Should You Read ‘Rai Rai Rai’?
by Tito W. James
Summary
“Sumire Ichigaya’s got it tough. She’s drowning in debt, surrounded by noisy neighbors, fighting for discount supermarket meals, and working a dead-end job exterminating space vermin left over from a failed alien invasion. It seems like things just can’t get any worse—until she’s abducted by aliens and wakes up with a monstrous new arm and a voice in her head urging her to kill all of humanity!”
The cover of Rai Rai Rai caught my eye because it looked bold and bizarre. The tale quickly establishes its bizarre world of humans fighting alien vermin and giant varmints. Our heroine accidentally merges with a varmint and then is captured by a shadowy government organization tasked with hunting the aliens. If this sounds familiar it’s because it is!
Rai Rai Rai shares many similarities with other popular manga like Chainsaw Man, Dan Da Dan, and Kaiju Number 8. Sumire’s motivation for fighting monsters even felt cut-and-pasted from Denji in Chainsaw Man. While Rai Rai Rai’s first volume is derivative of other stories, it may carve out its own identity as the series develops.
As a fan of Chainsaw Man and Dan Da Dan, I had fun reading Rai Rai Rai. There’s no reason you can’t enjoy Batman, Daredevil, Moon Knight, and Green Arrow even if the characters are similar. Judged by its own merits, the manga has creepy monsters, cute girls, exciting action, and bold comedy. Ultimately, its similarity to other series will be a deal-breaker or additive charm depending on the reader. As for me. I’ll read more to see where it goes.
Rai Rai Rai is available now from VIZ.
