Jun 11, 2021
I didn't enjoy DDT as much as some of the other Suehiro Maruo I've read but I suspect it's because I was on a bender and read three of his books in rapid succession and got burned out on the shock.
Whereas in Ultra Gash Inferno I enjoyed the stories themselves, here the stories aren't that compelling, and they make a lot less sense. The good news is that the art here is very good and interesting, and leans all-in on Maruo's influences from the 1910s-1930s. The first story in particular is a love letter to art movements like surrealism and German expressionism. There's a lot
...
of cut-and-paste Constructivist montage here, which fits the scrapbook nature of what Maruo is doing.
A lot of this work is really quite funny, in a sick way, like the story that's Maruo's remake of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but with added rape. Writing that out, I'm not sure how you could really say 'that's funny' but it is in context?
The best story here is easily the one with the two 'doctors' and their 'clinic' in the middle of a flat surrealist landscape, the trouble they run into, and their attempted solution to that problem. It's the sort of weird, sick story that vindicates the whole concept of ero guro nansensu.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
