I received an ARC from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I find myself torn trying to review To Strip the Flesh. Anthologies are always challenging to form an opinion on by their very nature, and this collection is no exception. Oto Toda’s art was certainly extremely competent, but her style didn’t strike me as particularly memorable.

I do think that the longest of these stories, that following Chiaki Ogawa’s transition and its impact on his relationship with his father, is the strongest by a wide margin, and therefore, perhaps it was a mistake to place it at the very start. I was expecting to be squeamish about that gorey imagery in this opening chapter, but it doesn’t feel gratuitous and indeed, seems vital to themes of bodily autonomy and control presented here. Oto Toda has clearly drawn on personal experiences of dysphoria, as mentioned in the interview at the back of this volume, and an informed understanding of the LGBTQ+ community. As someone who’s read a lot of similar trans narratives about parental strife, it did strike me as a little formulaic, and didn’t personally wring any emotion out of me, but it is very exciting to see trans issues coming more to the forefront in the transphobic culture of Japan, and this tale of ultimate acceptance is probably quite a bit more groundbreaking in that context.

Being shorter, the other stories simply didn’t really give the reader a whole lot of time to get acquainted with the characters, and not a lot of them felt effectively executed to me. However, they were as a group, much more creative, filled with imaginative ideas, and I appreciated them as riskier pieces of more inventive storytelling, even if they didn’t all “work,” for me, I was definitely never bored. I eagerly anticipate more of Oto Toda’s work in the future as a result, even if this collection isn’t going to become a favourite of mine.