I found this tumblr page with a list of 50 horror mangas. I'm still on a horror kick, so I dived right in, reading the ones I already haven't. The first was Homonculus, which started off real interesting, but then just sort of meandered into meaninglessness. It's pretty gross too, and not in a gory way, but in a "that's not what you're supposed to do with your bodily fluids" kind of way. Disgusting. I still can't shake off the image in my mind. The second half sinks into morass of third-rate psychobabble. By the end, I was left with that empty feeling of having wasted all my time.
Next, I read Kazuo Umezu's "The Drifting Classroom," which is everything I wanted from Psyren before it turned into a hodgepodge sci-fi shounen. The funny thing? This was published in the 70's. Aside from the artwork, it holds up extremely well. I wouldn't have guessed it to be forty years old. It must've been really original at its time of release, but today? It feels ridden with cliches, even if it paved way for them. The most notable influence is Lord of the Flies. There are power struggles within survivors that you see so much is post-apocalyptic fiction or even zombie apocalypse fiction. Demand for limited resources turns people against each other. How mass hysteria manifests in witch hunts and the rise of religions with cult-like devotion to false idols.
I can pretty much cherry-pick these elements from disparate modern works, so it's a testament to its originality. Even the struggle between the alpha and beta male mirrors Rick and Shane from The Walking Dead, although the end to this relationship is a lot more optimistic in The Drifting Classroom. The ending as a whole is subversive but with a kernel of hope. I can confidently call this work a masterpiece.
By the time I finished it, it was late at night. It wasn't exactly a purebred horror tale, despite tons of horrific deaths. It felt more like an adventure. The next story I read, pretty much scared the shit out of me. It was Bongcheon-Dong Ghost, and for anyone who's read it before, they know exactly what I'm talking about.
Considering I spent the entire day and night reading static images, I was not prepared for the comic to suddenly move, or more accurately, for the ghost to twist its neck and stare at me. I literally let out a yelp of terror and closed the window immediately. I haven't shat my pants like this since the original screamer, and by original screamer, I refer to the car commercial.
I tried to shake it off by reading Gyo but that didn't work. I went to sleep that night with my head swimming in nightmarish imagery: rotting faces, monsters, and ghosts.
/eventlog
