Manga Review - Emerging - Realistic Disease

All the mangas I have read involving a disease that creates havoc on society are generally unrealistic, but then again it's supposed to create shock/horror in the readers. Emerging explores a new disease that essentially melts the human body, through multiple stages. And the best thing is that it's somewhat realistic, and I like to see the quarantine aspect of a disease.

The story starts off with two main doctors, who are just working their asses off in a hospital, and we get introduced to some characters that will have some relevance in the plot. The climax starts when an office worker feels sick and his body swells up, and eventually expunge blood from his body and proceeds to fall dead. If that happened in real life, that would have been an extremely traumatic experience. Subsequently, when it comes to diseases, blood is usually a medium for disease transmission, and many people come into contact with the blood. One of the characters we have met earlier (the girl - Akari) has a cut on her finger, and the infected blood goes into her system. OH NO! The beginning of the end has started..... 

Eventually more and more people end up in hospital with similar conditions, and the two main doctors eventually make contact with Japan's Infectious Disease Center, and discover that the disease is not Ebola, but a completely unknown virus pathogen. This creates many complications, and we also see the aspect of society that is oblivious to widespread death. The story also shows the head of the Infectious Disease Center lie to the public about the disease is under containment, and his only reasoning for doing so was that he didn't want to see the stock market go down. It really highlights how realistic the manga is - how people are so greedy even in dire times. Anyway, back onto the main aspect of the manga; we see more and more casualties as the scientists work tirelessly to find a vaccine. Eventually Akari's boyfriend kisses the infected Akari, and we see that he doesn't show any symptoms of the disease, and the scientists make a vaccine from his blood.

The ending was a very suitable ending - we assume that the complication is all resolved, but the scientists and the last chapter talks about how they have only slowed down the disease, and we eventually see the disease pop up once again. I say this is realistic, because diseases are always evolving - kinda like Ebola - Ebola has been around for so long, but it returned with a huge impact on society (more impact on Africa than the world). I can understand if someone is displeased with this ending since everyone wants a conclusion, but sometimes it's good to end it on a open-ended note because some things should be left to our own imaginations.

Overall, the manga is a short and sweet depiction of a viral disease, and how we attempt to contain the disease. Also, the art shouldn't be glanced over either - it has your usual body horror, so you won't be disappointed. What I liked about the manga's disease was that it could be a real disease as it apparently disintegrates the collagen in our bodies (what holds our bones, skin, tissue together), and slowly melting us. DAMN! It's 22 chapters only so reading this wouldn't really waste too much of your time if you didn't like it.

Overall Score: (7.25/10)

Story: 7/10

Characters: 6/10

Art: 8/10

Enjoyment: 7/10