“一撃殺虫!!ホイホイさん” (or “Ichigeki Sacchu!! HoiHoi-San” or “One-Shot Bug Killer!! Interceptor Doll HoiHoi-San”) is a manga, originally published in 2003 on the monthly magazine Dengeki Daioh, written and drawn by Kunihiko Tanaka.
Manga cover (Japanese)
The year is 20XX, a future where bugs have become immune to all pesticides. Pests are reproducing at an alarming rate, to combat this threat, the company Mars Pharmaceutical mass-produces a small, highly-customizable, highly-marketable, exterminator robot known as HoiHoi-San. This would bring about the era of interceptor dolls.
The audience gets to experiende the derangement daily lives of people now co-existing with these dolls through a rotating cast of characters: Aburatsubo, the main protagonist, a guy that doesn’t have much going on who becomes obsessed with them; Kimiko Dewa, a pharmacist that is disgusted by the sigth of HoiHoi-San dolls; Furuyashiki, the product development chief at Mars Pharmaceutical who tries to keep HoiHoi-San in line with his vision; and Mutsumi “Mu-Chan” Shinazugawa, friend of Kimiko who loves HoiHoi-San, and who is a bit of a sociopath.
Aburatsubo
Kimiko
Furuyashiki
Mutsumi
The story follows the rise of the interceptor dolls and the people who like them. Since, outside of being just another house appliance, they are basically figures/dolls with lots of customization potential, becoming an interceptor doll collector/otaku is encouraged by the companies themselves.
There’s a lot of satirizing of the Expensive Plastic industry (gunpla and such) and fandom culture in general. More specifically, the obsessive and consumerist behavior of fans and the scummy marketing practies of companies. While this makes it sound serious, its taken to silly extremes for the sake of comedy (at least while your gundam isn’t able to execute your evangelion figure for now).
While the plot is scarce, being your typical gag-manga, you’ll still find a lot of action sequences. Kunihiko’s art-stlye lends itself very well to rendering scenes of cute characters executing living things mercilessly.
There's not a lack of robot-on-robot violence either
And while it makes fun of those that get obsessed with moe maid robots, it pretty much expects the reader to do the same. So, don’t feel bad if you end up using all your life-savings on HoiHoi-San merch.
Average HoiHoi-San fan