If your a fan of zombies and fish then look no further for your aquatic horror fix. Gyo is the story of a world under siege by at first what seems to be spider versions of the entire underwater kingdom but later turns out to be crazy spider machines that take control of any living thing turning it into a walking biological weapon. The story follows Tadashi and for some part his easily hate able girlfriend Kaori as Tadashi attempts to survive the invasion and look after his girl, discovering the source of the invasion and his uncles involvement in it along the way. While reading this I couldn't help but be reminded of those corny Japanese monster movies along the lines of Gojira (on a smaller scale) but like those movies, it ends up working very well! However its not all sunshine and lollipops for this manga. There was one part that felt like a Naruto filler, something I don't like in my manga. The whole circus chapter was just pure randomness and I feel like it could have been left out.

Where the story gives the manga the feel of a 1950's monster flick the art is what makes it creepy. Ive never seen a more badass looking shark than one with mechanical spider legs and a whole buncha tubes going through it (don't even get me started on the whale). Along these lines the most hideous looking creatures in this manga are the humans themselves, bloated as they are filled with gases and hooked up to those machines (although that tube that can be seen going up the rectum once a human is attached to the machine is rather hilarious). The way the characters are drawn more closely resemble realistic people which adds to the overall mood of the manga itself.

Compared to everything else some of the characters themselves seem some what predictable which is alright really, but it could have been way better. The usual everyman characteristic of survival genres is portrayed as the main character and then theirs the mad scientist and his beautiful assistant. Whats more the circus ringleader, like the whole circus segment of the manga, was way random and didn't appear enough for his character to get fleshed out more. The same could be said for the mad scientist's assistant. She has a few instances of dialouge and right when you think some deeper insight to her is about to get revealed she flies away (literally). What keeps the characters part of this review from getting a 5 instead of the 7 I gave it is Kaori. While reading this manga and further learning of the character that is Kaori I came to the conclusions that I hated her....oh how I hated her. Shes obnoxious, rude, selfish, and jealous (even in death). Now I'm going to assume that the author intended to portray Kaori this way in which case he did an really amazing job.

Overall, despite a trip to random circus and some eye rolling character types, I enjoyed the manga very much. Very rarely do I see a manga pull off horror and although this one can have some comedic characteristics it does a decent job. The art though is what really hooked me, its honestly drawn really well. The feeling of vintage monster movie nostalgia was something I really enjoyed about this manga as well.