Volumes: 1 (6 chapters)

Artist: Yu Sagusa (story)
Kenichi Tachibana (art)

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Quick Bit: A team of space exterminators find themselves fighting for their lives against a horde of life-sized cockroach humanoids bent on ripping them to shreds.

Terra Formars is a dark and gritty action-horror series that is still in its early stages, but within only 6 chapters has already put my expectations through the roof. This manga is the very definition of agonizing, and to give you an example, take the intensity of manga such as Kamisama no Iutoori or Shingeki no Kyojin and multiply it by 10. “Nobody is safe” has never felt more true. And though you might not have the same long-running connection with characters that you might have in the aforementioned manga, the sense of impending doom still lingers over your head as you flip from one page to the next.

TF has an extremely hurried pace. You’re very quickly thrown into the hustle and bustle of a space crew on Mars, whose mission involves wiping out the cockroaches used to warm the planet’s atmosphere. However, what they find are not ordinary cockroaches, but mutated, human-sized versions of the bugs with equally scaled power and speed. The reveal of this plot-twist, although expected, is spectacular, and from the very first moments the crew interacts with these bugs you realize just how catastrophic they are, and from then on everything goes to hell. At this point in time, TF isn’t a manga you’ll want to read for an intricate or complex story, but it stands as an incredible example of a guilty pleasure. The action is intense, elevated by the introduction of the “Bugs Procedure”, and the gore is not something your eyes can avoid.

One of the greatest highlights and strengths of Terra Formars is the artwork by a relatively new artist named Kenichi Tachibana. The hauntingly detailed expressions and close-ups of the humanoid cockroaches will dwell in your nightmares. One of the biggest treats while reading TF for me was having a sense of anxiety and fear when turning to the next page. You never know when the next creepy smile might pop-up around the corner. The action scenes are also drawn very well, especially when they involve someone being ripped limb from limb.

Terra Formar’s weakness lies in the fact that characters at times feel expendable. The large cast slowly dwindles down, and just as you’re starting to favor one character’s back-story or presence, they’re ripped away from you. With that said, the fragility of everyone’s lives is one of the many terrifying aspects of the manga, and it’s something you’ll have to get used to. Without spoiling anything, the final plot twist of Volume 1 will have you shivering from fear. With the conflict of TF growing to a larger scope, Volume 2 should be an incredible and devastating tale.

Volumes: 1 (5 chapters)

Artist: Hiro_Kiyohara (Story and Art)

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Quick Bit: In a small town, there’s a legend about demons called Tsumitsuki (Sin dwellers), with a famous shrine rumoured to house a youkai god, who eats other people’s sins. It’s a rumour or urban legend, you find out soon enough.

This is coming from the artist of of Another with the same brand of gorgeously dark and sleek art. Every page is inked in detail and characters seem to stare you down out of its pages. The story is about the Tsumitsuki legend, somewhat famous in the small town that we see in the manga. According to the legend, Tsumitsuki are the demons that house themselves in humans with guilt over their sins. The demon eats them from the inside to the effect that completely changes the humans they possess. Though, they are not left unchecked as a mysterious boy named Kuroe seems to know more about them then anyone should. For brand’s sake, he’s the main protagonist of the story but we do have other character perspectives to understand the full story.

I’m used to super-happy or even mundane main protagonists but you usually don’t find many bitter protagonists, who are fully aware of their situation. In short, Kuroe is all business and even creepiness. Visually, he’s the polar opposite of Natsume (still, that youkai mask, hnng), even if he has a friendly youkai fox, who gives him free advice. He seems to have accepted his fate and diligent with his cleaning work of Tsumitsuki. A straight-forward tortured soul, who is just doing his job makes you empathize with him.

The pacing is fine but as it’s just five chapters, you sometimes wish there was more. Though, the reason I ended up liking it is not only the beautiful art but how you have to figure many things out yourself. You don’t get enough time to connect with the characters (due to one chapter arc), but still at least with Kuroe, you do connect. The art is detailed with right shadows and emphasis so you see the action scenes in detail and at least go eeeek. Not a very deep storyline but a good horror read if you are short on time.

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Quick Bit: Marie is constantly tormented by her classmates and regularly raped by her teacher. With nowhere else to turn, she finds herself asking for help from one of her school’s seven demons.

I couldn’t possibly suggest horror titles without mentioning this one! If you couldn’t tell from the title, this is brought to you by the same guy who gave us Higurashi no Naku Koro ni and Umineko no Naku Koro ni, Ryukishi07 (along with Tsunohazu Ichirou who does the artwork)! …It’s probably his least safe for work of the three as well. One chapter in and it’s already dealing with some really extreme bullying, pedophilia and rape. It only gets worse from there and the visuals don’t exactly help, even when the topic is more… innocent.

Anyways, back to the horror aspect of the story, it uses Ryukishi’s normal formula of taking moe characters and then distorting the crap out of them as they all have fits of insanity. It’s even more prominent in this series since it deals heavily with the idea of yokai eating human children and fighting amongst each other in territory battles. Higanbana is a great example and even though she looks normal, the art always hints that there’s something absolutely inhuman behind the facade. I have to say as well that some scenes had me tense, just from the artwork alone. The atmosphere is amazing.

…I’m just patiently waiting for this to be animated, just to see how many people would complain about the content.

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Quick Bit: It is a very dark night. Under a heavy rain, a determined man sets out to track his terrified victim. The decision of Kirishima Seiichi is clear: Tonight, he will kill his wife.

Remind me to never ever enter a strange cave while lost in the middle of the night. It’s the most sensible thing, right? Well, Seiichi Kirishima doesn’t seem to think this way as he’s blinded by the urgency to kill his wife, oddly starting off the thrilling tale that is Hideout. The art for this one volume series is dark, intense, and gritty; the perfect mood setter for this dark story. The cave peoples’ wrinkled, appalling appearance and their trademark eyes were definitely chilling, even a bit terrifying. It honestly took me a while to bring myself to re-read this manga because of the way they looked! The incredibly wide and never-blinking eyes seemed to radiate through the screen; their intense image leaving unwanted imprints in my mind. I still can’t handle seeing those eyes without freaking out.

Anyway, story-wise, the beginning feels like a typical horror story, where the fear comes from the terrifying predicament Seiichi finds himself in this seemingly empty cave and the uncertainty that follows. However, as the story progresses, you begin to see the story twisting in a different direction. It begins to feel more like a thriller towards the end, where there are some intense confrontations that lead to the final dark and eerie twist. A sense of true horror comes in as we witness the descent of an innocent man, who finally cracks and becomes a monster himself. Though typical in some sense, Hideout was quite the engrossing, dark read that shook up some of that innocence in me. I loved how the story played out and the placement of Seiichi’s flashbacks, as well as the wide panel shots that showcased some interesting viewpoints on certain scenes. Overall, a manga that I don’t regret checking out, but one I do wish didn’t have such creepy eyes to stare back at me.~

Quick Bit: Follow the adventures of March, a Syste Behard, who hunts ils– evil creatures that lurk in fascinating objects.

Out of my recommendations, this would probably be odd one out. Partially because it’s originally Korean as opposed to Japanese, but mostly because I would categorize it as a tragedy before any other genre. I figured I should include it though since a lot of the events in the story and with the Ills involve some rather horror-ish themes. …It also involves a lot of nudity, but let’s set that aside for now.

The plot kind of starts out with singular stories about March dealing with Ills, but over the course of the volumes, turns into an overarching plot between the separate stories. They also gradually introduce the main cast and go into their backstories… which is where the tragedy part comes in. Pretty much every single character in this series has been screwed several times over by life, either by Ills or by something else (which normally results in an Ill anyways, so it’s just a vicious cycle). There are lighter hearted chapters, of course, but they’re normally tear jerkers for one reason or another. Not a lot of my questions have been answered since the first chapter (like where the Ills come from), but the way the story is set up, they don’t really need to be answered.

…I dread this story coming to an end. Not just because its set up really well and it has a good plot, but because I have a feeling that it’s not going to be a happy ending. As soon as March hits a certain point of character development, the entire cast (or at least the love interest) is screwed.

Artist: Takahashi Tsutomu (Story and Art)

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Quick Bit: All souls of those who are murdered or face accidental deaths arrive at the Gate of Grudges. Izuko, keeper of the Gate of Grudges presents each soul with three choices. Skyhigh is about their choices and reasoning.

From its name, you would think of it as a peppy manga but rather it reveals the darkness in one’s heart that’s formed by grudges. Our protagonist is Izuko, the ogre of the Gate of Grudges with a specific duty to give three choices to the dead who were murdered: go to heaven and be reborn, refuse to admit death and remain as a ghost on earth, or haunt and kill one person, which means proceeding to hell for eternal suffering. The choices are cut and dried but not easy to take because people who enter the gate have gone through different circumstances of hate, pain, loss and all types of sadness. As witnesses, we read about their fate in this manga and let me assure you, we get examples of all the above choices. There are of course, different perspectives of the dead but Izuko is always prominent with questions to reveal how they died.

My favourite chapters are Connection, Pigeon House, A Song and three parts of Face because it explores how emotions sometime drive us to the extent of sending us to extremes. The things we would not even dream about, we’ll do because of feeling strongly about it. In the last chapter, there’s a reference about Izuko and how she became the ogre of gate (some people might get Jigoku Shoujo vibes from this). It’s a tough job but someone has to do it.

Skyhigh is an earlier work of Takahashi Tsutomo (he’s definitely my type – my star sign and blood type!), who is famously known for Jiraishin—a sensational and classic detective saga. It has seven total stories, the last one taking up three chapters, while others are pretty much stand alone chapters. There are three more sequels available, out of which you can find translations for at least two. The pacing is very good and I never felt bored anywhere. The stories are addictive enough to keep you flipping pages with what happens next to sending you looking for continuation. Truth be told I wasn’t sure if I would like it due to the dated art style (reminds me of the 80s), but even then the characters and stories glued me in with its creepy charm.

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Quick Bit: A collection of very short and mostly atmospheric stories dealing with urban legends, ghosts, and superstitions all organized around a specific theme (school, visitors, etc.).

I only discovered this series five days ago and I’ve already read through it twice, willingly putting myself through some serious goosebumps. Fuan no Tane is a three volume series consisting of short (and I mean short) stories about the supernatural that are centered around a particular theme. At first, this wasn’t frightening at all (with the exception of some really creepy looking and eerily placed monsters), but the more I thought about it, the more I began to suspect some monsters and ghosts were hidden in the dark shadows of my house, looking for a chance to pounce on me. What makes it particularly chilling is that these are just simple, ordinary occurrences in life and the author makes something frightening come from them. Of course, the ghosts, monsters, and other strange beings make it ever more frightening with their freaky appearances (Not to mention the author includes actual photos of the settings of some of these stories).

Fuan no Tane is quite entertaining, even with it’s simple and incredibly short chapters that are organized into interesting themes. It gives each volume the feel of that you’re gathered together with friends, exchanging stories about freak occurrences and creepy rumors or myths, especially with the final chapter where the author reveals his own personal story. It’s not necessarily jump-out-of-your-chair-and-scream scary, but it does give some nice spooky tales that’ll send some chills down the spine.~

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Quick Bit: Magical girls aren’t always moe.

What do you get when you cross magical girls, zombies, and an apocolypse? DESTRUCTION. Mahou Shoujo of the End is a gritty, no holds barred manga that takes the magical girl genre in a whole new light, turning them into zombie overlords hellbent on destroying humanity. The manga starts on a bit of an annoying note, with the typical “I want a normal life”-guy stealing the spotlight, but as soon as the main conflict is introduced everything improves. MSotE, much like Terra Formars, is so cruel and gore-y that it becomes entertaining off that gimmick alone. Random plot twists, throwaway characters, and death abound!

One of the scariest parts of the manga is the art. The magical girls are a combination of the generic moe outfits and weapons you’d expect from a mahou shoujo combined with sinister personalities and deadly abilities. I shouldn’t forget to mention they’re pretty much un-killable, turn the people they kill into magical zombies, and can manipulate anything around them. Brutal doesn’t begin to describe this manga!

At times hilarious, and other times nightmarish, Mahou Shoujo of the End has a spectacular start that promises to only get better in future chapters. With only four chapters there isn’t much in terms of character or plot development, but at the speedy pace it’s currently going that’s understandable. And last, never forget … MAGICAL.

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Quick Bit: Welcome to the classes of horror! I will be your guide to a world that lurks under everyday life. For these lessons, you don’t need text books or notebooks.

What happens when you mix something like The Ring with a bunch of typical middle school girl problems? Welcome to Screaming Lessons- a group of oneshot stories about typical shoujo problems like friendship, crushes on boys, studying and much more… with a horror twist. Each story is introduced by Yomi, a enigmatic girl who is missing the bottom half of her body, and even if you’re not into shoujo, I can guarantee that there’s enough angst, violence, death, betrayal, and general creepiness to keep you entertained. The story is mostly told in a school setting (thus, the ‘Lessons’ part… or at least that’s what I assume), with a different heroine each time. The horror aspect usually comes from sort of urban legend or supernatural occurrence as opposed to survival horror.

I can’t say that this is the scariest thing I’ve ever read, but there’s certainly something disturbing about how the shoujo art style starts wandering towards the more horror-esque imagery. …Like when the kind old woman calmly mentions that she made a doll out of the heroine’s classmate’s skin. …That being said, the ‘Lessons’ part of the title also refers to the fact that all of the oneshots are there to teach a moral lesson of some sort. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, don’t bully others, don’t be greedy, don’t be vain, don’t trust creepy strangers who give you candy/ offer to be your new mother; the series can get preachy. Overall though, it’s an interesting mix of genres and even though they’re all one shots, the story develops pretty thoroughly in each chapter.

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Quick Bit: Corpse Party: Blood Covered revolves around a group of students from Kisaragi Academy and one of their teachers. They try a charm called Sachiko ever after as an attempt to cheer up Mayu Suzumoto, who is going to transfer schools; but something goes wrong, and they end up trapped in Heavenly Host Elementary School.

anaaga recommended this manga in last year’s Halloween post, and here I am recommending the PSP VN game. …Probably not seasonally appropriate, but I actually played and finished Corpse Party around Christmas time last year (the screams of dying children from my headphones and the song ‘Silver Bells’ playing from the next room over is a very, very weird mix). That’s not important though. What IS important is the fact that this is an amazing game. Despite being 8-bit (with some CGs) and having an equally retro soundtrack, the game pulls off an amazingly creepy atmosphere. I read an article about how the creators focused on the scariness of having something hinted as opposed to them telling us what actually happened, and it really shows. Some pretty scarring and disturbing things are subtly mentioned. Opposed to them directly saying ‘this character is being buried alive’, they just hint at it. They make you think about what’s going on, which makes you more aware of just how horrifying some things are.

The voice acting (which is 100% Japanese, for those wondering) is also amazing. You might have gotten a taste from that short OVA that came out with the children being killed, but when a character is dying, they sound like they’re REALLY dying. Every person casted is amazing (though what else would you expect from people like Arai Satomi, Nakamura, Yuuichi, Sawashiro Miyuki, and Shimono Hiro?). A character shoves a pair of scissors down their throat multiple times, and it’s extremely scarring, yet SO well acted you can’t help but be impressed.

Oh man the stress I had from this game. Not only do things chase you (god I hate when that happens), but certain events are also timed (I absolutely hate that as well). It really sucked when the puzzles are timed or when something chased you while you needed to solve a puzzle. There are so many bad ends. Even doing some things out of order can lead to bad ends. In the end too, some character deaths are mandatory and happen no matter what you choose. You just can’t win, even when you do win. It’s depressing, but in the end, it all adds to the intrigue of the story. There were some characters I liked playing as and some I really disliked playing as (you control certain characters depending on which chapter you’re on), but overall, it was the story and the promise for some sort of explanation to the events that pushed me forward.

…I’m dreading and anticipating the english release of the sequel to this game, Book of Shadows. The Corpse Party was scarring and stressful enough as a third person player. I don’t even want to know how stressful it’s going to be having something chase me or having to do something like carry a human tongue in a bag in first person view. I think the graphics are going to be less pixel-y as well, so I assume there will be plenty more detail in the dead bodies/ other disturbing things you find in the game.

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Quick Bit: Ao Oni is a Japanese survival horror game with RPG and puzzle elements.

Ao Oni is a terrifying atmospheric survival horror game that relies heavily on jump scares and setting to push you to your limits. You play as a boy who journeys into an old home with his three friends, only to find themselves locked in and hunted down by the titular “Blue Demon”. Although the game starts rather innocently, a twist near the beginning of the game sets the tone for the rest of the game. Ao Oni is not to be taken lightly!

Gameplay is rather simple because of the confines of RPG maker, but the simplicity is never really an issue. The story takes you on a journey to find your friends and escape, and to do so you must solve puzzles and occasionally run from the demon. These chases are absolutely horrifying. My suggestion: Don’t have any glasses with liquid nearby, and always play in the dark! The scariest aspect of the game is how it slowly gets more and more horrifying as you play. New elements such as darkness/flashlights and new types of enemies to run from increase the scares, and on more than one occasion you’ll find yourself fighting for your life!

There are many versions of the game as well as fan-made spin-offs (for example, a Hetalia themed version), and in each of these versions the story tends to differ. The latest version is the one I played, and seems to be the best. The way the game always has you on your feet, terrified as your turn every corner and open every door is one of the reasons I wanted to recommend this game. It’s very simple, but manages to still be amazing.