emote was really cute, I wouldn't mind reading a Tezuka manga with dogs as the main characters.

The current bad guy's plan is to use the ice machine left behind by the 0 men to rule the world. The 0 man universe sure has a lot of megalomaniacs in it.

Ch. 38

Pete just immediately accepting that talking dogs are real was cute

Once again the spears are OP as heck.

Did Pete really fly from America to Japan in like 2 seconds? Man, why do SciFi people get all the fun? 😭

This chapter was really short, but essentially Pete found out about the evil dude's plan to take over the world and came to Japan to reunite with Ricky and meet Tanigawa (the other human dude that I mentioned).

Ch. 39

Charcoal Grey returns and we find out he was helping the grand priest hide. I swear this series has had like 15 random, generic villain dudes. I haven't cared about a single one of them lol

It was nice having some happy, peaceful panels at the end. Very "Disney movie-esque." I didn't even really realize how little plant life there's been in the past volumes until Ricky got so excited to see grass. Wholesome but sad.

Ch. 40

Liz fights with her dad and eventually blows up the ice machine when he threatens to use it again. (She continued to be quite badass in this chapter, we stan).

I enjoyed the little detail that the climate change has stimulated some new plant species to evolve. I doubt things would happen that quickly, but it's still a fun concept.

Ch. 41

I guess it's all happy fun times from here on? Let's see what happens in the final 4 chapters...This one was short and cute. Ricky and his 0 man friend/adopted brother (never figured his name out lol) become peace ambassadors and bring messages from humanity to 0-man country

This is it's 2nd appearance but I like the "spicalia" tool that the 0-men use. I takes words as input and outputs images. I hate to say it...but we've sort of reached that future with the advent of AI image generators. (Too bad they suck).

Ch. 42

Lol I knew the happy fun times were too good to be true. We immediately get too more deaths in this chapter (Professor Royal and Crazy Cats...yeah, that's a character's name). If this wasn't a kids manga, Ricky would be a basket case riddled with PTSD by this point with all the shit he's been through!

I can't believe the frickin' high priest and Liz survived. Did that bomb actually do anything at all? Ugh, I hate pointless fake outs like that. Okay, let's see how they actually defeat him for real for real this time...

Ch. 43

To be honest, every chapter is starting to feel the same at this point. "Ah, we're finally safe...just kidding we're under attack!!!"

For some reason they thought it would be a good idea to introduce a random side character 3 chapters from the end of this series. He's the stereotypical dumb fat guy character who just eats a lot. Speaking of offensive stereotypes...

This was like the racism chapter. First we have Tezuka's racist stereotypes of Black, Chinese, Inuit ("Eskimo") which I suppose is "well intentioned" by 1960s standards (but come on, he basically had the Black person and the Inuit say "Oonga boonga" gibberish) and then we have racism between bad guys. One of them calls Japan a backwards country and basically says that "yellow" people are inferior. It just felt ironic to have Tezuka's racism (portrayed as inspirational) and then his character's racism (portrayed as bad) back to back, the irony!

Damn, will all these villains just die already!?

Ch. 44

Lol well egg on my face, that guy that was "introduced" last chapter was actually a character (Donpei) from like volume 1, chapter 1 that I completely forgot existed. To be fair, he hasn't been relevant in a very long time. I don't think I even acknowledged him in my old posts and I tend to not remember stuff I don't write down. (Blogging is great for improving memory, kids!)

And the final battle ends...by the bad guys just disappearing?? Unfortunately the explanation was too kanji heavy for me to grasp, but my headcanon is that the laser that Charcoal Grey was trying to use caused some kind of quantum event and he got sucked into another universe (I have been playing a lot of Steins;Gate though...) Either that or it was just a total bullshit, Deus ex machina moment ending lol.

Ricky comforting Liz when her dad died was super sweet. Low key wanna see them grow old together.

Ch. 45

LMAOOO they really just said "eff dis shit" and moved to Venus LOL. So much for "ally to humanity!" Even Ricky was like "nah...humans suck." Based ending.

No but for real, the ending for this was so dark and cynical. They literally said "we're going to bide our time on Venus until humanity inevitably offs itself out of stupidity, then we'll come back to Earth." Sheesh.

So I'm not sure what the deeper meaning behind this ending is other than "violence and greed = bad." The message about "the weak and kindhearted will always eventually overcome the strong and terrible" seemed like a metaphor for something specific (like an IRL war) but no other English speaker in existence has read this (I'm being hyperbolic) so I have no one to analyze it for me lol.

I kind of wonder if the 0-Man will even be welcome on Venus. They've been away for so long that the squirrel people on Venus are basically a different species. I wonder if they would actually come across as colonizers? That might make an interesting sequel manga...

(Love his expression in this panel. RICKY DOESN'T GIVE A SHIT ANYMORE.)

Chapters 14 & 15

Chapter one was really short so I'm combining things. We kick off after the end of volume 1. The gang accidentally set off a chain reaction of volcanoes. The bad guys try to freeze the ensuing eruption, but that just starts a huge blizzard which will lead to the ice age of their freezing machine isn't stopped. Dun dun dunnn.

I was relieved to get a little levity with the Professor acting nice again and everyone sitting down for dinner. The gag of Ricky's mom being bad at human cooking was pretty lame though (I'm sick of the "a woman who can't cook???" joke in anime).

We got another dead parent!? Sheesh so many deaths in this series. At least Pete didn't really like his dad anyways.

Ricky's tail gets all messed up in this chapter after a plank of wood falls on it and he has to yank it out. For a second I thought he ripped part of it off, but I don't think they'd do that. (Edit: they absolutely do do that).

New 0 men lore: they have a very high tolerance for cold and heat. I kinda feel like they threw that in there to excuse the fact that Ricky's always in short shorts lol

Ch. 16

The professor meets with other academics to explain the current situation and to prove the existence of 0 men. He essentially makes Ricky reveal his tail without his consent which was kind of uncomfy. But the world is literally ending, so I'll allow it lol

So they ultimately decide they need to nuke Japan to destroy the ice machine. Seems like it would be pretty hard to evacuate an entire country fast enough to do that, but okay...

I wonder how often nukes are the answer in apocalyptic stories? I read a book awhile back about giant spiders taking over the planet and nukes were the answer in that situation too. That book was wild...

Ch. 17

The Japanese public evacuate but the 0-men stay behind because...??? I don't really know. Maybe they just have a good nuke shelter or something? Or maybe they need to help the professor.

The joke about children being better behaved than adults during the evacuation was great. I feel like that can be true sometimes because kids are used to the structure of school and learning their manners whereas adults are further removed from those lessons. (Also kids tend towards being less mean spirited in general).

Two new human men are introduced purely for slapstick it seems like. Their jokes are very Three Stooges old timey. I was rolling my eyes, but it's wholesome at least. It was cute when they tied scarves to their pants to be polite (when they saw Ricky's mom's tail).

Abruptly, Ricky's mom gets carted away by sketchy men who want to experiment on her. Dun dun dunnnn

Ch. 18

Tezuka sure packed a lot into this chapter. The gang saved Ricky's mom, had a shoot out, escaped to the professor's base and then the villain kinda forgave Ricky because he protected the base from a bomb? Whirlwind.

By the way, I don't know anyone's names because I can't read kanji names lol (katakana names are all good though)

This chapter was pretty violent! I was momentarily traumatized by Ricky's mom's leg and tail snapping off until they revealed it was a mannequin. It was still kind effed up to see! Also Ricky just spears a dude almost to death. Hardcore for a little guy.

On top of the violence, seeing someone being experimented on with dry ice as they yell "please, I'm a living being!!" is pretty distressing as well. I don't even know for sure if everything's gonna be fine because they already killed off a few people...

Ch. 19

Dangit, I wish this was translated by...anybody! There isn't even a fan translation. I'm just barely scraping by with my kanji reading skills but I'm missing out on a lot. For example, Ricky and the other 0 men refuse to evacuate to the underground. Why? IDK...Also, the nuke seemingly does nothing after they launch it. Did they explain why? Maybe, but I missed it if they did. Oh well...I still get the jist.

Seeing everyone prep for the launch of the missile and pre-mourn the loss of their country was really sad. I'm glad such plot points aren't too taboo in Japan. They explore this stuff a lot.

Ch. 20

And this is the chapter where I remember that Tezuka was definitely a furry lol. I don't say that mockingly, I love his animal/anthro illustrations. They just feature so prominently in his work.

Pretty crazy to find out that Ricky's dad is still alive like a zillion chapters after he "died." I mean...saw it coming, but the timing is unusual.

The shenanigans were fun this time because they realize it's "Muu Muu day" in the 0-man kingdom. This is apparently a day where everyone dresses up like animals, including humans, so a human showing up isn't suspicious. Ricky looked really cute in his squirrel costume.

I've gradually started to notice more creative panel arrangements and lettering showing up. It's interesting to see Japanese characters written in wacky ways that I'm not used to. Seems like it would be tricky to write kanji in bubble letters...

Ch. 21

Sheeesh, this manga is wild. It almost feels like every chapter there's some new apocalyptic event. Also, a surprising amount of death.

The cliffhanger ending for this chapter was Ricky and his dad plummeting from space in a spaceship, crash landing and then dad finding Ricky's disembodied tail!?

Okay, there's no way that Ricky really lost his iconic tail. What's the explanation gonna be this time...? (Edit: Nope, he actually lost his tail).

Ch. 22

This chapter had everything: random Popeye cameo, casual racism towards Fiji and Native Americans, and a Titanic parody where the Titanic was called the Tihenic (get it, because taihen? I laughed...)

So instead of global warming we have global freezing. An interesting concept nowadays. I guess the polar bears would flourish? Or would they still suffer because they need some water to hunt...hmmm

This was a Ricky-free chapter. Instead we caught up with Pete in America who is apparently staying with a new professor whose name I forgot immediately. His hair is pretty terrible. Pete and professor bad hair are being forced to build a rocket so that this evil dude can escape Earth. Sounds like something Elon would do lol

Ch. 23

Okay, so Ricky really did lose his tail, that's crazy. He's practically just a normal boy now.

It was really depressing when Ricky's dad thought he was finally experiencing some human kindness only for them to betray him :'(

I feel like we've kinda lost the plot at this point. Or maybe this manga was always intended to be episodic? The apocalyptic ice age stuff still lingers in the background, but the 0-man characters are kind of just ignoring that and trying to survive. (Edit: that plot line does come back as the main focus).

Ch. 24

Damn, someone needs to get Ricky a new pair of pants. Poor kid is just going around with a huge rip on the bottom.

The revelation that Ricky's lost some of his balance due to not having a tail anymore was interesting. I wonder if prosthetic tails exist in this universe?

Not really sure how Ricky ended up finding Pete and Professor Royal (learned his name). Good to see the gang back together even though they weren't apart for very long to begin with lol.

The gag with the driver crying over Ricky and being given wind shield wipers for his eyes was cute

Ch. 25

Lol is it just me or were they all concerned with saving Ricky and then they just immediately gave up and started building rockets instead? I guess they've assumed he's dead by now.