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This manga has very little to offer beyond an interesting premise. The disease is quite terrifying due to how violent and contagious it is, but it's not really developed any further beyond that, which is a serious drawback as it's really the only interesting part of this manga. The art feels very lacking, the characters are all bland and uninteresting, and it doesn't feel like the reader is ever given a reason to care about them, which makes the fact that any of them could get infected and die at any moment very unsuspenseful. The woman with the Ebola fetish is the only character I ... really remember, and NOT for good reasons. The plot doesn't do anything interesting at all, and the ending is just abrupt and boring - it feels like the writer just had a cool, gruesome idea for a disease, didn't want to flesh out any characters, and didn't know how to end the story so just pulled everything else out of their ass.

A charming collection of unique short stories. The real meat of the manga is with the first story, "To Strip the Flesh," which follows a transgender man who has to weigh his own happiness against meeting his father's expectations. It's a refreshing portrayal of the relationship between a transgender child and their parent, and how they feel the need to repress their own identity to make their otherwise supportive parent happy. It's a story about breaking away from your parents' expectations, and recognising that you deserve to take control of your life and be happy, even if you risk hurting them. It's also a story ... about a father coming to realise that he doesn't know what's best for his child, and having to come to terms with his child taking a path to happiness that he doesn't really understand and that makes him uncomfortable. This is easily the most engaging and emotionally complex story in the manga, and this one is definitely worth the read, especially if you feel that your resonate with it's themes. The art and dialogue is nothing really special, and the characters don't stand out too much, but it's a well written story overall.

The rest of the stories are much shorter but all are unique and bring an interesting concept to the table. There's always a little twist to each story that makes them an interesting read despite how short they are. May as well check this one out as it's a very short read and you're likely to find something you'll enjoy.

This anthology manga is an extremely mixed bag for me,

There's a good variety of stories compiled in this book, many of them with very different goals and themes. The only common factors shared by all the stories are the gore and eroticism, as expected of Kago's work.

Kago does a phenomenal job of utilising the medium of manga to its maximum potential unlike any mangaka I've encountered. The visual presentation of these stories is fantastic, and the non linear nature of them makes for a mind boggling experience. His deconstruction and exploration of the medium are strikingly unique, and he takes these deconstructions to the absolute ... extreme. If there are several mangaka that push manga to its absolute limits, I would name Kago among them without hesitation. These stories (particularly "Abstraction" and one of his other works "Fraction") are the ones in which his creativity and genius really shine, and if the anthology consisted only in these kinds of short stories, this manga would easily be pushing a 9 out of 10.

In addition there are a number of comedic stories compiled in the manga. The style of comedy Kago employs is definitely unique and effective. He subverts expectations, writes from the most bizarre premises, and he does not stop. He'll present the reader with a fascinatingly absurd scenario, and he will keep taking it further and further into complete absurdity and I love every minute of it. With the addition of the small comedic nuances and subversive plot points, it makes for hilarious absurdist comedy and a refreshing break from the largely disturbing content of the remainder of the manga.

What really brings the quality of this manga down, for me personally, are the few stories scattered throughout which offer little to nothing to the reader other than repulsion. There is nothing clever or comedic in these stories, just excruciatingly detailed depictions of just about anything shocking Kago can manage to squeeze into the "story," for lack of a better word. I understand that pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable is absolutely integral to Kago's work, and he does this effectively in a lot of his stories that seem to have had a great deal of thought and creativity put into them, but sadly, these quality shorts are dragged down by the eroguro fests included that serve no purpose other than to be as disgusting and shocking as possible. I don't want to call it lazy because the art in these stories is still meticulously detailed, but they really offer nothing else of worth.

Overall, I would highly recommend reading "Abstraction" from this collection if you read nothing else. There are some fantastic comedy shorts slipped into this collection as well, but I would just skip stories like Todo no Tsumori which are really little more than just nauseating.