Fweee hee hee hee! Welcome, centipedes, to Beat’s Bizarre Halloventure. Every week this October, three evil writers will recommend their favorite spooky books and series from Japan, Korea and elsewhere. This week we have witches, journalism, and, of course, hospitals.
xxxHolic
Writer/Artist: CLAMP
Translation and Adaption: William Flanagan
Lettering: Dana Hayward
Publisher: Kodansha
All CLAMP manga exist between two extremes, Cardcaptor Sakura and X. The former is whimsical, the latter dark and apocalyptic. But there’s a secret third side to CLAMP: stories not about the horrors humanity inflicts on the Earth, but the horrors we inflict on ourselves
xxxHolic is the companion series to Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, although you can read it on its own and understand it perfectly. It focuses on Watanuki, a high school student plagued by powers that allow him to see ghosts and spirits. One day as he’s running away from a spirit, he happens upon a mysterious shop owned by a woman named Yuko who can grant wishes–for a price. Watanuki works at her shop in exchange for her help with his visions.
Throughout the story, Watanuki and Yuko attend to her customers (both human and nonhuman), and attempt to grant their wishes. Like a high school student who wants to exorcise a ghost plaguing their school. Or twins who are seemingly attached to the hip. A mother addicted to online chatrooms. A vengeful spider yokai.
xxxHolic’s art only adds to the eeriness, with its over-dramatic black and white contrasts. In this era, CLAMP drew manga in their new style, featuring tall and lanky characters with extremely long limbs. Although different from their 90s works like X and Tokyo Babylon, the designs fit perfectly in this universe of strange yet comforting stories.
The scariest part of each story is always the human element: jealousy, betrayal, fear and loneliness. Loving someone so much that you cause irreparable damage. These are cautionary tales about complicated emotions. — Lisa De La Cruz
Incomplete
Writer: NEON.B
Artist: narae an
Translation: JK
Typesetting: J-L
Quality Control: Fanny Shim
Secondary Quality Control: Maple Kim
Platform: Tapas
Eugene works as an editor and reporter for YLLY, an arts & culture magazine. For a change, the magazine decides to do a cover featuring an ensemble of up-and-coming actors. Despite having so much on her plate, Eugene is sent to interview the actors starring in a musical, including Minkyul. She’s so mesmerized by his performance that she knows he’ll shine no matter what. Yet Minkyul disappears as if he turned into dust.
Fate reunites them four years later and they end up dating. Life together is run-of-the-mill; good luck here, misfortune there, work stressful as always. To save herself from a blunder, Eugene scores an interview with Eunho Kim, a secretive, accomplished horror author who refuses to talk to the press. What starts as the biggest chance of her career, though, weirdly entangles all three of them.
I know this is unfair of me to recommend Incomplete. The series has been on hiatus for quite a while and now Tapas is closing down. You never know when or if it’ll be picked up by another platform, and that is probably the spookiest part of my recommendation.
Incomplete doesn’t immediately drop you into an uncanny atmosphere. The series is slow and deliberate, building the dynamic between Minkyul, Eugene, and Eunho brick by brick without letting the ball drop completely. The story delves into missed chances and regret, desire and control. You can’t help but want more even as it gets into uncanny territory.
Incomplete’s backgrounds and objects might look simple, but they are much better than badly incorporated assets that stick out like a sore thumb in other webtoons. Since the series is a drama rather than a romance, all characters have distinct faces that are pleasant to look at. I appreciate when character designs are more grounded and look “human” in that way.
Incomplete is an intricate drama about relationships with a creepy undercurrent. I think it’s gripping; hopefully it will resume its release on a new platform. Heartily recommend! — Merve Giray
Give My Regards to Black Jack
Writer/Artist: Shuho Sato
Publisher: Densho Bato
“Wait a minute,” I can hear you saying. “Give My Regards to Black Jack isn’t a horror series, it’s a medical drama!” Yes, but hear me out: this is one of the scariest comics that I’ve read this year.
Eijiro Saito is your typical manga protagonist. A young idealist freshly graduated from medical school, he’s ready to use what he’s learned to help as many people as he can. So long as he can survive on just two hours of sleep a night. While working a low-paying part-time internship at a university hospital. Which he loses when he alienates senior faculty thanks to his refusal to compromise. As he pushes himself to the brink, he realizes something terrifying: that Japan’s medical system is a nightmare, everybody knows it, and nobody can do anything about it.
If you’ve seen medical dramas like The Great White Tower, you already know the score; university hospitals prioritize hierarchy over helping patients, leading to bootlicking, bribery and politicking. Give My Regards to Black Jack can’t top that story as a psychological portrait. What it does have to offer is variety. Saito bounces from department to department, crashing into horrifying medical dilemmas. For instance, if your hospital has decided that your patient is a lost cause, but they want to keep fighting, do you take them to a different surgeon even if that means burning your bridges? If you’re put in charge of a dying baby and the parents no longer want him, does that make you accountable for the life of the baby? Is it unjust to subject your patient to grueling cancer treatment without telling them that doing so will buy them only a few months, if that?
Saito isn’t a genius doctor like Osamu Tezuka‘s comic character Black Jack. Black Jack could operate on himself in the middle of the Australian outback while surrounded by hungry dingos. The best Saito can do is make impulsive, outside-the-box choices that only rarely save the patient. Nevertheless his exuberance inspires the burned-out doctors and nurses he meets along the way. This is a manga after all.
Aesthetically, this is a middle of the road comic, distinguished by gruesome anatomical detail and splash pages of text boxes explaining medical statistics. I also found the character writing to be cheesy and unconvincing at times. Even so, Shuho Sato’s willingness to dive into deep and murky territory kept me turning the pages, even if doing so made me nauseous. It’s a series that gazes upon human suffering and does not flinch. — Adam Wescott
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