Bio-Meat: Nectar

Bio-Meat: Nectar is a Survival Horror action manga by Fujisawa Yuki. It takes place in Japan Twenty Minutes Into the Future, where a world food shortage and growing landfill problem plague humanity. Researchers in Japan, through the magic of genetic engineering, create Bio-Meat, or B-M for short. They are genetically modified creatures that are easy to breed, and provide a viable food source for the whole world. In addition, they will eat anything, even inorganic materials like plastic and vinyl, with the exceptions of glass, fiberglass, and metal.

The main character is Maaya Kan, an elementary school student who has recently moved from Osaka to Tokyo, and is having trouble adjusting due to his violent personality and strange sense of humor. The area he lives in is right outside the B-M processing facility, and when an earthquake strikes, there is a containment breach and the little suckers break out and run amok in town.

Did we mention they eat anything?

Now Kan and his fellow classmates have to try and survive the onslaught of B-M, as well as the Government's efforts to cover it up. Despite being a shounen series, the sheer amount of fatalities and gore are astounding. Runs for 12 volumes.

Tropes used in Bio-Meat: Nectar include:
  • Adaptive Ability: The USBM.
  • Adults Are Useless: Towards the beginning, God yes. However, after the first outbreak, they become slightly more useful (emphasis on slightly). Averted entirely when in the end of the series, the main characters themselves are adults.
  • Action Survivor: Kan's group. All of them.
  • Affably Evil: Jean Cloche
  • After the End: The second timeskip.
  • America Saves the Day: Painfully subverted, since the second outbreak was America's fault, and US troops have a bad habit of either mucking things up further, or dying painfully. Sometimes both. Played straight when at the end the US Navy loans the nuclear generators on their aircraft carriers to power the anti-B-M weapon.
  • A Million Is a Statistic: Japan's estimated population, 2010: 127,420,000. Surviving population by the end of the series: ~250,000.
  • Art Major Biology: The B-M, in more ways than one.
  • Asshole Victim: Many of the people who are eaten by the B-M.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The USBM, slightly and cleverly subverted in that it corners victims in a tiny space instead of climbing a skyscraper. And who said that it couldn't think?
  • Awesome McCoolname: Far East Regional Commander of the United States Army, Crackstar Douglas!!
  • Axe Crazy: The terrorist group's field commander reveals himself to be this when he decides the best way to change Japan for the better is to create a new B-M outbreak while sporting a Slasher Smile that would make the Joker proud.
  • The Atoner: Shingo
  • Badass Bookworm: Shingou, Kiryuu.
  • Badass Normal: The Commander of Conquest can effortlessly kill any number of armed attackers with his bare hands without breaking a sweat, or even slowing down.
  • Beauty Equals Goodness: Note in the beginning how many of the Asshole Victims are Gonks, and how few of them are attractive people (and even then, most of the pretty Asshole Victims get at least one good Gonk moment in before they kick it). Banba's the only ugly character who's a good guy.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Kan revels in this trope, having actually said that an arrival needs to be dramatic.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: Maaya, Ginji.
  • Big OMG: It's the last line spoken in the manga.
  • The Big Guy: Banba, later Kiryuu as well.
  • Bishounen: Shingo, even as a little kid.
    • Shinoura also comes to take this role, even after he grows a pair.
  • Bland-Name Product: The "Pose" (Bose) speaker system in the second arc.
  • Calling the Old Man Out: Shingo does this a lot. With good reason.
  • Cassandra Truth: Kanomiya at the very beginning. Their loss.
  • Casual Danger Dialog: Kan's True Companions do this a lot, particularly during the second outbreak. Notably, other people find this behavior to be significantly creepy, with most of them chalking it up to the kids being Shell Shocked Veterans once they get the full story.
  • Chest Burster: One of the many fun powers of the USBM.
  • Child Soldiers: Genji and Miharu.
  • Colonel Badass: The Colonel of the American forces during the second outbreak. Also a Cool Old Guy Badass Grandpa (though not literally: apparently he never had kids) with a Badass Mustache.
  • Combat Tentacles: The USBM. Clever tentacle strategy led to its escape in the first place, as it grew microfilament tentacles that slithered through its oxygen vents and infected numerous poor bastards.
  • Compliment Backfire: Shinoura calls Kanomiya "strong", but she just wants to be normal.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Toujou and the other government ministers are a municipal version of this. In order to ensure that the public never learns the truth about the B-M (which would likely ruin Japan's economy) or the USBM (which would likely ruin America's), they firebomb a town at the end of the first outbreak and slaughter an entire building full of innocent civilians during the second. And they smoke in a no-smoking section of the building, those bastards.
  • Cozy Catastrophe: When the B-M finally dominate huge chunks of Japan, life eventually achieves a certain disquieting stability. It's played for a quiet sort of horror, and the scenes that call out this complacency may be the most subtle and affecting Green Aesop in the comic.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Being eaten alive by the B-M sucks.
    • Especially when you realize that the B-M have no incisors or canines, only molars. So when the B-M eat you alive, they aren't even slicing chunks of flesh off you—they're chewing you to death.
  • The Determinator: Everyone who survives.
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: The fourth outbreak was so close to being averted. The first and third outbreaks were caused by rather improbable sets of circumstances as well.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Shingo, most of the time.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The B-M are destructive, disgusting, and are nonetheless the backbone of society—take them away and the Earth goes down the tubes with a quickness. They're metaphors for everything humanity and society depend on despite how destructive they are, from nuclear power and fossil fuels to advanced weapons of war.
  • Dramatic Irony: Near the end of the second outbreak, Shingo goes through a lot of angst about broadcasting the feeding signal to draw the B-M to the top of the tower, since that's basically doing the same thing that killed 30 innocent people not too long ago. As it turns out, he needn't have worried -- the B-M were already on their way up, thanks to the actions of one particularly dim-witted survivor.
  • Dying Like Animals: Mice, Ostriches, Mules, Boars, Chickens, Wolves, Weasels, and Foxes abound.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: Or at least your surival through the next timeskip Or the ending.
  • Everybody ...Lives: Every member of the True Companions makes it out alive, if not entirely whole. Not in the True Companions? Hoo boy, better hope you get in on the action before the volume ends or you're as good as dead.
  • Evil Versus Evil: Cloche vs Toujou. Additionally, the USBM is stopped by getting them in the same room as the B-M and letting the two monstrosities eat each other until one dies. The original B-M win.
  • Expy: Probably not intentional, but with their Colonel's two-headed eagle insignia, their imposing gas masks, their propensity for killing things with fire, their willingness to slaughter unarmed civilians for the good of their country, and their eventual fate, the American forces in part 2 wouldn't be out of place in the Imperial Guard.
  • Extreme Omnivore: The B-M. The little bastards will eat anything not metal or glass. This includes, but is not limited to: garbage, tires, people, trees, wire insulation, and more. They also seem to ignore dirt and rock. It's explained that they prefer organic matter, but in its absence will nibble on whatever they can find 'til they locate something they can digest. This makes armor (that we see) useless, as their victims get chewed up through their suits.
  • Five-Man Band:
  • Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Toujou.
  • Fridge Logic: The series' big weakness is in the huge number of bad decisions that made the B-M dangerous and keep them dangerous. Allowing for that, though, it's a fast-paced and riveting survival horror.
  • Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: The B-M, obviously.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: EVERYTHING concerning B-M or imitations like the USBM eventually do this.
    • Gone Horribly Right: On the bright side, they really do eat practically everything! And will, in fact, eat anything, or anyone, they can.
  • Gonk: Banba as the most notable example (i.e. the one who's heroic and therefore survives longest), along with several others. By the third arc, Banba's largely grown out of it.
    • Literally every obviously ugly character in the series ends up dead. It gets to the point that you can pick the first victim out of a crowd based on the art.
  • Green Aesop: The series could be seen as one.
  • Groin Attack: Kan to a bullying kid early in the series:

YOUR DICK IS REVOKED!

  • Heroic BSOD: Lots of little ones here and there, but Shingo gets his biggest one during the second outbreak when his plan to bring the B-M and the USBM together for a big throw-down ends up killing 30 people that had taken shelter in an office. Kamomiya and Banba get theirs when the USBM first appears, and it takes Kan pulling a Big Damn Heroes to snap them out of it.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Especially during the second outbreak, and often coupled with Redemption Equals Death. Lampshaded by the female news reporter, who points out how fucked up it is that everyone's all right with the idea of people dying so long as they don't die in vain.
    • Interestingly, this is also how she chose to die, to save Lune.
  • Hollywood Evolution: The B-M can evolve at an alarming rate due to their high cellular division and generational rates. This is mostly expressed through a gradual change in B-M eatin' tactics and through the USBM.
    • Although the only major change the B-M show is being able to regenerate From a Single Cell towards the end.
  • Hope Spot: The entire series. The B-M have destroyed the last city in the South, but with the help of the American fleet and Japanese technology, they finally have a way to beat back the horde. Over the next 50-100 years, they'll eventually take back Japan, which will make for some amazing farmland for the rest of the world. Then the last page of the series reveals that the US has decided to restart the USBM project.
  • Hot Mom: Kan has one. May she rest in peace.
  • Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Platonically, we have Kanomiya and Banba as of Part II. Not so platonically, Part III gives us Kiryuu and Lune.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters who make Art Major Biology ExtremeOmnivores, can't control them, are too busy picking on each other to save themselves/do nothing but try to save themselves, and almost never learn the lesson. There are just enough exceptions that the True Companions and co may yet stop the revival of USBM.
  • The Idiot From Osaka: Kan, naturally.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: Shingo not doing what he had to do -- napalming a city -- resulted in the entirety of Japan being eaten alive by B-M.
    • The situation was less immediately dangerous than that, and in most worlds napalming a village to get a pair of thieves with a presently-contained sample of bioweapon would have been deemed insane. However, betting on people not being Too Dumb to Live apparently is futile in this manga.
  • Idiot Ball: While a lot of the initial outbreaks are understandable accidents, people's response to the B-M tends to be turn on each other, ignore the advice of anyone who knows about them, assume people screaming NO DON'T DO IT is some trick, and start petty squabbles. Even more egregiously, later on the US military triggers an outbreak with the intent of containing it and taking over B-M production. Once they get out of the building, it turns out they don't even know the bare basics of B-M biology, such as that they move toward sound. And when they promptly start doing so, and the commander is told they need to stop making noise? He assumes it's a trick.
    • The development of the Bio-Meat in general. There's an argument for every single aspect of the B-M's physiology being the result of someone on the design team holding an Idiot Ball.
  • Immune to Bullets: The, shall we say, minimalistic biology of the B-M renders them extremely difficult to put down with plain ol' bullets. But at least they burn really nicely.
  • Improvised Weapon: The aerosol flamethrowers. Something of a signature weapon in the series.
  • It Got Worse: "Hey, we may be able to escape the city!" It rains, cue B-M coming back. "We found help!" They want us dead to cover everything up. "The B-M are now contained, and we have implements to stop them now!" A newer, smarter, stronger B-M is created. It goes on like that a lot.
  • It Can Think: The USBM. Not that it helped any.
  • Jerkass: A ridiculous amount, but the one who stands out most is the creator of the USBM. He's so conceited that he's the only one who doesn't see his Karmic Death coming. Honorable mention goes to the protagonists' classmates during the first outbreak - so preoccupied with heckling them after cutting off their means of return, they don't think about closing off their safe spot until it's too late. These characters are even described as Asshole Victims in the extras.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: What the commander of Conquest does in chapter 77. And it only gets worse from there...
  • Just Ignore It: The attitude of a few of the survivors. They usually become ex-survivors once they spout this brilliant idea. Subverted when the trick to avoid detection is to quite literally ignore the B-M by not moving an inch as they pass by.
  • Karmic Death: The aforementioned Asshole Victims, and lots (and lots, and lots, and lots...) of Darwin Awards candidates mostly, with LOTS of overlap.
  • Kids Are Cruel: The other kids in the True Companions' elementary school class. It gets them killed.
    • Subverted with Banba, who reforms once he figures out that his victims make better friends.
  • Kill'Em All: Tojou and gang don't want anyone spilling their secrets, so even if you should avoid the Bio-Meat you'll be free game for the clean-up crew.
  • Kill It with Fire: Fire kills B-M the best...
  • Kryptonite Factor: ... and they go dormant in direct sunlight. (Only direct sunlight, though, so if it's overcast you're in trouble.) There are high-tech experimental weapons that break them down at a genetic level, but they're rather rare and delicate.
    • Kill It with Water: The B-M are also weak to salt water, dying almost instantly upon submersion. The good news is that this makes global outbreaks harder. The bad news is that it doesn't prevent islands from becoming deathtraps.
  • Lamarck Was Right: The USBM basically wishes itself free with fortuitous evolution.
  • Manga Flamethrowers Suck: The flamethrowers in this series act more like heat rays scorching enemies to death. They even run off of "flamethrower cartridges" instead of weighty tanks of fuel. Not a great deal actually gets set on fire, and someone firing a flamethrower into the air to get attention doesn't get rained on by burning fuel afterward. Might be handwaved by advances in flamethrower tech, but actually being able to light shit on persistent fire would've come in handy a few times.
  • Man of Wealth and Taste: Toujou and Jean Cloche - wealthy, powerful, impeccably dressed... and absolutely evil to their soulless, rotten cores.
  • Meaningful Name: Toujou, you say?
  • My Country, Right or Wrong: What eventually causes the American troops to slaughter the civilians in the building en masse in order to cover up the USBM outbreak. Notably, the American Colonel is the one who points out that most of the people in the building are Japanese; none of the Japanese officials in the command center so much as bat an eye.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: During the second outbreak, the kids go to great lengths to save the perpetually useless Dr. Dreks in order to prove a point to Toujou, and somehow manage to keep him alive long enough to escape the building, losing several other survivors along the way via Heroic Sacrifice. Turns out the asshole's carrying USBM spores, and of course he decides to take a swig of water as soon as their escape helicopter is clear of the building. The resulting USBM forces Colonel Badass to make one last Heroic Sacrifice, crashing the helicopter with both of them in it.
    • Also, by killing off the only remaining survivor of the American forces, ensuring that no one was left to report back to their superiors, the kids may have indirectly caused the sequence of events leading to the United States restarting USBM research in the Twist Ending. Of course, given the nature of the world they live in, this probably would have happened regardless.
    • Was there a way to stop Tojou, Sr. from becoming the Complete Monster with a resounding Lack of Empathy we all know and hate? Yes. Now, if only Shingo hadn't repeatedly pushed him away as a kid, he may have actually had a Morality Pet instead of a son to kick.
  • Nominal Importance: Inverted with the Colonel. We never do learn his name, yet he survives far longer and accomplishes far more than many characters whose names we do learn.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Actually averted, for the most part. While the main cast do occasionally say something like "You fools, you don't know what you're doing!", they usually take the time to follow it up with an explanation of why they shouldn't be doing that and exactly what the B-M are capable of. The problem is, most adults aren't all that concerned with what a few snot-nosed kids are trying to say...
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Kan and Shingo.
  • She's All Grown Up: Kanomiya in part 2.

Kan: Wow, you've really been growing, Kano-chan. Your boobs, I mean.
Kanomiya: (smiling) I'll hit you later.

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