A bunch of dark short stories from the "horror master" of Japan.

The thing with one shots, or short stories, is some will always be better than others. This is actually my first Ito work and it's a solid introduction to his style. His stories range from a woman buying a chair and a guy being inside it, to people suddenly going missing and strung up together dead the next few days, to a story of a woman who licks your face and you die from the poison that is on her tongue.

As you can tell by now a lot of these sound super outlandish. In the hands of someone else they could come across, well...stupid. And I won't lie, some of the stories here could use some work. Watching a giant tongue flop around a city is silly and not the least bit scary. The dialogue too feels stilted at times.

But getting out the negatives first the plots themselves are usually interesting and the art...goddamn the art is FANTASTIC. Some truly horrifying imagery mixed with pretty great character designs. If Ito does nothing else, his art is near perfection for the horror genre and it shows why he is so popular here.

A solid collection of short stories for any horror fan to enjoy. I wasn't blown away but I enjoyed the majority.