Hideout

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First of all, I'd like to say I'm not familiar with any of Kakizaki's other works (mostly referring to Rainbow since that's his most famous one), so I'm not going to be making any comparisons to anything else he's worked on. With that out of the way....

Hideout is a very short series. I don't imagine that it would take more than an hour or two to read it all, and that might be a very generous estimate depending on how fast you read. Since it's only 9 chapters you might not be expecting a whole lot as far as depth of the plot goes, but ... Kakizaki actually manages to spin a fairly human, depressing story with the little space given.

The premise (the couple getting lost and stumbling into an utterly horrific experience) is executed well enough. You get to see what led up to all this, the circumstances behind the death of the couple's son and the grisly aftermath, as the husband slowly loses everything important in his life: his son, his wife, her family, his career, everything goes spiraling downwards, and the man is slowly driven into madness. I'm sure the surprises waiting for them in the cave didn't exactly help his mental state either. I'm not sure that I would be driven to the extremes the protagonist goes to, but it's all part of the tragedy, so I guess it's fine. Given that it's only 9 chapters, it does a pretty good job of making you feel involved and making you care about what goes on.

That said, while the plot gets a thumbs up from me, the main thing Hideout has going for it is the art. It takes an extremely skilled artist to paint true terror and create landscapes and imagery that are genuinely frightening. Kakizaki is almost up there with Kentaro Miura (the author of Berserk) in the horror scenes department. Everything is marvelously shaded, detailed, and bleak, which makes the gruesome content of Hideout so much more potent than it would be with only a "good" artist working on it, as opposed to an excellent one like in this manga.

I wish I could say more about this manga, but there really is not much else to say. Hideout is a good 9 chapter series with a good plot and absolutely outstanding artwork. It will not take you very long to read, and it's certainly worth your time to check it out.

Overall it could be classed as cliche-ridden, as it borrows asinine plot frequently seen in Hollywood trash horrors, albeit that Japanese peculiarity to add dose of aberrancy really supplements the status of this piece to class it as a bit above mediocre or even unique for some aspects at least.

Affixed to above mentioned is the abundantly embellished art style which is a meritorious element, and perhaps will serve as a stimulus to continue till the end, that is, if you will consider plot to be atrocious, or predictable.

First, I aknowledge the manga is short therefore everything is going to be less developed such as the story, the characters, the creatures, the world buidling. However, this isn't a excuse to publish a poor manga. The only positive thing I can really say is that the art is good, thats about it. Now the list of the negatives of the manga: the characters are really undeveloped, the ceatures/monster are undeveloped, the story is undeveloped and feels rushed (obivously). Overall, this manga seems to be made for shock value as all it has going for it is the extremely dark art. let me premise that ... shock value is fine in mangas ESPECIALLY horror mangas, but if thats all the manga has to go of then don't be surprised if it gets such low scores. QUICK REMINDER: Once again I aknowledge the manga is short BUT that doesn't excuse it being bad.

Do I recommend it?
Probably not as it felt like a waste of time after I finished reading it, but if you want to look at some dark edgy art then go for it.