Hell Baby

by Hideshi Hino

From one of Japan's most accomplished artists comes this new graphic novel, the unsettling saga of twin sisters born one dark and stormy night in Tokyo: one normal, and one a demon baby with a taste for blood - a Hell Baby. Tossed into a garbage dump, Hell Baby dies in the plastic bag but is brought back to life by an unworldly bolt of lightening. Hell Baby develops hard-earned hunting techniques to survive life among the wild animals who roam the garbage dump. After struggling along for seven years, she seeks revenge for her fate and returns to the city, where she applies her hunting skills for survival - this time against the good citizens of Tokyo.

Genres: Manga, Horror, Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Japanese Literature, Mystery

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Hideshi Hino (日野日出志 Hino Hideshi, born April 19, 1946) is a Japanese manga artist who specializes in horror stories. His comics include Hell Baby, Hino Horrors, and Panorama of Hell. He also wrote and directed two of the Guinea Pig horror movies which were based on his manga: Flower of Flesh and Blood, which he also starred in, and Mermaid in a Manhole.

Reviews

[daph pink ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This manga is wholly original. Although at first it appears to be your standard horror manga, it actually takes a very sad turn toward the conclusion. I had a great time reading this one. Once more, if you can't take blood and gore, then this really isn't for you. But it's a fantastic piece of art and I strongly suggest it.

[Jordan West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early Hino, much more cartoony and simplistic in tone than his later work, enlivened by some interesting art and sudden bursts of arterial spray; surprisingly, the ending is almost unbearably poignant, and makes Spielberg look like a poseur.

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely morbid comedy about an aborted and abandoned child that deals with the pain of being ostracized. Surprisingly sad in the end.

[Claudia Pastor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Creo que algo que terminaré aceptando en algún momento es que Junji Ito es un extraordinario artista del horror, pero mi favorito se está volviendo Hideshi Hino, el artista de volver sensible, humano y hasta dulce lo monstruoso.

Sus ilustraciones son sencillas, pero no es nada sencillo llorar por un demonio, desearle el calor de sus padres, desearle ser feliz. Esa es la magia de Hideshi Hino ❤️‍🩹

Este manga me horrorizó por momentos, pero, sobre todo, me dio un final profundamente delicado y doloroso.

Dos mellizas, una destinada a una vida rodeada de amor; la otra, hija de la oscuridad. ¿El destino es culpable de estas vidas separadas? ¿Debemos enfrentarlo o aceptarlo? ¿Qué pasa cuando el monstruo se vuelve un ejemplo de humanidad? 🥺

[Nikita Katiyar · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is very popular in horror manga circles but its a disappointing read for serious horror fans who are already familiar with the likes of junji itou, nakayama masaaki etc. Hino's Horror series has better storylines and art to offer.

[Zac Hawkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first experience with Hino will by no means be my last. As bitter sweet as they come, brutality rubbing up against the tenderness of dejection. Gorgeously grotesque.

[Sarri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Japanilainen "kauhu"manga rujona syntyneestä kaksostytöstä, jonka isä heittää jätepussissa kaatopaikalle. Tyttö kuolee, mutta erinäisten yhteensattumien kautta tyttö herää jälleen henkiin ja kasvaa kaatopaikalla syöden raatoja ja metsästäen kaatopaikan eläimiä. Kun tyttö täyttää seitsemän, ilmestyy valon keskeltä vanha nainen, joka ohjeistaa tytön menemään läheiseen kaupunkiin, jotta hän kostaisi heitteillejättönsä ja kohtaisi lopullisen kohtalonsa siellä.

Tyttö lähtee kaupunkiin ja aiheuttaa kauhua koko rahalla, kunnes vaisto kuljettaa hänet täyttämään vanhan naisen ennustusta...

Hideshi Hinon Hell baby on rujosti piirretty, myös gorea sisältävä manga, joka on enemmän ehkä tunteita herättävä tarina hylätystä tytöstä, kuin kauhumanga lapsihirviöstä. Kohdeyleisöksi arpoisin ehkä nuoret aikuiset ja aikuislukijat. Suosittelisin ehkä kaikesta rujosta viehättyville.

[Reetta Saine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ihanan vastenmielistä ja kamalaa. Raatojen imeskelyä, matojen putoilua, elävältä paloittelua.

Lopulta kaunis (?) tarina uhrautumisesta, katumuksesta ja ehkä vähän liiankin kiltistä murhaajavauvasta.

[Daniela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una historia corta, grotesca pero a la vez triste.

[Stephen Gillespie · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early(ish) manga from the man who would go onto direct two of the best Guinea Pig films (and was, seemingly, the inspiration for the series). This is a delightfully dark tale full of over the top gore - all through a cutesy aesthetic. Visually, it is a joy.

The narrative is very silly but is knowingly so, the whole arc being a pastiche on elements of Frankenstein - with a dash of Sophocles. Some of the visuals re-occur in Guinea Pig films, as does the transgressive and extreme spirit. The fountains of blood, the dismemberment and the random violence are tropes Hideshi Hino obviously loves. Also, the treatment of body horror in general echoes through his work: presented an aesthetic spectacle in which the joy is looking at the artistry of gore as much is it is being icked out by it.

This isn't icky, it is just very silly - and brilliantly so. Heads and arms may fly off, but the pervasive unreality - and the cute style - make it darkly funny and never grim or sadistic. Also, maggots. The man loves maggots.

[Silver · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5
Personalmente mi historia favorita de Hideshi hasta ahora. Al terminar la obra me sentí envuelto por la tristeza.

[James Dunphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hell Girl is the start to my Halloween Horror reading fest. It's quick, sweet, easy, and to the point. All while being grotesquely drawn by horror manga mastermind Hideshi Hino (who I have previously read the excellent Panorama of Hell from). This horror one-shot is a simple tale of a the life of a demonic female baby, hopelessly abandoned by her father at birth and forced to grow up in a junkyard struggling against other vermin. She grows up into a deformed scavenger who eventually makes her way back into the city to cause terror and mayhem. The story is very simple, but in a world of 40+ volume complex manga tales it is a welcome change of pace to have such a simple story wrapped up in about 200 pages. Hino's drawing style is obtuse and blunt, almost like a Japanese Jhonen Vasquez. He lacks the detail in his art of your Junji Ito's, but the characters have a memorable oblong quality to them. I didn't love this as much as I enjoyed his Panorama of Hell from last Halloween, but this was a great way to kick off my month long addiction to all things scary. 4 stars. Easily will read this again down the line.

[Ashkin Ayub · Rating 4 out of 5]

( ﾟヮﾟ)
On a stormy night, twin sisters are born. One of the girls is healthy and normal in every regard - the other one is hideously deformed and craves blood rather than milk. The father of the girls is unwilling to accept the deformed twin into his family and so he places her in a plastic sack and disposes of her at a rubbish dump. The baby subsists first on carrion and earthworms and then, later, by hunting the dogs, rats, crows and other animals that inhabit the dump.

After seven years, she leaves the dump and heads for the distant lights of the city....

Story: 4/5
Art: 3/5

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is supposed to be scary and it is but not because of the "demon" baby. The scary thing is the selfish dad who sees her and decides to leave her in a garbage dump to die like trash just because she doesn't live up to his expectations of what a baby should look like. It's a shame she doesn't kill her dad when they meet. I'm not sure if it was Hideshi Hino's intent for the reader to feel empathy for the deformed girl but I do feel that way about her, especially on the last page.

[Manos Vasileiou Aronis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ο Hideshi Hino δεν χρησιμοποιεί τον gore τρόμο ως αυτοσκοπό, ούτε αρκείται να σοκάρει με ανούσια jump scares, όπως συμβαίνει κατά κανόνα στον mainstream horror κινηματογράφο. Αντιθέτως, με την αιματοβαμμένη ιδέα της «κόρης της κολάσεως» πλάθει έναν φρικιαστικό εφιάλτη για τον κίνδυνο των προκαταλήψεων και της απόρριψης, που εισχωρεί στις πιο σκοτεινές πτυχές της ανθρώπινης ύπαρξης.

[Errol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I guess if you're looking for something more emotional that scary, which I wasn't at the time. But it had a ending that could make your heart heavy or something like that. Not much of a horror as it is a drama but I still liked it. The art work is sort of meh but the story gets its point across.

[Tina]

I don't know how to rate this. I don't even know how to review it. The manga was disturbing, odd, and disgusting. I don't know if that's good or bad. All I know is that I have never read anything like it, and I still don't quite know what to make of it.

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Creepy and sad at the same time. It's my first time to read a book by this author and hoping to read more of his/her mangas. If you want something creepy but wanted all the feels as well, then this book is a must read for you.

[Sleepy Ash · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the general idea for the storyline and found the simplistic style humbling however I feel like something was missing from the work; can't put my finger on it.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

A goofy little story with a sad beginning and a sad ending.

[Artur Coelho · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dos mais estranhos, e inquietantes, contos cruéis de Hino. A história é de um surreal negro, com toque daquele sobrenatural japonês que foge às nossas lógicas de crime e castigo, ou de vitimização e inquietude. Um conto de horror que escava sempre mais fundo, mas que termina com um inesperado lampejo de humanismo no fundo de uma tenebrosa descida à selvajaria.

O momento feliz de um pai ao nascer as filhas gémeas é estragado pela misteriosa deformidade de uma. Entre a incredulidade e vergonha, o homem faz o impensável, abandona o bebé deformado numa lixeira. Onde, contra todas as probabilidades, sobrevive, por entre os detritos daquele a que Hino chama de cemitério do mundo. A menina é realmente monstruosa, até os animais fogem dela, por instinto aprende a caçar. Tem uma peculiar fisiologia. O seu corpo está em constante apodrecimento, roído por vermes, e apenas o sangue das criaturas que apanha a mantém viva. Atraída pelas luzes da cidade, depressa encontra na carne humana uma nova fonte de alimentação. É na cidade que o instinto a leva à casa dos pais, onde descobre a sua irmã gémea. Onde percebe, olhando para a menina perfeita da qual é o reflexo distorcido, tudo o que lhe foi negado, o regaço maternal, o conforto mais simples, o amor humano. Poderá, com um gesto canibal, trocar de lugar com a sua irmã. Mas, num momento da história que não consigo compreender, decide não o fazer. Foge por entre as trevas, ao som dos gritos da mãe e irmã que não suspeitam que existe, do desespero do pai que a reconhece, alvejada pela polícia que dá caça à criança canibal. Arrasta-se para o seu covil no meio do lixo, onde se deixa adormecer, talvez para jamais voltar a acordar.

[Alessandra S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Por la noche, bolas de fuego aparecen de la nada danzando en este traicionero mundo... y así como los gemidos resuenan más y más fuerte, las bolas de fuego se tornan más brillantes y de un vibrante color rojo, como el color de la sangre, y cubren esta gigantesca tumba, un lamento que asemeja el sonido de las profundidades del infierno se eleva... y poco a poco un coro de lamentos resuenan en maldiciones contra el mundo."

Criatura maldita o Hell Baby, publicado en 1995 por el mangaka Hideshi Hino, con trazos simples que fluctúan entre lo grotesco y lo sencillo, lo clásico y lo espantoso; es la historia de una familia en la que nacen dos hermanas gemelas, una de ellas, hermosa y la otra con una apariencia que tildan de temible. Tras el horror y el desconcierto inicial, el padre decide tirar al bebé de apariencia monstruosa en el basurero, conocido como el cementerio del mundo, donde todos arrojan lo que no quieren, y así comienza la historia de una niña condenada al desamparo y la dureza de la vida.

Confieso, lloré un poco en el último capítulo y no pude evitar conmoverme, pues esencialmente es un manga que gira en torno al destino de los miserables, con esta similitud que evoca un poco a la obra de Mary Shelley, con Frankenstein, que parece gritar: ¡qué cruel es el creador, que nos ha abandonado, que nos ha dejado solos en este mundo insoportable y nauseabundo!

Una obra, que al igual que los gusanos que se arrastran por la tierra, parece anidar en la oscuridad, entre la compasión, la desolación y la profunda tristeza.

[Fefs Messina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ho visto questa edizione in saldo e ho dovuto comprarla, anche se avevo già letto il manga in inglese.
Finalmente l'Italia si sta aprendo a manga di genere horror partendo dai classici come Kasuo Umezu (di cui è uscito finalmente "Aula alla deriva") fino a queste piccole perle nascoste.
Hideshi Hino non ha, infatti, uno stile che può piacere a molte persone. E persino questa storia, che penso sia la sua più conosciuta, non attrae molto a causa della semplicità del disegno anni 50 (e della trama).
Si tratta infatti di una specie di favoletta horror a "lieto fine" - anche se dipende dai punti di vista. Una bambina mostruosa viene buttata alla nascita in una discarica, in cui cresce fino all'età di 7 anni. In seguito a una visione, la bambina va alla ricerca della sua famiglia seminando il panico nella città.
Nonostante il putridume visivo (ci troviamo davanti a bimbe decomposte, vermi e cadaveri di cani), sono i buoni sentimenti a vincere e a dominare la scena, rendendo la storia addirittura commovente.

Insomma, un manga autoconclusivo che consiglio a chi piace l'horror vintage.

[Elias Carlson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the second book I read by Hideshi Hino because of his influence on the horror manga god Junji Ito. I liked this one as much as Bug Boy as it relates a lot to the theme I noticed in that previous work. I mentioned it in the other but I might be looking too deep in these works but I just get an overwhelming feeling of the theme of not fitting in to the normal standards. Hell baby/girl never gets a chance at a normal life, she has a strong urge of family and normality but has to survive as an animal. She will never get a normal life as she was deemed a monster at birth (She was obviously not normal as she was drinking blood as a new born child but it fits my thoughts of making the story over the top just for the sake of showing how humans are easy to no try to understand what we don't like) and thrown away. I keep finding these themes of my own life being autistic and having family members and other people in life treat me badly because of my difference. Im probably looking way too deep into this but i just really relate not to the blood drinking but the loneliness.

[Cassandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first manga by Hideshi Hino that I ever read and I was surprised that I liked it.
The art is simple and clean, but the simplicity isn't something that influenced my rating. I think that the story is well paced for a single-volume manga. Hino taps into gothic literature tropes—the monster girl is born during a stormy night; she's discarded and dies off, but is later resurrected and wreaks havoc in a city only to die after finding some sense of her humanity. This manga focuses on plot more than the character, though Hino gives the monster girl some development in the finale.

Hino's story can be comical at times, though the main character's life and experiences make story out to be a tragedy.

[Felipe Arango Betancourt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta criatura maldita ha mordido mi corazón.

En una noche de tormenta han nacido dos mellizas. Los rayos avisan la tragedia de un nacimiento. La primera bebé nace sana; la segunda, es un monstruo: nació con los ojos abiertos, en vez de dientes tiene colmillos y en vez de llorar como cualquier criatura recién nacida emite unos extraños gruñidos.
Y esta criatura, rechazada y apartada por su fealdad y monstruosidad, nos confronta violentamente nuestro lado y concepto de humanidad. Debemos preguntarnos y respondernos con total honestidad cómo es nuestra relación con la otredad, con la diferencia, con lo extraño, con lo "feo", con eso que visualmente nos repele. ¿Lo eliminamos, lo negamos?

[Emily-alice Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Look, Hideshi Hino is not for everyone. The art is borderline childish, the reaction panels (or pages as it were) almost meme themselves, and these almost laughable qualities are grotesquely juxtaposed with some truly grisly and disturbing imagery. But he is a pioneer of horror manga for a reason and this book perfectly encapsulates why. Taking the tried and true formula of “demon baby abandoned by family seeks revenge” formula, Hino flips this schlocky premise on its head and wrings so much poignancy and pathos from its protagonist that you can’t help but want to hug the cannibalistic little thing. Even after she has devoured several handfuls of worms, a few dogs, and a dozen people.

[UwUrkopia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ne connaissant Hino que par sa carrière ciné (principal contributeur à la série des Guinea Pig), j'admet être allé vers Hell Baby un peu à reculons
Et quelle jolie surprise ! Si le récit est court, et le dessin de Hino assez old school, les personnages un peu rond, très cartoon donnent un cachet très sympathique à l'ensemble, allégeant ce qu'on lit
L'histoire en elle même est pas "si" trash "que ça", elle est même assez touchante, racontant la quête de ce bébé zombie abandonné dans une décharge à la naissance, à la recherche d'amour, étant soumis à sa nature de monstre psychologiquement et socialement, Hino n'hésitant pas à verser parfois dans un humour un peu noir mais jamais border

[Vigneswara Prabhu · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first, once you start reading Hell Baby, by Hideshi Hino, you think it might be a story of vengeance, fueled by otherworldly inspirations.

But towards the end, you realize it's a Frankenstein tale; only good ol frank is a hellish looking newborn, thrown away by her parents, due to her appearance.

Despite said hell baby murdering innocents in a primal frenzy brought about by bloodthirst, towards the end of her story, she shows a glimpse of caring; choosing death in the comfort of darkness, over committing that final unspeakable act, from which the soul can never recover.

Didn't expect to feel story for the monster; again.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw art of this at the museum of pop culture in Seattle. I loved the artwork and made a note to check it out. the premise sounded insane. but...the actual store is heart breaking. you can't even blame poor Hell Baby. she's not a monster. she was left alone without learning anything about the world or right from wrong. but even so she chose to not switch places with her sister when given the opportunity. I thought for sure she'd kill her dad out of revenge...but Hell Baby has a heart of gold. like she said, all she wanted was to meet her family. poor Hell Baby.

anyways. I was expecting a campy horror Story, not a tear jerker. I want to read more of this guy's stuff now.