The twisted genius behind Dementia 21 returns with a brand new spherical of black comedy manga. Mind Harm collects 4 new quick manga tales, a tantalizing mix of the hilarious and the macabre. In Labyrinth Quartet, 4 an identical younger girls trapped in an eerie constructing should resolve the thriller of why they’ve been gathered there — whereas being hunted by a knife-wielding stalker. In Curse Room, a plucky well being aide is tasked with conserving zombies peaceable, lest they go on a brain-eating rampage. In Household Portrait, folks all through city are surprisingly disappearing and not using a hint, and the important thing to all of it is a senile and perverted outdated man. Lastly, in Blood Harvest, a sequence of gruesomely mangled our bodies are present in pristine automobiles — and it seems one thing sinister lurks inside these lots of glass and metal.

Shintaro Kago has developed fairly the cult following in Japan for his work in garo manga. The comics he produces are unapologetically twisted and never afraid to make his readers uncomfortable with their trademark black humour and surprising imagery. Dementia 21 was the primary of his works to be translated to English and launched him to a complete new viewers. This newest translation will give followers the prospect to see him push the boundaries even additional.

While Dementia 21 was primarily pushing for absurdity, Mind Harm takes this absurdity and pushes it extra closely into the horror style – notably in terms of exposing the ugly aspect of humanity. Labyrinth Quartet in some ways is a basic slasher with among the most violent content material of the e-book in some really grisly scenes and a surprising twist on why the killer has trapped 4 an identical girls. Curse Room ups the ante with a very unsettling tackle zombies and Kago bringing a considerably stylistic aptitude to zombie violence on either side of the equation while posing an amusing situation of a zombie retaining their recollections and feelings. Blood Harvest additionally will get in on the motion with a genuinely inticing thriller of why mangled and disfigured our bodies that seem like they’re in wreck are turning up in undamaged automobiles.

It’s Kago’s artwork that maintain the gathering collectively although. His model brings to thoughts different nice horror manga artists resembling Shuzo Oshimi and Junji Ito, however – in some ways – he’s keen to push the boundaries even additional than his contemporaries in terms of depicting horror. It’s a superb line between creating one thing surprising and conserving it narratively cohesive, but Kago manages to realize that steadiness.

This isn’t a group for the faint of coronary heart, however manga followers who aren’t afraid of limits being pushed in terms of horror want to provide Kago’s newest work a learn.

Mind Harm is out now from Fantagraphics (9798875000935, h/b, £27.99)

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