Scary Book, Vol. 2: Insects

Scary Books #2

by Kazuo Umezu

Kazuo Umezu, "the Stephen King of manga," returns with the second frightening volume of his Scary Book anthology series. In "Butterfly Grave," a book-length feature story, ever since the mysterious and untimely death of her mother when she was still an infant, Megumi has had an inexplicable, devastating phobia of butterflies. Upon visiting her mother's grave years after her death, Megumi begins being haunted by a black butterfly that only she can see and which seemingly causes waves of destruction and misery to Megumi's family and friends wherever it appears. But when Megumi's father decides to remarry, Megumi begins to fear that her new mother is turning into the very thing she dreads most.

Genres: Manga, Horror, Comics, Graphic Novels, Japan, Weird Fiction, Fiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published May 17, 2006

About the author

Kazuo Umezu or Kazuo Umezz was a Japanese manga artist, musician and actor. Starting his career in the 1950s, he is among the most famous artists of horror manga and has been vital for its development, considered the "god of horror manga". In 1960s shōjo manga like Reptilia, he broke the industry's conventions by combining the aesthetics of the commercial manga industry with gruesome visual imagery inspired by Japanese folktales, which created a boom of horror manga and influenced manga artists of following generations. He created successful manga series such as The Drifting Classroom, Makoto-chan and My Name Is Shingo, until he retired from drawing manga in the mid 1990s. He was a public figure in Japan, known for wearing red-and-white-striped shirts and doing his signature "Gwash" hand gesture.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'd say this was better than the first volume. It is in the ghost story or weird tale genre. It is one of those stories wherein the mechanism of the horror is initially presupposed to be possibly supernatural, but which eventually gets revealed to be explicable by purely causal events. Like some Showa period mystery or a rationalist Edgar Allen Poe story. I can see why some people would hate it. Its a bit old fashioned, but if you like that classic style of horror them this will suit you. There isnt any eroticism here except what is hinted at by the original source of the butterfly image which I won't spoil.

[Orrin Grey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lingering holdout from my recent wild fling with horror manga, this arrived from the library the other day so I figured I'd go ahead and read it. And, of course, it's pretty good. Very similar to Umezu's other Scary Book comics or Orochi: Blood, very Gothic in a lot of ways. The "twist ending" was apparently pretty shocking when it first came out, though now it will probably surprise no one, and it's a little over-explained at that, but still, pretty solid.

[Damon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow - if possible, this one was more boring AND stupider than the first one! Wait, I'll take that back - it was stupider, but not as boring. Either way, it was awful. This guy really sucks.

[Leila Anani · Rating 2 out of 5]

Described as 'The Stephen King of Manga' Kazuo Umezu is supposed to be one of the horror manga greats, up there with Junji Ito. But so far his work has failed to impress me. This volume of Scary Book is a single story rather than an anthology and boy is it drawn out! So our heroine is terrified of butterflies and has no idea why. It all stems back to a childhood trauma and we learn that the evil stepmother who murdered her mother has a butterfly shaped birthmark. The artwork isn't bad but it lacks the super weird, freaky, gore-filled body horror I've come to expect form horror manga - this is very subdued and dare I say boring. The story did very little for me either. Over all I was thoroghly disappointed with this one - It's not awful, but its a poor example of the freakish delights this genre has to offer.

[Jameson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why is this volume called Insects when it has only one story and that story is called Butterfly Grave? I don’t know.

This was okay. It had some pacing issues. Take out the unnecessary pages and it would be stronger.

[onyx · Rating 4 out of 5]

really pretty and involves bugs :)

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I Have a love for butterflies so this book was an interesting read!

[Magenta Cooly · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an okay book. It was one giant story instead of separated anthologies like the first one. Also, it was pretty predictable, but it wasn't boring. There were a few moments that creep'd me out, but it didn't scare me very much.
Still, it was a good story.

[Lune_blanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me pareció muy interesante la historia, el modo en que Umezu trajo a colación temas psicológicos y a medida que avanza el manga, nos va haciendo descubrir, junto con su protagonista, las verdaderas causas de sus miedos.

[Bangkeo]

perfect

[Emilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

beautiful