A Body-Swap Horror Comic
Since October in 2018, I have been reading a manga called A Trail of Blood by Shuzo Oshimi, ever since Super Eyepatch Wolf gave it the number one spot on his or instead Mega Diepatch Wolf’s top 10 Halloween recommendations. And it has been a sobering, addictive, chilling, thriller and with twists and turns that honestly make your stomach drop.
In the past, my only exposure to Oshimi’s work was the first two volumes of Happiness, which I enjoyed quite a bit and will have to get back into again sometime. I was also aware of The Flowers of Evil but only from a few cringy clips of the anime adaptation.
Most recently, Super EyePatch Wolf released a video on some of Oshimi’s work, mostly focusing on A Trail of Blood, and at some point, he mentions the manga Inside Mari, which I had not heard of before. I found his short description of the series intriguing. The video also convinced me that Oshimi had done a lot of work that should be consumed in full. And since I am always catching up to A Trail of Blood’s chapters, I decided that I should start binge-reading all of his work. So I started with Inside Mari.
Last night I completed the series, and it was incredible. It is about a young man who can be described as a hikikomori, and interestingly his name is Isao Komori (not sure if this was intentional). A depressed, pathetic, jobless, college-dropout…
