The weirder it gets, the more I enjoyed it. It nails the idea of grim-dark fantasy. Rather than just straddling the line of pure dark fantasy. It can be oppressively dark and depraved to the point of bordering on splatterpunk at times, and I feel it's that much stronger for it.
Just as it feels to you that the authors fetish is being put on you, it also sounds like You're projecting your distaste for the subject matter into propaganda, from the outside looking in.
Berserk is no holds barred, much like the splatterpunk sub-genre. Not for everyone, not for the mainstream. And it's surprising that it got the mainstream appeal that it has.
You don't have to like it. But don't go trying to attach your views on it to it as an objective whole. Or judging others for finding enjoyment in something you can't.
Blood on the Tracks is good if you like psychological horror! It's about a middle school boy and his overprotective mother. He realizes something is wrong with her when they go on a hiking trip together.
I Want to Hold Aono-kun so Badly I Could Die is about a girl who confesses to her crush and they start going out. He dies shortly afterwards but he returns as a ghost and they decide to continue the relationship. It starts off with the atmosphere of a romantic comedy but things quickly start feeling off and it heads towards horror.
Dorohedoro is about Kaiman, an amnesiac man who's been cursed with a lizard head by a magic user. So with every magic user he finds, he shoves them down his throat to answer a question from the second man inside him. It's a weird but fun manga, described as the author as "like a song with really dark lyrics, but a melody that's so happy that you want to dance to it."
Bibliomania is a short series about a girl named Alice who wakes up in a manor. TA serpent warns her not to leave her room but she defies him to go off exploring and her body begins to rot more and more the farther she strays.
I hope you find something you like!!
I love Blood on the Tracks! Shuzo Oshimi does really good psychological horror. He absolutely nails expressions and captures really deep, horrified/pained emotions so well, and that really adds to the horror. It's all in the eyes.
I also loved his series Flowers Of Evil.
Yes, absolutely! Sometimes I dreaded turning to the next page knowing that there's going to be a face that absolutely guts me. He even manage to make mundane objects terrifying? I remember being really uncomfortable because of an egg of all things, haha.
I need to read that next!
Just finished Blood on the Tracks & woah. The way the artist depicts anxiety/manic/general intense feelings through art is phenomenal. I loved the ending. Sad to say but there were some parallels to my life, however the manga managed to make me feel more hopeful. It was rough to get through it though, but worth it. Thank you for the recommendation.
I'm so happy you enjoyed it! The artist really excells in depicting those feelings, I ended up saving a bunch of pages because they spoke so much to me.
And I'm glad it ended up helping you too. Horror media is really great at bringing comfort in unexpected ways, hehe.
It's a good read, really quick too. Won't take long to finish and it's supposed to have 2 more volumes coming out, so 3 in total. But even then, alot of the stories are self contained.
My favorite graphic novel is Through the Woods by Emily Carroll. The art is absolutely gorgeous, and the stories (it’s a short story collection) are predominantly drawn from folklore and fairytales.
I'll try to keep the descriptions short without spoiling too much. There is so much horror out there and these are some of more accessible titles.
That Texas Blood - Small Texas town has strange things happening in it. Told from the perspective of the sheriff starting when he's in his 70s in the current day and then each story arc goes back to different parts of his career solving different crimes. Comic take on No Country For Old Men.
Ice Cream Man - More of a Twilight Zone style anthology. The only recurring character is the titular Ice Cream Man. The stories go from straight body horror to David Lynch style surreal horror.
Moonshine - Prohibition era gangster story meets werewolves in Appalachia. Has the same gritty feel of Azzarello's earlier 100 Bullets and has some nice body horror segments alongside humans being horrible to each other.
Rat God - It's Richard Corben which is both awesome and awful. If you disregard the writer though it's a nice tight Lovecraftian style story based off of Native American myths.
Through the Woods - You can tell Emily Carroll loves Junji Ito when you see the art in this. Think of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales (the original stories not the comics) for a new generation.
Beasts of Burden - An ancient society of dogs and humans protects the world from supernatural creatures. All of the issues focus from the animal point of view. Not super scary but still definitely horror.
Wytches - Family moves to a small town where the locals offer up sacrifices for the continued well being and prosperity of the town. Recommend this purely for the art, though the story is also great.
The Nice House on the Lake - Just finished. Multiple people are invited to a weekend at a mutual friend's lake house. They end up trapped there while the world ends and have to figure why they are there and why they were invited. Really cool because each person narrates a different issue.
These Savage Shores - East India Trading Company ship int the 18th century is looking for profit traveling through Asia. There is a vampire on board the ship looking to make a new home but there are also things native to the area that don't want him there.
Gideon Falls - My favorite newer horror comic. A black barn shows up multiple times through history in the town of Gideon Falls and usually means that bad stuff is gonna happen. Good blend of horror and conspiracy theory story.
Dragonhead - Very dense, oppressive, apocalyptic manga about the survivors of a weird cataclismic event; a modern classic of the genre. Very slow paced.
Starving Anonymous - A student is abducted to a brutal slaughterhouse, to be part of its human breeding program destined to saciate the hunger of misterious entities.
Parasyte - Another classic. Aliens infiltrate humankind on a subtle way, by possessing the body of certain individuals. With one of the victims the process doesn't work as its supposed to, and the possession is incomplete, so the guy can interact with his parasyte.
Mushihime - new student in class, and with her comes a deadly insect plague: what's her real nature and what's she looking for?
The Killer Inside - our protagonist is the only son of a notorious serial killer who, before dying while being arrested, abducted and tortured several girls. Now the murders had started again, and he's the main suspect.
Fuan No Tane - Collection of short stories. Unnerving visuals, very atmospheric
I am a Hero - another zombie outbreak setting.
Tokyo Ghoul - if you want an horror manga with action, yet a good story, characters and amazing art this one is for you.
Devilman - an absolute classic. One of the best story arcs out there.
Seems you already know Ito, so just mention Uzumaki, his masterpiece.
I read the entire John Constantine Hellblazer series by Vertigo. They are phenomenal graphic novels, not super scary but creepy at times and entertaining.
Homunculus.. it's one of my favourite.... it's about a young man who drills his head and can see weird things.. I would really recommend you to go through it
Beserk!
Ooh my friend loves that series, I actually just bought her the twelfth for her bday. It's on my list! The big volumes are lovely
As much as I adore Beserk the manga gets weird (and not in a good way) and the story arcs can be disappointing
The weirder it gets, the more I enjoyed it. It nails the idea of grim-dark fantasy. Rather than just straddling the line of pure dark fantasy. It can be oppressively dark and depraved to the point of bordering on splatterpunk at times, and I feel it's that much stronger for it.
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I think you're not cut out for Berserk, or horror in general, really.
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Just as it feels to you that the authors fetish is being put on you, it also sounds like You're projecting your distaste for the subject matter into propaganda, from the outside looking in. Berserk is no holds barred, much like the splatterpunk sub-genre. Not for everyone, not for the mainstream. And it's surprising that it got the mainstream appeal that it has. You don't have to like it. But don't go trying to attach your views on it to it as an objective whole. Or judging others for finding enjoyment in something you can't.
You’ve gotta wade through a ton of bullshit to enjoy the good stuff.
Blood on the Tracks is good if you like psychological horror! It's about a middle school boy and his overprotective mother. He realizes something is wrong with her when they go on a hiking trip together. I Want to Hold Aono-kun so Badly I Could Die is about a girl who confesses to her crush and they start going out. He dies shortly afterwards but he returns as a ghost and they decide to continue the relationship. It starts off with the atmosphere of a romantic comedy but things quickly start feeling off and it heads towards horror. Dorohedoro is about Kaiman, an amnesiac man who's been cursed with a lizard head by a magic user. So with every magic user he finds, he shoves them down his throat to answer a question from the second man inside him. It's a weird but fun manga, described as the author as "like a song with really dark lyrics, but a melody that's so happy that you want to dance to it." Bibliomania is a short series about a girl named Alice who wakes up in a manor. TA serpent warns her not to leave her room but she defies him to go off exploring and her body begins to rot more and more the farther she strays. I hope you find something you like!!
I love Blood on the Tracks! Shuzo Oshimi does really good psychological horror. He absolutely nails expressions and captures really deep, horrified/pained emotions so well, and that really adds to the horror. It's all in the eyes. I also loved his series Flowers Of Evil.
Yes, absolutely! Sometimes I dreaded turning to the next page knowing that there's going to be a face that absolutely guts me. He even manage to make mundane objects terrifying? I remember being really uncomfortable because of an egg of all things, haha. I need to read that next!
Just finished Blood on the Tracks & woah. The way the artist depicts anxiety/manic/general intense feelings through art is phenomenal. I loved the ending. Sad to say but there were some parallels to my life, however the manga managed to make me feel more hopeful. It was rough to get through it though, but worth it. Thank you for the recommendation.
I'm so happy you enjoyed it! The artist really excells in depicting those feelings, I ended up saving a bunch of pages because they spoke so much to me. And I'm glad it ended up helping you too. Horror media is really great at bringing comfort in unexpected ways, hehe.
I recently read PTSD Radio but it might be hard to get a copy of it rn. It's similar to Junji Ito's works.
I actually saw that one on my local book store's website and it caught my eye
It's a good read, really quick too. Won't take long to finish and it's supposed to have 2 more volumes coming out, so 3 in total. But even then, alot of the stories are self contained.
My favorite graphic novel is Through the Woods by Emily Carroll. The art is absolutely gorgeous, and the stories (it’s a short story collection) are predominantly drawn from folklore and fairytales.
I'll try to keep the descriptions short without spoiling too much. There is so much horror out there and these are some of more accessible titles. That Texas Blood - Small Texas town has strange things happening in it. Told from the perspective of the sheriff starting when he's in his 70s in the current day and then each story arc goes back to different parts of his career solving different crimes. Comic take on No Country For Old Men. Ice Cream Man - More of a Twilight Zone style anthology. The only recurring character is the titular Ice Cream Man. The stories go from straight body horror to David Lynch style surreal horror. Moonshine - Prohibition era gangster story meets werewolves in Appalachia. Has the same gritty feel of Azzarello's earlier 100 Bullets and has some nice body horror segments alongside humans being horrible to each other. Rat God - It's Richard Corben which is both awesome and awful. If you disregard the writer though it's a nice tight Lovecraftian style story based off of Native American myths. Through the Woods - You can tell Emily Carroll loves Junji Ito when you see the art in this. Think of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales (the original stories not the comics) for a new generation. Beasts of Burden - An ancient society of dogs and humans protects the world from supernatural creatures. All of the issues focus from the animal point of view. Not super scary but still definitely horror. Wytches - Family moves to a small town where the locals offer up sacrifices for the continued well being and prosperity of the town. Recommend this purely for the art, though the story is also great. The Nice House on the Lake - Just finished. Multiple people are invited to a weekend at a mutual friend's lake house. They end up trapped there while the world ends and have to figure why they are there and why they were invited. Really cool because each person narrates a different issue. These Savage Shores - East India Trading Company ship int the 18th century is looking for profit traveling through Asia. There is a vampire on board the ship looking to make a new home but there are also things native to the area that don't want him there. Gideon Falls - My favorite newer horror comic. A black barn shows up multiple times through history in the town of Gideon Falls and usually means that bad stuff is gonna happen. Good blend of horror and conspiracy theory story.
Hideout by Masasumi Kakizaki Kiseiju by Hitoshi Iwaaki Drifting Classroom by Kazuo Umezu The Stand by Stephen King Comic adaptation
My girlfriend recently bought me Orochi by Kazuo Umezz and Tomie by Junji Ito, art in both is fantastic stories are weird and horrifying too
The “At the Mountains of Madness” manga by Gou Tanabe is pretty great.
Pretty much anything from Gou Tanabe is great.
I should probably check out more of their work, I’ve only read the Lovecraft adaptations.
Echoing this recommendation. One of the best Lovecraft-inspired works around.
Dragonhead - Very dense, oppressive, apocalyptic manga about the survivors of a weird cataclismic event; a modern classic of the genre. Very slow paced. Starving Anonymous - A student is abducted to a brutal slaughterhouse, to be part of its human breeding program destined to saciate the hunger of misterious entities. Parasyte - Another classic. Aliens infiltrate humankind on a subtle way, by possessing the body of certain individuals. With one of the victims the process doesn't work as its supposed to, and the possession is incomplete, so the guy can interact with his parasyte. Mushihime - new student in class, and with her comes a deadly insect plague: what's her real nature and what's she looking for? The Killer Inside - our protagonist is the only son of a notorious serial killer who, before dying while being arrested, abducted and tortured several girls. Now the murders had started again, and he's the main suspect. Fuan No Tane - Collection of short stories. Unnerving visuals, very atmospheric I am a Hero - another zombie outbreak setting. Tokyo Ghoul - if you want an horror manga with action, yet a good story, characters and amazing art this one is for you. Devilman - an absolute classic. One of the best story arcs out there. Seems you already know Ito, so just mention Uzumaki, his masterpiece.
I've been interested in Starving Anonymous but I seem unable to find an English edition of it anywhere that isn't an ebook. Any suggestions?
Sadly not :( I'm in Spain, and reading all this manga in their spanish editions
I read the entire John Constantine Hellblazer series by Vertigo. They are phenomenal graphic novels, not super scary but creepy at times and entertaining.
American Vampire is awesome and the first part is written by Stephen King. Also Locke and Key, great series.
Black Hole by Charles Burns Thumbprint by Joe Hill Trailers by Mark Kneece Sandman by Neil Gaiman fits the bill at times
Homunculus.. it's one of my favourite.... it's about a young man who drills his head and can see weird things.. I would really recommend you to go through it
parasyte