December 7. 4:32 PM. Sasahara City, Main Street. A normal afternoon scene plays out. Schoolchildren are making small talk. Locals are shopping for groceries. And then a naked man covered in blood walks out in the middle of the street, sobbing and muttering some incoherent nonsense. A few feet away, a college student is texting his girlfriend and listening to music. Distracted by his phone, the college student collides with the naked man head-on. The students looks up from his phone and immediately goes into shock at the sight of the insane man in front of him. The man grabs the boy's shoulder and attempts to say something to him, only to spew blood onto him. The boy instinctively acts in self-defense and pushes the man away, knocking him over. The man's head makes direct contact with the pavement, cracking his skull and killing him instantly.
Two detectives are sent to investigate the incident: Mizoguchi Ken and Inoue Nao. What seems to be a simple case of a man going crazy, however, quickly escalates into a complex plot that neither of the detectives could have ever anticipated.
Manhole (マンホール) is a Detective Drama manga written and illustrated by Tetsuya Tsutsui. It was serialized in Young Gangan from 2004 to 2006, and has since been assembled into 3 volumes.
In 2009, the first volume was designated as a "harmful book" by Nagasaki Prefecture, banning its sale there. The author, who wouldn't find out about the ban for another 5 years, attempted to overturn it, but was unsuccessful.
Manhole provides examples of:
- Abusive Offspring: Horikawa Yoshito, the first victim, was a 30 year old gambling addict who lived with his elderly parents and would routinely abuse them in order to force them to give away more of their money, which he would then use to keep gambling. It really isn't hard to see why his father was so desperate to get rid of him.
- Addiction Displacement: Mizoguchi is a recovering smoker, but has since displaced his addiction with lollipops. This saves his life in the end, as it stops the Filaria from embedding itself too deeply in his brain.
- Apocalypse How: Shockingly averted for this kind of manga. Throughout the story, there's a subplot about the Filaria spreading to Amamiya Youichi's girlfriend and, due to a number of freak coincidences, a colony of mosquitos form in her apartment and start infecting neighbors. Genre Savvy readers, more likely than not, are going to assume that the Filaria will continue spreading, ultimately culminating in the breakdown of society. That almost happens, but once Mizoguchi and Inoue report the outbreak in their investigation, the NBC Defense Unit nips the crisis in the bud by exterminating every single mosquito in the neighborhood in a matter of hours. It's definitely the kind of thing that can give readers a bit more faith in their country's Emergency Servces.
- Asshole Victim: Deconstructed. The two direct are undoubtedly terrible people. However, the culprit giving both of them the filaria gets a lot of innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire.
- Buddy Cops: A Detective Drama featuring a bickering duo who both bring different skills to the table. Yep.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- In chapter 9, it's established that a Filaria can develop a symbiotic relationship with their host if they're able to keep their desires in check. This ends up being how Mizoguchi survives in the end.
- When discussing Tamura's crimes, the narration mentions that he sent videotapes of the young girl's rape to her grandparents just to torment them, specifically noting that her grandfather watched the videotapes unaware of what they truly were. The grandfather turns out to be the true identity of the culprit, Hiroshi Kurokawa, who developed his current fanaticism because he saw the depravity of Tamura's crimes first-hand.
- Cowboy Cop: Downplayed with Inoue at the climax. After Mizoguchi is seriously injured in a car accident after being infected by the Filaria, Inoue decides to take matters into her own hands before Kurokawa create any more victims and steals a gun from the precinct to apprehend him. After learning through a hacker she had engaged with that Kurokawa is infecting animals around the city with the Filaria, Inoue hides and waits for him at the pound. Once he arrives, Inoue tries to place him under arrest by threatening him at gunpoint. Kurokawa recognizes that what Inoue is doing is illegal and points out that she's going to destroy her career if she shoots him. He turns to walk away, thinking that Inoue won't open fire on him. He thinks wrong.
- Emergency Services: In an unexpected twist for this kind of story, the NBC Defense Unit turns out to be shockingly competent. Genre Savy viewers will likely expect the Filaria epidemic to completely spiral out of control but, once Mizoguchi and Inoue discover the outbreak at Taketoyo-Machi apartments, the government's anti-bioterrorism emergency services are able to nip the crisis in the bud with surprising efficiency.
- Fanservice: In the first chapter, Amamiya Youichi, the college student involved in the inciting incident has sex with his girlfriend Sekiguchi Mika to cheer himself up from what he just went through. It's sexy at the time, but it's played for major Fan Disservice later on. Amamiya unintentionally transfers the Filaria to his girlfriend when saving sex. Due to her not taking care of her imported exotic fish, it dies in its tank, eventually giving birth to a swarm of mosquitos who feast on Sekiguchi's barely conscious body and then proceed spread the Filaria to her neighbors. By the time that emergency services come in to take care of the outbreak, Sekiguchi's naked body is covered head to toe in mosquito bites.
- Genre Mashup: It's a mix of Detective Fiction and Biological Horror.
- Heel–Face Brainwashing: The culprit's true motive. By removing the desires from criminals, he believes that he can create a society free of crime. After all, if a would-be criminal has no desire to commit a crime to begin with, then they simply will not do it. Unfortunately, this isn't accounting for the collateral damage that the culprit racks up.
- Heroic BSoD: [[spoiler:Inoue breaks down into a panic when Mizoguchi is accidentally stabbed with a knife coated in infected blood. It's averted later on, when the filaria breaks out in Mizoguchi and makes him to get into a bad car accident, Inoue is able to keep a level enough head to orally feed him the medicine
- Hope Spot: At Taketoyo-Machi apartments, Mizoguchi is accidentally pierced through the foot by a bloody knife that a Filaria victim had previously cut herself with—one of the only ways in which the Filaria can spread. Mizoguchi does what he can to treat the wound, but tells a panicking Inoue to be prepared for the worst and, if he doesn't make it, then to do whatever she can to take down the culprit. Thankfully, however, Mizoguchi's results come up as negative. As he resumes investigating with Inoue, however, he begins exhibiting many of the symptoms of the Filaria over the next few days. And then once the scientists do a second test on Mizoguchi's blood sample, it comes up as positive. Because of the filarial periodicity
of the parasite, it didn't show up in the previous test because of the time that they performed it, meaning that Mizoguchi actually is a host of the Filaria. And then before the scientists can alert him, he loses motor control when he's driving, causing him to get seriously injured in a car accident. However, it's subverted in the end, as Mizoguchi is able to make a recovery, both because Inoue made him drink the medicine and because him keeping his desires (addiction) allowed him to form a symbiotic relationship with the parasite. He does lose his eye when the Filaria is removed, but that's obviously a small price to pay in return for being alive. - Missed Him by That Much: When investigating the "surgery" site of the first victim, a naked obese man infected with a Filaria escapes from a chair and undoes his bindings as Inoue descends into the sewer. This turns out to be the second victim, Masaki Tamura. Inoue doesn't see him due to the dark sewer but, she shines a light on a travel log bearing the name "Mizuno Misaaki," the culprit's alias, which is enough to make Tamura sneak away into a sewer pipe from sheer terror.
- Nerves of Steel: Inoue by the end. She starts the story as an inexperienced cop who needs to be pestered into stepping out of her comfort zone for her job, but by the end she's able to keep her cool and act in tense situations, as seen by when she chooses to shoot Kurokawa even if it kills her career.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Averted. The police think that Kurokawa is motivated by revenge after discovering that that his granddaughter was the victim of Tamura's horrific rape. This lures them into a false sense of security with Kurokawa, believing that they can stop worrying about the Filaria as they believe it was nothing more than a front for his true motives. It isn't. In reality, however, Kurokawa genuinely believes in the ideology he exposits and has every intent to continue infecting criminals with the Filaria and considers civilians caught in the crossfire to be a necessary sacrifice.
- Old Cop, Young Cop: Although their ages are never outright stated, Mizoguchi is significantly older than Inoue, and as such exhibits far more experience in detective work. Inoue, while lacking her partner's experience in police work, is far more capable of using contemporary technology to gather information.
- Parasitic Horror: The Filaria. While it doesn't directly kill the host, it robs them of basic desires including appetite, sex drive, and even lethargy, prompting the victims to act purely on routine. For example, an infected housewife mindlessly chops food nonstop, not even noticing when she starts chopping off her own fingers.
- Sci-Fi Horror: A more grounded example than most. The story revolves around a fictional parasite that boroughs its way into one's brain, which is played for quite a bit of horror. Despite the fantastical premise, however, the story's conflict is framed in a very realistic and believable manner.
- Ship Tease: Quite a bit between Mizoguchi and Inoue. Inoue is strongly hinted to develop feelings for Mizoguchi and likewise Mizoguchi has a lot of respect for her as his partner.
- Shown Their Work: Although the story revolves around a fictional parasite, one can tell at even a casual glance that quite a bit of research was done into epidemiology. In fact, the author actually confirmed that he came up with the story after researching the topic rather than the other way around.
- Tempting Fate: This little exchange in chapter 2.Inoue: "Ohhh. I guess it's not gonna be, like, a huge incident then, is it?"
Mizoguchi:: "No, it won't." - Well-Intentioned Extremist: Hiroshi Kurokawa. Because the Filaria robs its host of their desires, Kurokawa believes that they could potentially cure society of criminals by making them incapable of committing crimes to begin with. It really isn't hard to see how he developed this mindset, as his cheerful grand-daughter was traumatized by a horrific rape at the hands of Tamura, who recorded the entire thing and later sent video tapes of it to Kurokawa and his wife. With that being said, the Filaria is extremely contagious and can easily spread to innocent bystanders, as is what happened in the case of Horikawa Yoshito. It's indicated that Kurokawa's fanaticism may at least be partially influenced by the fact that he himself is infected with the Filaria.
- Villain Respect: Kurokawa toward Inoue after she shoots him. He commends her for having the determination to take him down even at the cost of her career. He tells her that she'll make a good policewoman before he falls unconscious and is taken into custody.
