14歳

FOURTEEN

MANGA

STATUS
COMPLETE
VOLUMES
20
RELEASE
October 30, 1995
CHAPTERS
260

DESCRIPTION

A SF/horror manga that takes place in 2200. At a chicken manufacturing company, a certain chicken transforms into a supermutant named Chicken George. And so, a nightmarish journey through a twisted version of the future unfolds.

CAST

Chicken George
Chicken Lucy
Arthur Young
Yokko Togawa

CHAPTERS

REVIEWS

TheGruesomeGoblin
99/100
Everything will end at Fourteen! Chicken George and Kazuo Umezu have prophesied it!
In my humblest opinion, spoilers really don't matter for this series. Because experiencing it yourself and reading about it are two entirely different things. Nonetheless, I feel like I should still warn that I basically describe the entire general course of this manga within this review.

Specifically for the purpose of going into how batshit insane it is.

~~Also this review itself is just going to be a whole lot of barely coherent nonsense.~~

You see this right here?

That is a motherfucking chicken.

Kazuo Umezu would have you believe that humanity as a whole is terrible. We pollute, we cut down trees, we (not including vegetarians and vegans) kill and eat animals, we fuck this planet up on a day to day basis. But above all, we eat chickens. We eat the ever living shit out of them.

We rip the tender chicken flesh from their bones by the bucket full. We pile their bones in a stack upon our plates as if chicken eating were a competition.

Disclaimer: this image is from Google Images and not from me. My pile of chicken bones would have been even higher. Fear me you fowl demons I shall consume all of thee.

We savor the flesh of their unborn young fried or scrambled. In the United States alone, we slaughter approximately 9 billion chickens (unbiased source: PETA)

so we can fulfill our quench for chicken flesh. Fried, barbecued, baked... we must have it. We must have the chicken flesh!

But there is a legend. With every chicken that falls by our hands, his arrival is brought ever closer to fruition. Kazuo Umezu is the prophet of this disastrous possibility that awaits us.

He tells of a godlike chicken that shall emerge following the extinction of chickens altogether. For even once the last fowl is felled, humanity's hunger shall not abide.

We shall use twisted science to genetically manufacture new chicken flesh for all humans to dine on.

But alas! That shall be our undoing! For from that mystery liquid of chicken gravy and bits, a creature shall be born.

And from that day onward, humanity's fate shall be sealed! And our unholy destroyer's name?

THE LEGEND OF CHICKEN GEORGE

...Typically, the wacky introduction of a TGG review is just goofy nonsense for the sake of nonsense. But that whole fucking spiel is 100% serious and relevant to this manga. Kazuo Umezu is a fucking madman.

I genuinely don't know how much of this manga is him being serious and him just fucking around. If you told me that he wasn't just whipping nonsense at the wall to see how long he could possibly continue this manga, I would be very surprised.

I think a very sizable amount of the people who would try and read this would get to maybe Chicken George's introduction and they would think to themselves:

"Okay. This motherfucking chicken man who just a couple of hours ago was just an eyeball attached to a chicken breast created from a vat of goo and chicken juice just learned the entirety of calculus, chemistry, physics, and all of the knowledge of the human realm, in just a few hours... I'm done. I'm out."

Those that are sane will process Fourteen as they read it as complete nonsense and immediately seek to escape. But those foolhardy and reckless enough to press on the whole 260 chapters will undertake a magical saga exploring the deepest depths of a man's madness. This isn't a horror manga. This isn't even a manga. This is Kazuo Umezu scrawling his personal prediction of how humanity as a whole is going to end.

And at the heart of it all always is Chicken George. No matter what sort of crazy turn is currently taking place in this manga, the question is always in the back of your head. Where is Chicken George? Is he building a mechanical tyrannosaurus spaceship to flee to space in with all of Earth's animals? Is he developing a super contagious virus that will wipe out all of humanity if ever exposed to them? Is he dead?

Has he become one with the computers after erasing his being from his body after falling in love with one of the humans? Is he in fact actually... a ghost? That can breathe fire? Or is his spirit possessing the President of the United States who has decided everything else has failed so he must become Chicken George?

NOBODY KNOWS FOR SURE. NOT EVEN KAZUO UMEZU.

Pictured: the man himself, prepared to battle the chicken scourge.

THE WEIRDEST APOCALYPSE I'VE EVER SEEN

First, it was the animals.
Then, it was the plants.
Then, not to quote Chicken Little

wait what. Are all the chickens in on this???

but then the sky started falling.

THEN, French food started to get ruined because sand kept appearing in it. We crossed off it being from the Sahara Desert, but we never actually find out where the sand is coming from. To the very day of Fourteen, French cuisine never was the same.

THEN, after discovering the humanity as a whole was fucked once Fourteen came around, we sent a desperate message for help outwards to space for any and all to hear. That's when the giant crucifix made up of many smaller crucifixes began to make its way for our little planet.

But we quickly learned that this was not the Messiah's spacecraft. Perhaps this was an ironic punishment dealt to us for exhuming the actual corpse of Jesus Christ to the people as a tactic to distract them from the impending apocalypse.

No, in actuality, the crucifix was in fact a mothership housing a species of aliens who much like humanity were facing their own apocalypse. The solution they arrived at however was to try to mingle their DNA with another lifeform's DNA and their method of doing so was... well...

Rape. All of humanity proceeded to get raped by aliens, and that really dealt a great blow to morale.

And to make matters worse, the aliens realized that the horrific shit they were doing to us wasn't going to save either of us so they just proceeded to fuck off and the whole of humanity just had to pretend like nothing ever happened and turn their focus back to the apocalypse.

With no other option but to launch the children chosen into space in hopes of humanity surviving on somewhere else as Earth as a whole came to an end as humanity spiraled into despair and began to morphing into horrific nightmare monsters for some reason, the son who really isn't the son of the President of the United States must lead several other children out into space in search of a new world as he deals with various forms of bullshit that threatens their mission.

Like a ghost Chicken George who can breathe fire that's mad because they stole his Tyrannosaurus space ship??? But alas, after the various threats have been dealt with and they can search space in peace for a new world... there's nothing.

Thus, they finally come to the ends of the universe and proceed onwards and... oh, what's this?

...Oh shit. The universe was in actuality just a tiny bug the whole time! But not just that, our bug universe is in a parallel universe where Chicken Humans live happily in humanity's place. And in their infinite wisdom and kindness unlike that of humanity, they help save the life of the little bug. And thus the universe of Fourteen is saved at last.

...Now, I want everyone who is actually still reading this review right now to ask themselves... have you ever once in your life squashed or crushed a bug? Whether it be a fly, a spider, or etc. Because if the answer is yes, well, then I'm sorry to break it to you but in that instant you killed that bug, you destroyed someone else's entire universe.

Just consider that possibility for a second and then proceed to tell me that this ISN'T a horror manga.

This IS a horror manga

and humanity are the monsters.

Seriously, whenever I wasn't marveling the absolute insanity of what I was witnessing or shrinking back in disgust at what I was witnessing, I was just thinking myself:

"Man. This version of humanity fucking deserves all of this."

Like there's becoming lethargic and slothful due to technology advancing so much that you can basically do anything, and then there's "hey let's make a zoo where we can see all the animals who have gone extinct and also chimera creatures that our scientists made for fun."

Hey, let's make artificial human beings and like make a televised wrestling league where these artificial human beings rip each other apart and just straight up fucking rape each other. Remember parents, make sure your children are out of the room as the winning wrestler takes the loser's manhood from them!

Actually, if you take it all the way back to the very beginning of Fourteen, Chicken George's creator's first instinct or well one of them is to try and force this newborn creature born of chicken AND man flesh to willingly announce that the only reason it exists is for someone to eat him.

That's really fucked up just in itself if you take a second to really think about it. At the time though, I was just far too flabbergasted.

Oh yeah, I completely haven't even mentioned one of the most horrific human characters who spends the entirety of Fourteen desperately trying to get an immortality serum created and then ends up in the Space Tyrannosaurus at the end in the body of a child who then proceeds to try and take leadership from the President of America's son so he can then force the other children to---

No. Nope. Never mind. Not even gonna continue that. That... instance, and the whole alien arc is genuinely probably the most fucking disgusting part of this manga and for various reasons, I wish they did not exist. Even if those two sections of the manga were probably the closest this manga got to successfully and genuinely horrifying me.

~~remember this is a horror manga~~

Anyways, my point is, at the end of Fourteen, those chickens should not have saved that bug. They should have crushed it right there and then and put a merciful end to this terrible terrible universe. My headcanon for this series is that after the bug housing his universe was saved, America went back and rebuilt humanity, and then immediately invaded Chicken Universe and then after the defeat of the chickens, the entire manga replays again but instead it's an adult America in the original President's place.

And then Chicken George was born from the vat of chicken goo again like before but this time with his memories of the other universe, and he decides he had originally been correct, and then actually does wipe out all of humanity with his super killer virus.

"Thank Chicken God, humanity's finally dead. Let's go, Chicken Lucy."

And then they walk off into the sunset. Finally at peace.

Fourteen's Largest Flaw

Speaking of Chicken Gods, Chicken George is literally a god.

Like the fact that he was repeatedly somehow foiled by the humans is just complete and utter bullshit. He has shrink ray technology. He has cloning technology. He can bring back any extinct species and this includes the fucking dinosaurs. He builds a fucking magical Space Tyrannosaurus. He has a set of magical stairs that can literally lead to anywhere he wants. Just on a fucking whim he can concoct a virus that'll infect all of humanity within like a day.

His fucking computer tells him the truth of the entire series dozens and dozens of chapters before humanity's even close to learning that they're just completely fucked.

Humanity's busy freaking out about the hair of their kids turning green meanwhile Chicken George is gathering his animals so he can get the fuck out of town before the Fourteen apocalypse arrives.

As the actual most intelligent life-form on the entire planet, Chicken George should not have at any point lost to the humans. The reason for the original and vanilla Chicken George's downfall is upon seeing the humans' broadcast of a woman trying to save her daughter as a hotel collapsed into garbage (???), Chicken George falls in love with the woman.

For some reason.

Number one, he already has Chicken Lucy.
Number two, he hates or at the very least wants to get the fuck away from humanity.
Number three, he even quickly realizes that this is obviously a goof to trick him.
Number four, he was supposed to leave to space with his animals. He could have made his clear and easy getaway right there and then and the humans would have been 100% fucked and powerless to stop it.

But his chicken heart is swayed by the power of love, so he decides to hollow out his brain so he can go be happy and in love but the humans couldn't get at his secrets. And if you thought before that Chicken George looked fucked, then you have not seen happy Chicken George.

HIS EYES LOOK SO DEAD.

CHICKEN GEORGE, WHERE HAVE YOU GONE? THIS SHELL SURELY NO LONGER HOUSES YOUR SOUL. IT IS NOW MERELY A CHICKEN ONCE MORE. BUT HEY, HE'S STILL INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO TRY AND TAKE A CRACK AT HELPING THE HUMANS IN OBTAINING THE IMMORTALITY SERUM.

Also really unexpectedly, the guy from the very beginning even shows back up and has a father/son reunion with Chicken George.

"hey remember that time you killed dogs and nearly drove me insane?"
"hey remember that time you strapped me down and tried to get me to say that the entire reason for my existence was to be deep fried?"

Fun times.

CHICKEN GEORGE SHALL RISE AGAIN.

Have I truly reviewed this manga? Have I even captured two percent of the glory that I have witnessed? I doubt it. It truly is an experience you just have to have on your own. Even with all I've described, even with all I've spoiled, there is so much more. So many more insane twists. So many more insane things.

It's only as I'm typing this that I remember that during the apocalypse, the president is talking with his wife and his wife tells him that she went over his head and approved the legalization of the holiest and dankest of the weeds. To ease the pain and agony all of humanity was undergoing as the apocalypse continued.

And the President of America was like "what the fuck wife. How could you go over my head and give the order to allow access to the 420 BLAZE IT WEED."

I AM NOT JOKING. THIS HAPPENS. I AM NOT JOKING. THIS HAPPENS. I AM NOT JOKING. THIS HAPPENS.

Just like that whole thing where they want to expose the mummified corpse of Jesus Christ to the people, this is brought up and breezed over so quickly that you just go "what?" and then go back to reread it again to make sure if that really just happened.

Or like that time where the President of America meets the global head of the economy and the literal first thing he does is scream at the President

I WANT YOUR INFANT SON. I SUSTAIN MY YOUTH BY FEEDING ON INFANTS. GIVE ME THE BLOOD OF YOUR INFANT SON, PRESIDENT.

And then the President is just like woah fuck
and then the King of Money is all like

haha I'm sorry man that was a pretty fucking weird joke I just made, please sit back down

and then the President does.

Sure, he's the King of the Economy but after someone asks you right out of the gate for the blood of your infant son, negotiations should be taken off the table! Immediately!

If you say Chicken George three times while looking in the mirror you become a chicken

...I really can't even think of anything else to say about this. Other than... well... it's a masterpiece? Like why did I read 260 chapters of this? I could have at any point pulled the plug but I continued onward.

I truly do believe that Kazuo Umezu was just seeing how long he could possibly keep this one series going. Like you could chop this up into numerous other smaller series that could exist on their own and arguably make much more sense by existing on their own. Instead, he jammed them all together to form this fucking odd chicken universe.

And it's beautiful and horrifying all at the same time. And I can truly and unironically say I've never read anything like it, therefore I give it a 99 out of 100.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go apologize for every single chicken I've ever eaten otherwise I'll never be able to

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