✎┊ RECS [pt.6]

Hello! ♡

Today I wanted to step into the world of horror! For this theme I gathered some manga that have a peculiar quality I adore: the ones that are eerie without being loud or grotesque without being gratuitous.
A small warning before we begin: some of these manga contain disturbing or graphic imagery so they may not be the easiest reads for anyone who is particularly sensitive to such things.

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The Ichinose Family's Deadly Sins by Taizan 5
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/the_ichinose_family_s_deadly_sins/

This one is interesting because it doesn't initially feel like horror in the traditional sense. After a car accident, Tsubasa Ichinose wakes up without his memories and so has everyone else in his family. They begin trying to piece themselves back together, looking at photographs and fragments of the past, hoping that remembering will bring them closer to the people they used to be. Instead, they begin to discover things that perhaps were better left forgotten. And I find this premise pretty horrifying because memory is supposed to be comforting, isn't it? It tells us who we are. It gives our lives a shape. It lets us remember the people we love and all the little things that made us ourselves. But what if your memories are hiding something from you? What if the family you wake up beside isn't quite the family you thought you knew? And if I had to be honest in this manga forgetting isn't the frightening part... remembering is. Absolutely worth it!

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Shi Ni Aruki by Ryouko
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/shi_ni_aruki/

Shi ni Aruki is a horror mystery manga with a very intriguing premise: wherever Tokiko goes, people seem to die in strange and often seemingly accidental ways. What makes the story interesting is that you are constantly left wondering whether Tokiko is simply incredibly unlucky or connected to something supernatural. I really liked the atmosphere of the manga: the story does a good job of making ordinary situations feel dangerous. The story does become a little uneven as it progresses especially when it starts introducing several different explanations and plot elements. Still, its atmosphere and twists make it an entertaining read.

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Soil by Atsushi Kaneko
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/soil/

There are some places that look so perfectly ordinary that you almost begin to distrust them. Yes, like the lamp in the corner of your room... iykyk xD
Anyways! Soil begins in one of those places. Soil New Town is a picture of neat little houses, tidy gardens and seemingly content families. Then one day, an entire family disappears without a trace, leaving behind nothing but questions and two very different detectives are sent to find out what happened. What follows is a mystery that grows stranger with every answer until the town itself begins to feel like something you ought not to have wandered into. What I adore about Soil is how quietly it becomes unsettling. There is something almost dreamlike about it but never in a comforting way. The people are peculiar, the little details are peculiar, the artstyle is peculiar and before long you find yourself looking at everything twice. It has that wonderful feeling of discovering a crack in an otherwise perfect little world.
Definitively underrated!

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Orochi by Kazuo Umezu
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/orochi/

Orochi is a special person. Beautiful, mysterious and gifted with strange powers, she wanders into the lives of ordinary people quietly observing the choices they make and the secrets they keep. Her stories often begin with something human: a family, a desire, a fear and slowly reveal the darker things hiding underneath. What makes Orochi so lovely to me is that the supernatural is almost secondary. Umezu understands that people can be frightening all by themselves. There is jealousy here, vanity, resentment, loneliness, cruelty and the peculiar ways in which love can become tangled with all of them. Orochi simply watches as these emotions unfold, almost like someone sitting quietly at the edge of a room while a family reveals itself without realising it is being observed. In fact, the manga might come across as too passive and I would agree with this criticism to a certain extent. But I must add that there is something wonderfully old fashioned about it too. It has the atmosphere of a gothic tale told on a rainy afternoon. And Orochi? I never quite know whether I should trust her and perhaps that is precisely why I like her.

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Monkey Peak by Koji Shinasaka & Akihiro Kumeta
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/monkey_peak/

I love mountains. I think mountains are rather beautiful. Which makes it especially cruel when a manga decides to make them terrifying. Monkey Peak follows a group of pharmaceutical company employees on a mountain excursion that quickly turns into a fight for survival when 'mysterious' apes appear. Suddenly the peaceful landscape becomes something hostile and getting out alive becomes the only thing that matters. What I found most frightening was the feeling of being trapped. A mountain gives you nowhere to hide forever. Supplies disappear, exhaustion sets in, fear begins to take over and eventually you have to wonder how well you really know the people standing beside you. I like survival horror when it remembers that surviving isn't only about escaping the monster. Sometimes it is about watching people change when they are frightened enough. This manga is bloody, tense and occasionally rather merciless but it remains one of my top favorite in this list.

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Kanjuten by Itsumachan & Aya Fumino
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/kanjuten/

I have a particular fondness for small horror stories and that's perhaps because they don't give you enough time to get comfortable. Kanjuten is a collection of twelve stories built around those little moments when everyday life becomes subtly unfamiliar. Nothing needs to announce itself as frightening. Ordinary experiences simply begin to bend in an unsettling direction until something that once felt perfectly harmless suddenly doesn't.
It's as if you notice something in the corner of your eye and immediately wish you hadn't. I like that Kanjuten understands that fear doesn't always need to scream. And perhaps the loveliest thing about an anthology like this is that every story leaves you with a tiny little thought to carry away with you. Nothing terribly serious. Just enough to make you look around the room once more. Hey... check that lamp again...

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6000 by Nokuto Koike
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/6000/

6000 takes us deep beneath the sea to a massive underwater facility sitting 6000 metres below the surface. A nightmare if you have thalassophobia. Years after a terrible accident killed everyone working there, the abandoned complex is reopened. Kengo Kadokura arrives with a new team only to find that this darkness below the ocean may be hiding something much worse than an old tragedy. This manga has such a wonderfully oppressive atmosphere. Everything feels too enclosed. The corridors seem endless. The machinery feels strangely alive. And above all of it is the enormous weight of the ocean. Just thinking about it makes me feel a little breathless. What I particularly enjoy is how the isolation slowly begins to affect the characters. When there is nowhere to go and no easy way to call for help, even the people beside you can begin to feel threatening. It is a very cold sort of horror. Very dark and very claustrophobic. The kind that makes you appreciate the sky a little more once you've finished reading! I have to admit that the author wasted the potential to develop the characters more deeply but since it’s such a unique plot manga, I still wanted to include it on this list. I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up disappointing you though. It's all deserving of criticism!
NB: This manga reminded me of the game 'Lazaret' by Aegon Games. Give it a go if you're into these sort of games otherwise I recommend watching this gamethrough: https://youtu.be/FjR1NBUeF5E?si=09ZRB35u41YJb8JB

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Pet Shop of Horrors by Matsuri Akino
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/pet_shop_of_horrors/

This manga is a classic in the horror genre. Hidden away in chinatown is a peculiar little pet shop and if you happen to find it, Count D may be able to give you exactly what you've been looking for. There is only one small difficulty. His animals come with rules! Pet Shop of Horrors follows the mysterious Count D and the strange creatures he sells to people who are searching for something very particular: companionship, love, beauty, perhaps even something they have lost. Each little story explores what happens when desire gets the better of judgement. I absolutely adore this concept. It feels like a fairy tale that has wandered somewhere it shouldn't have. There is something beautiful about the creatures in this manga but there is always something faintly sinister beneath that beauty. And this is because they aren't simply pets... they are temptations. And people are very easily tempted. Moreover, what makes these stories especially lovely is that the horror isn't always about what Count D sells. It is about what people are willing to do for the things they want.

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Dragon Head by Minetaro Mochizuki
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/dragon_head/

Somewhere beneath a mountain, a train carrying a group of students is suddenly derailed. When Teru wakes, almost everyone is dead. He finds two other survivors but there is little comfort in finding someone else alive. They are trapped underground, surrounded by darkness, death and the constant tremors of something happening beyond the tunnel. When they finally make their way outside, the world waiting for them is not the world they remember. Dragon Head is frightening in a very physical way. What stayed with me most was how quickly fear begins to change people. When everything familiar disappears even another human being can become something to be afraid of.

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Fuan no Tane by Masaaki Nakayama
https://www.mangago.me/read-manga/fuan_no_tane/

Some horror stories need hundreds of pages but this manga needs almost nothing. This collection is made up of short strange little horror stories that live somewhere between ordinary life and the supernatural. Some are only a few pages long and many revolve around those uncomfortable moments when something familiar becomes just slightly wrong. I think that brevity is exactly what makes it so effective. It literally goes: you see something strange > you understand just enough > and voilà then the story ends.
Which frankly can be much worse than an explanation.
I love horror that trusts the reader's imagination and this manga does this beautifully. It leaves little gaps for your mind to fill and unfortunately my mind is very good at filling gaps with the worst possible things! xD

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And that's everything for today. See you next time!