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This could be the quintessential Shintaro Kago manga. It's got all his standard fixations - violence, sex, surrealism, body horror and dark humor. There's some grisly and disgusting stuff in here for sure, but it's framed in such a way that it's rarely disturbing; Sometimes, the author inserts something anachronistic (like a mangaka struggling to meet a perpetual deadline) just for the sake of a laugh, or draws an unnecessarily detailed diagram of sewing techniques. That's how Kago manga is: Scenarios are taken to their most extreme, absurd conclusions and it's sometimes funny in a surreal or tragic way. Good example: the first story has ... a woman horrifically disfigured into a ghostly mass of vaguely-humanoid viscera and from that point on, she just shows up in the background, acting casual.

This is sort of a sequel to the other Korokoro Soushi, but really only in its shared setting (Edo period Japan) and themes. But yeah, with Kago, you'll feel disgust, shock, confusion, cringe and maybe even laugh, but you won't get bored.

When it comes to the genre of ero guro, Hell Season is one of its most extreme entries. This anthology collects short stories from some of the genre's most notable mangaka - Shintaro Kago, Uziga Waita and Jun Hayami - alongside more obscure ones; the only glaring omission here is any works of Suehiro Maruo. It also includes a few pages of bonus art by more underground artists. But as an introduction to the genre, it's probably the best; There's a wide variety of content here, but be warned - it's not for the weak of stomach. I mean, just about every taboo you can ... think of is present and taken to its extreme. This book doesn't waste any time telling you either - it opens on a story about one woman's struggle with constipation, presented in full, nauseating color. There's another story about a girl watching her mother get vivisected alive, one about kids consumed by parasites, another about a girl who inexplicably grows holes all over. Suffice it to say, if you're morbidly curious and you're not going to be eating (or sleeping) for the next few days, it might be worth a read.

When you pick up a Tetsuya Saruwatari manga, you know what you're going to get: a protagonist who looks like Riki-Oh, a sibling or childhood rival, cartoonishly sadistic villains and absurdly violent martial arts fights rendered with excruciating anatomical detail (Seriously, the guy must have had anatomy textbooks off-hand while drawing). Dokuro is no exception, and its only differentiating factors are an evil religious organization and the hero's gimmicky weapon - a hook-on-a-wire that results in many scenes of decapitation, hanging, lips getting torn off and faces stripped off skulls.

With Saruwatari, you come for the spectacle, not the story. As usual, there's little plot or ... character development to find; The hero goes from one fighting set-piece to another with little reason (including the author's favorite setting, a maximum-security prison), and he's pretty much an invincible force-of-nature the whole way through, so there's little tension. The author also stinks at writing endings; They often feel too easy, rushed and anti-climactic. Speaking of which, a detective gets introduced and the manga seems to be building up to a final clash between him and the hero, but it never happens.

With that said, if you enjoy a little mindless carnage (I know I do), you shouldn't be disappointed.

Are you a furry? Do you love Zootopia? If you answered yes to either of those questions, give this manga a shot. Need any more info? Well, ok...

Beastars is about animals living in a very human-like society. The story centers around Legosi, a sensitive, honorable young wolf who struggles to overcome his nature and form meaningful relationships. His story begins at Cherryton high school, and that comes with a murder mystery, a taboo romance, tested friendships, bloody brawls... things you might expect from a shonen. But the strong writing and characters always keep it engaging.

Once he leaves school, the world-building really expands and we get ... to see the darker and stranger sides of the animal world. Without spoiling anything, let's just say street gangs, cannibalism (sort of), slavery, sex abuse and organ harvesting are involved. Despite all this, it's never explicit.

There's a lot of social commentary to be found here, and it's delivered in a refreshingly subtle manner. There's a large diversity of animals (mammals domesticated and wild, small and large, various reptiles, avians, marine life later on) with their unique struggles, like a komodo dragon who's shunned because of his poisonous mouth, or a small lamb who's always talked down to ...uh, literally and figuratively. But it's also quite funny at times, and has no shortage of funny panels to show out-of-context like, for example, a large, hairy carnivore in heels and a dress.

The art style is certainly unique, possessing a more sketchy and cartoony style than typical manga, but to the artist's credit, she's great with drawing action shots and large, intimidating animalistic figures with gnarled fingers.

If I had one complaint, it's about the ship-teasing. You know, when two characters are about to confess their feelings to one another, or a big reveal is about to be made, and something always comes up, or we shift focus to another character for a while. But maybe that's just a problem with manga in general.

Well, that was weird. “Bride in Front of the Station” or “Ekimae Hanayome” is a collection of short stories by Shintaro Kago. Most of them center around modifying the human body in some strange way, like replacing certain parts with faucets, or being able to detach your parts as drawers, like from a cabinet. Unsurprisingly, for an author such as Kago, he explores these ideas with lots of sex and some violence, and the scenarios he invents are admittedly creative, gross and sometimes funny, but from what I’ve seen, this is probably the tamest work of his.

Some stories end in poetic irony and a few ... even deal with psychological anxiety, but all are truly surreal, following the nonsense sequence of a dream. The author sometimes throws in a panel communicating a side-thought, which has no connection with the story but rather it’s theme. There’s also a text-only chapter describing marriage etiquette in a morbidly humorous way. Anyway, another story involves a town where houses are burned regularly in order to satisfy some firemen who go on a murderous rampage if they don’t have any fires to fight.

My favorite chapter is called “Labyrinth” where a girl tries to navigate a town of mazes, and people start getting infected with a disease which turns them into living mazes. By the end of the story, all we see is a vague silhouette of people fucking, represented as impossibly complex, human-shaped mazes. It’s kind of like the increasingly-complex art of painter Louis Wain in fast-forward. Anyway, if bizarre, short-form stories sound appealing to you, “Bride in Front of the Station” might just be for you.