Octopus Girl, Vol. 1

Octopus Girl #1

by Toru Yamazaki

Toru Yamazaki made a big, bloody splash in the mid-1990s when his outrageous Octopus Girl horror stories debuted. This talented and twisted manga artist has found recent popularity in different fields, as a major Japanese television personality and a recording artist. Be prepared to be mind-boggled with his first insane manga collection, as the delightfully disturbing Octopus Girl is finally presented in English. Teenage monsters lose their hearts and heads in a relentlessly gory collection of dark humor and horror! Carving a comical niche in modern horror manga, Toru Yamazaki's Octopus Girl serves up the most disgusting dishes of heartbreak and revenge found on land or at sea. Have a side order of nervous laughter with your main course of bloodcurdling fear, some gore with your teen angst and some killer instincts with your kawaii! These shocking vignettes will hypnotize fans of the macabre and the absurd, as intestines, eyeballs and fluids of all sorts shoot enthusiastically across Yamazaki's pages!

Genres: Manga, Horror, Comics, Humor, Graphic Novels Comics, Fiction, Comedy

192 pages, Paperback

First published April 5, 2006

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

that is some f-ed up sh-- right there, I'll tell you what. MORE PLEASE.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jesus Christ, what the hell was this garbage? I stopped by a local comic store for Free Comics Day, and they were selling off all their manga. "$3 each, or 4 for $10." I found a few volumes of Tsutomu Nihei's BLAME! which deserved far better than to be cast aside in such a manner, and then grabbed Octopus Girl since it was the only "Volume 1" out of anything in the box.

Turns out it wasn't worth the dollar, but alas, it was shrinkwrapped so I didn't have the opportunity to preview it. The art is okay at best, but it's the writing which really drags it down. It tries to be a cross between horror and humor, but it's neither particularly horrifying (except in how bad it is) nor funny. Worse still, it just comes across as amateurish, like the sort of thing I may have written when I was eight years old.

There is one chapter out of the whole book which is decent, in which the main character takes on a job as a nanny for a neglected child. We're not talking Rumihiko Takahashi's Mermaid's Saga quality here, but it's a sign that the author has some vague understanding of atmosphere and subtlety... but just fails to use it most of the time. I'm curious if his later work shows further development of his abilities... but not that curious. AVOID.

[PJ Ebbrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprise find and one of the few manga that is feels a bit more grown up. The artwork is unusual and is very stylised. It is one of the full on, gut retching visual feast and in some ways, you the reader are grabbed by the face and given a once over not once or twice slap in the face.

Yes, the story does run out of steam towards the end, but it really a bad humour rant and for once, it is refreshing to find this in Manga.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most insane, violent, disgusting series I ever read. There is NO discretion when it comes to what they'll show. When a character sneezes, she doesn't merely sneeze; she blasts detailed snot all over the place. And THAT is the least bad thing that happens.

If you have a strong stomach, though, you might enjoy it.

[Molly]

I cannot tell if I love this or want to punch it.

[stephen]

This is for the girls and gays.

[Through Glass · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well.

This was terrible. And not scary. Or funny.

But it is worth $$$ on the internet. So that's the only redeeming quality in regards to Octopus Girl. If you want Horror Manga, go find Junji Ito. Anything by him. A stick figure drawing would be better.

[Lord · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes creepy, sometimes hilarious, but never boring. A must for any horror manga fans. If only for a funny shojo parody in the end of the book. But one book of this series will be probably enough for me.