We interrupt your regularly scheduled, letter-by-letter installment of The Favorites Alphabet in honor of the horror-tinged Manga Moveable Feast! This week, the Manga Bookshelf Battle Robot retreated to the dank catacombs of our secret base to conjure the spirits of our favorite spooky manga! Read on… if you dare!
“The Enigma of Amigara Fault” | By Junji Ito | VIZ Media - I haven’t read much horror manga. In fact, aside from the delightfully bizarre Tokyo Zombie and one volume (so far) of The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, my experience is limited to the works of Junji Ito. While Gyo and Uzumaki certainly deliver weird and disturbing tales, it’s “The Enigma of Amigara Fault,” a short story that appeared in Gyo’s second volume, that I find most memorable. In it, an earthquake has revealed a rock formation riddled with human-shaped holes that go farther back into the rock than researchers are able to measure. People flock to the site, drawn to holes that seem to be custom-made for them. Those who enter the holes are committed to moving forward with some profoundly jibbly-inducing results. Just thinking about it is kind of giving me a wiggins. Look for images from this one in this weekend’s Let’s Get Visual column! - Michelle Smith
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service | By Eiji Ōtsuka and Housui Yamazaki | Dark Horse - Despite my ongoing reviews of Higurashi: When They Cry, I’m not really a big reader of horror manga, tending to find it too scary. Which says more about me than about the genre. However, I picked up Volume 1 of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service for its unusual cover, as well as the fact that it was translated and edited by Carl Horn. Imagine my surprise when I got one of the funniest, most satiric, and, yes, scariest manga coming out here. For our heroes, dealing with corpses isn’t like searching for mysteries a la Scooby Doo – it’s a job, and they are usually trying desperately to get paid. It just so happens that their various skills go really well with solving problems involving dead bodies. Nestled in among the sarcastic dialogue and long pointed looks at Japanese politics and society is some really creepy imagery – watch out for the chapter with the birds, or the one with the ears. - Sean Gaffney
Parasyte | By Hitoshi Iwaaki | Del Rey – There are just so many reasons this eight-volume series is awesome, not least of which is Iwaaki’s facility with really gruesome and surprising bits of violence. It’s an invasive-species nightmare scenario featuring bizarre space spores taking over indigenous creatures (mostly human) and turning them into ravenous, shape-shifting, and dangerously intelligent predators. Fortunately, one of the parasites doesn’t quite make it to its host’s brain, turning average teen Shinichi Izumi into humanity’s best protector, and his right hand into a formidable defensive weapon, not to mention an adorable and insightful pet! Iwaaki jumbles a lot of elements together – coming-of-age drama, violent suspense, evolutionary theory, family tragedy, and boy-and-his-dog sentiment. The beauty part is that Iwaaki jumbles it all well, making for one of the most beginning-to-end satisfying tales you’re likely to find on the manga shelves. Originally published by Tokyopop, Del Rey picked up this out-of-print gem and did a bang-up job repackaging it. – David Welsh
School Zone | By Kanako Inuki | Dark Horse - In this odd, hallucinatory, and sometimes very funny series, a group of students summon the ghosts of people who died on school grounds, unleashing the spirits’ wrath on their unsuspecting classmates. School Zone is as much a meditation on childhood fears of being ridiculed or ostracized as it is a traditional ghost story; time and again, the students’ own response to the ghosts is often more horrific than the ghosts’ behavior. Inuki’s artwork isn’t as gory or imaginative as some of her peers’, though she demonstrates a genuine flair for comically gruesome thrills: one girl is dragged into a toilet, for example, while another is attacked by a scaly, long-armed creature that lives in the infirmary. Where Inuki really shines, however, is in her ability to capture the primal terror that a dark, empty building can inspire in the most rational person. Even when the story takes one its many silly detours — and yes, there are many WTF?! moments in School Zone — Inuki makes us feel her characters’ vulnerability as they explore the school grounds after hours. - Katherine Dacey
Tokyo Babylon | By CLAMP | TOKYOPOP - When David suggested that we all pick favorite horror manga for this week, at first I thought I didn’t have any. Though horror movies were a favorite genre once upon a time, that preference never really transferred to print for me, or at least I didn’t think it had. Then I realized that some of my most beloved occult-themed comics fall closer to the horror mark than I thought. My favorite of these (and indeed, one of my favorite comics of all time) is CLAMP’s 20-year-old series, Tokyo Babylon. Complete in just seven volumes, it’s a decidedly immature work, featuring uneven storytelling, outrageous outfits, and one of the strangest, most over-the-top examples of BL-leaning shôjo I’ve seen to date. On the other hand, not only does it finally rip our hearts out with the precision of a serial killer, but it scares the bejeezus out of us all along the way. This is a dark, cruel little series, that takes real joy in its emotional shock value, and its occult setting provides ample opportunity for that quality. Not that I’m complaining. When I look at the images I chose for my review of the series , I can see that I picked out several of those that had creeped me out the most. For genuine scares and emotional brutality all wrapped up in one delicious “classic” shôjo package, you can’t beat Tokyo Babylon. – Melinda Beasi
What are your favorite horror stories?
This is tough. I think I ultimately like Parasyte more than The Drifting Classroom … but I think the Drifting Classroom is spookier than Parasyte. Let’s say it’s a tie for me.
Amigara Fault is most certainly the creepiest short story I’ve ever read. I also really like Uzumaki though, the spirals, man, you’ll never look at them the same ever again!
I also loved Parasyte. Never read the Tokyopop editions, but when I’m in comic book stores and see one I go “oh man! An old Mixx Parasyte! Hilarious!” and flip through it. Glad I got the DelRey as they came out, that’s now OOP too it seems.
Petshop of Horrors is another one I enjoyed. Not all the stories are pure horror, but man, the creepy ones are really creepy!
I always really dug Fraken Fran, which reads a bit like if Black Jack was a teenage girl and possessed a truly warped set of Medical Ethics.
Oh trust me, if it was licensed I would be ALL OVER Franken Fran.
I like to think of Franken Fran as Pinoko all grown up, and being raised with the Doctor’s medical skill would make her a prime canidate for doing outlandish operations that would be banned in any country. Admit it – all the elements are there – she’s a childish tumor with no qualms of ethics or humanity, and enjoys operating madcap experiments that would make Desty Nova proud, just for the fun of it.
I liked both Gyo and Uzumaki a lot (and Amigara, too, though since it comes with Gyo, I kind of consider it part of Gyo), but I have to say, the one horror manga I’ve read that actually managed to get my heart racing was Tonogai Yoshiki’s Doubt. That was awesome. With stuff like Gyo and Uzumaki I feel like I’m admiring the bizarre creeptasticness from afar, but Doubt actually got to me.
I also really love MPD Psycho, but I’m reserving judgement on it until it’s actually completed (assuming it ever will be; sometimes I wonder). I haven’t read Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, but I love Ootsuka’s writing in MPD Psycho, so I will have to give it a try someday.
Oh, and I don’t know if it counts as horror or not (but if Tokyo Babylon is included), but Asano Inio’s Nijigahara Holograph is super awesome, too.
“With stuff like Gyo and Uzumaki I feel like I’m admiring the bizarre creeptasticness from afar…”
That’s a good way of putting it. It’s not very emotionally affecting.
Though it’s more atmospheric than actual horror, I’ll have to say Vampire Princess Miyu, especially the first volume.
Gah! I love horror manga. Definitely one of my favourite genres. Two of my favourites are pretty obvious, The Drifting Classroom and Uzumaki. I’d love to see more titles released by both creators.
Possibly my all time favourite horror titles is Mr. Arashi’s Amazing freak Show by Suehiro Maruo, it’s really disturbing but isn’t as depraved as Ultra Gash Inferno (which, despite my love of Maruo, I have absolutely no desire to see back in print). Also, Maruo is probably the best manga artist around in my opinion. His art work is nothing short of incredible.
If you can’t track down a copy (I think it can be quite expensive) maybe try and find the anime adaption (called Midori) which is very good, too. Also, despite saying it’s not as depraved as some of Maruo’s other works, it probably does require a stronger stomach that pretty much all of the other titles mentioned!
Another old-school horror title that comes to mind (thanks to Jim’s reminder of Arashi’s freak Show) is Panorama of Hell by Hideshi Ano. What makes this masterpiece more disturbing than his other stories is that it’s quasi-autobiographical. If even half of what’s mentioned actually true, that’s still one messed-up family history there. It’s basically one artist’s devotion to his craft that becomes a full-blown obsession in creating a painting that’ll capture the image of hell, and he’ll kill anybody to complete his vision.
I only read it once years ago, but the ending’s pretty much stayed with me since then.
Dammit, I meant by Hideshi Hino.
And missing great posts like these is why I need a working computer >.>”
My favorites have to be Kurosagi (hilarious but creepy), Franken Fran (boddy horror at it’s best… or worst, depending on how you feel about it), and Ibitsu, one of the scariest things I have ever read out of all the horror I have done. It even beat out a few of my top horror films for the scares. At 2 volumes, not a page is wasted, and I loved every one of them!
Bit of a necropost, but will this column ever continue? I really like and miss it, and it’s been over a year since its last update!