Jun 4, 2024
Ningen Itjou (More Than Human/Superhuman) is a collection of very early works by Shintarou Kago that somewhat feature his trademark dark humor, gore, and "adult themes", albeit in an unrefined form. This collection falls on the side of his most accessible output in terms of explicit content --very violent and gross, but on the level of an 1970s exploitation film rather than a fake snuff movie-- yet unfortunately does not have much in the way of scary, funny or interesting ideas.
The collection is built around a couple of multi-chapter stories --3 and 4 chapters long respectively-- and rounded up with other shorts that were written
...
around the same time. The edition I read also includes the one-shot "Nouka Suitai no Kikairon-teki Sekaikan ni Kansuru Ikkousatsu" (An Inquiry Concerning A Mechanistic Worldview of the Pituitary Gland).
"Japanese Fairy Tales" serves as the introduction: it consists of 6 short stories (i.e. four sentences long) each given a gruesome color illustration in an old Japanese art-style. There is little substance to them, but they would make for an effective tone-setter as part of a similarly themed larger work.
The first "long" story is the titular "More Than Human", whose plot is a blend of "Blade Runner" and "Scanners" if Cronenberg had a much more adolescent sense of humor. The reader is dropped in the middle of a story with no beginning or resolution, as the premise is only a framework for Kago to hang "adult" jokes on. Some of the humor lands --either genuinely or in a so-bad-it's-funny way-- but overall there is very little wit to the writing. The main issue is the lack of commitment to delivering a passably engaging story, which is necessary to make 60 pages of dick and boob jokes bearable. Below mediocre, but somewhat endearing as an early work.
The collection really falls apart with the second feature presentation: "Godzilla" --and its sequels. The basic idea looks to be to parody the early Toho Godzilla films by replacing the humans with cockroaches and the Kaijū monsters with (relatively) giant naked women. Not having seen many of these films, I was still able to parse which story beats and clichés the 4 chapters were attempting to pay homage to, yet there were very few actual jokes or subversions of Kaijū tropes. Replacing the monsters with humans is where the creative process seems to have started and ended. What remains are very crude and leering displays of violence and nudity that you become numb to. Every chapter starts promising but ends in an uncomfortable mess. Kago would go back to the Kaijū well much more effectively in "Dementia 21" and "Anamorphosis". Even the underwhelming "Super-Conductive Brains" dealt with similar themes much more effectively by simply sticking to generic science-fiction premises. Very unpleasant read, and probably not in the intended way.
The final two shorts of the original collection are "Strange land" and "Rebellion". While not narratively connected, they both feature a similar art-style and take place in rural (feudal?) Japan. The first one is about a couple of warriors that end up in a village of monsters, and is unremarkable save for the sometimes illegible action panels. The story does not feature any twist the reader might care about, and even the violence is underwhelming for Kago. The second short features a more interesting premise, that revolves around a famine-stricken village revolting against their god, but turns out to be an exercise in poorly drawn gory violence. Granted, it features the most "satisfying" conclusion to a story in the collection.
Although it can be easy to deride --for non-esthetic reasons-- overly violent, exploitative or subversive works, this is not the main issue here. The issue is that lack of technical drawing ability and inane writing are robbing these "controversial" qualities of the work of all their power over the reader. All that is left is a feeling of unease that you get from meaningless nastiness. Outside of some evidently comedic elements, there is an unnerving aimlessness to much of what is presented in those early works. However, seeing how Kago's wit became sharper in the following decades, it is likely that the issues in Ningen Itjou mostly come from inexperience.
The bonus one-shot at the end is a dull and messy take on a dystopian future centered around nativity control by the state. It is similar to some chapters in "Super-Conductive Brains", but has little to no story or point. In the afterword, Kago himself does not seem too impressed with his stories. He essentially admits that they are all very derivative of other artists' works, and he would rework all the salvageable ideas into other stories.
Do him and yourself a favor by skipping this one.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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