Cracking open a copy of Secret Comics Japan: Underground Comics Now, my first thought was, “Wait, Viz published this?” Don’t get me wrong. I love a lot of the books in Viz’s various imprints, but if this is the kind of stuff they were publishing six years ago, somebody get me a time machine.

Edited by Chikao Shiratori, the book collects an eye-popping mixture of shorts with an experimental, Garo-esque flavor. In assembling the stories, Shiratori wanted to offer an alternative to the magic girls and young men with a dream who dominated much of the translated manga at the time.

The cumulative effect is dazzling. There’s a rich range of styles on display, from the adorably disgusting Junko Mizuno to the stylish, cinematic josei of Kiriko Nananan to the bizarrely detailed Usamaru Furuya. Narrative structures run from utterly straightforward to thoroughly abstract, and the subject matter is similarly diverse.

Each piece contributes something different to the big picture that Shiratori is trying to assemble. Diversity is a difficult concept to illustrate in a meaningful way, but Secret Comics Japan offers an absorbing cross section of ambitious weirdness.

Shintaro Kago’s “Punctures” is both visually revolting and hilarious. In it, society has become so paranoid about the possibility of injury that they’re resorting to preemptive self-mutilation. In a world where restaurants are forced to warn you that the contents of your coffee cup are hot, it’s depressingly plausible, even if Kago takes the notion to grotesque extremes.

Benkyo Tamaoki takes a surprisingly slice-of-life approach to erotica in “Editor Woman.” As Shiratori says in his introduction to the piece, Tamaoki produces “high quality manga that also happen to be porn.” The title character is painfully normal, and Tamaoki packs the story with mundane details and petty frustrations that somehow manage not to counter the story’s function as erotica.

My favorite selection in the book is easily Furuya’s “Palepoli,” gloriously weird, beautifully illustrated one-page cartoons. They’re disturbing, profane, and hilarious. (“Golgo 31” is one of the funniest things I’ve read in years.) I’ve really got to order his Short Cuts.

There’s glorious stuff in here, and fans of Digital Manga Publishing’s Robot series would do well to try and track down a copy. It’s an amazing collection of the kind of styles and stories you don’t generally see on the shelves at Borders.

(I ordered this from Viz’s on-line shop, but it’s also in stock at Amazon. Other books by some of the creators with work in Secret Comics Japan include: Tamaoki’s Blood: The Last Vampire; Mizuno’s Princess Mermaid and Pure Trance; Nananan’s Sweet Cream and Red Strawberries and Blue; and others I was too lazy to research.)

Don’t walk; run. Don’t speak; shout. Don’t cry; wail until your throat is raw. These are some of the guiding principles of Kazuo Umezu’s The Drifting Classroom, a horror classic that’s been licensed as part of Viz’s Signature line.

People who have rejected manga based on its reflective tendencies and leisurely pace won’t have anything to worry about here. Umezu’s tale of the students and teachers of a suburban elementary school mysteriously transported to a menacing wasteland moves at an insane clip. Describing anything as a roller-coaster ride is beyond cliché, but it applies here, assuming lengths of track are missing and the coaster has been built over an active volcano.

I’m reluctant to describe any of the book’s plot beyond a bare-bones summary, because I think the thrill of it comes from the shocks that arrive on just about every page. Umezu doesn’t dwell on the hows of his story; the school has disappeared, and that’s all that matters. The Drifting Classroom concentrates instead on the ensuing panic and its influence on human behavior.

And that behavior is genuinely shocking. The children are desperate for some kind of guidance or comfort, and the adults are far too out of their depth to provide it, though they try to go through the motions. Hysteria manifests in anger and violence. No one knows what’s happening or what to do, and the ordinary order of the school dissolves in terrifying ways.

I admit that I laughed several times while reading The Drifting Classroom. I think it was laughter born of disbelief. “Did I actually just read that? Did Umezu actually just draw that?” I did, and he did. It’s pure madness, and it almost never rests.

Despite the fact that it was originally released in 1972, there’s nothing particularly quaint about the book. It looks less like a manga that was ahead of its time when published as it does a weirdly brilliant contemporary pastiche of its original period.

In a text piece at the end, author Patrick Macias notes that The Drifting Classroom came after the period where Umezu’s work was strongly influenced by Osamu Tezuka. I still think there’s a great deal of Tezuka here. (I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Astro Boy come soaring into the school’s playground, though I’m fairly sure no good would have come of it if he had.)

But it’s Tezuka providing the architecture for Umezu’s own style. Umezu takes the open faces of children and crumples them with suspicion, grief and rage. He takes the stalwart composure of adults and undermines it with bewildered panic. Thick speed lines are used to illustrate terror instead of adventure.

The Drifting Classroom is unquestionably one of the weirdest manga I’ve ever read, but it’s also one of the most exciting. Umezu has crafted a nightmare out of disturbing but believable human behavior.

In my experience, manga assassins either look exactly like what they are (Golgo 13) or the exact opposite (Anne Freaks, Bambi and Her Pink Gun). The title character of Benkei in New York (Viz) looks like your uncle, or the guy who files your insurance claim. He could be the manager of your bank or someone who sells suits.

He isn’t, obviously, but the pleasure of the book is the disconnection between how things look and how they are.

Written by Jinpachi Mori and drawn by Jiro Taniguchi, Benkei in New York follows a Japanese artist living in Manhattan through a series of stand-alone stories about revenge. Benkei isn’t one of those crassly commercial hit men who’ll kill anyone for a price. He needs certainty that his client’s desire for retribution is just, at least by his standards.

It’s never even entirely clear if murder is Benkei’s main gig. He’s an accomplished artist and an even more gifted forger. After glancing at a masterpiece a couple of times, he can reproduce it perfectly. Mori finds clever ways for art and death to intersect.

For readers who only know Taniguchi through work published by Fanfare/Ponent Mon (The Walking Man, Times of Botchan), Benkei might come as something of a surprise. Taniguchi’s detailed precision translates perfectly into noir, and his bland, everyman design for Benkei is brilliant. Unlike Anna or Bambi, whose visual innocence functions as a kind of tip-off, you really wouldn’t know what Benkei is capable of to look at him. He’s kind of dumpy, and he has a blandly amiable expression.

Taniguchi can’t seem to resist the impulse to make any moment, either everyday or violent, beautiful. The action sequences can be faintly ludicrous (a swordfight in a museum, improvisational weaponry made from seafood), but Taniguchi’s painstaking detail and meticulous composition sell them.

I’m generally suspect when creators try and sell a criminal as a good guy, but Mori and Taniguchi don’t sell the idea too hard. Benkei has a specific morality, and it’s intriguing, but there’s no explicit endorsement of what he does or why. They’re content to present it, and it’s an effective foundation for the pulpy stories collected here.

(Yes, I’m on something of a “books I bought for cheap directly from Viz” kick. Like Rumic Theater, Benkei in New York is still in the bargain bin.)

Much as I love sprawling, multi-volume manga, I have a real fondness for short stories as well. Instead of finding it off-putting to find that a volume of a favorite series has an unrelated short in the back, I’m usually delighted because it shows the creator’s abilities in a different light.

That’s one of the reasons I’m so fond of Rumiko Takahashi’s Rumic Theater (Viz), a charming collection of short stories from the creator of hits like Maison Ikkoku. The main reason, though, is the opportunity it provides to see Takahashi tell small, sweet, stand-alone tales.

Don’t get me wrong. Maison Ikkoku is wonderful. But my favorite parts are when it seems like a small, self-contained tale has been placed in the larger context, almost independent of the ongoing will-they-won’t-they comedy. That’s all Rumic Theater is.

Apartment dwellers try and conceal the presence of a penguin from their pet-averse neighbors. A family is plagued by the misconception that their house is a garbage pick-up location. An elderly woman returns from the brink of death with remarkable powers. Wackiness often ensues, but misunderstandings are cleared away, and the characters find honest, warm ways to connect.

It’s vintage Takahashi, in other words. The shorts are a great showcase for her trademark wit and warmth. As always, her characters are stylized but look real and human, even in the extremities of comic distress.

So if you’re mourning the conclusion of Maison Ikkoku and need a Takahashi fix, consider Rumic Theater. It’s a great way to enjoy her work in small but satisfying doses.

(I ordered this book directly from Viz during a sale at their on-line shop. It’s still available and still discounted. The Viz rep I spoke to said it’s also still in print.)