Hideshi Hino: Horror, Pathos and the Master of Manga

Manga Turns to Terror

Manga, as we in the west have come to know it, manifests itself in cute-girl images and effeminate-pretty-boys with big eyes and androgynous bodies. Depth of emotion is removed by a dearth of reality.  In creating the singular style, the artists have removed much of what connects a reader or viewer from the characters and, for lack of better word, neuters the text.

But … but there is, and has been, an underground of exactly the opposite, a movement where the comic book style is used to evoke strong and sometimes violent emotions.  Hideshi Hino is one such artist.  His graphic novels are profane and bereft of the comforting distance readers of Spirited Away, or (oh lord) Sailor Moon will recognize.  Like Philip K Dick, there is deeply damaged material being mined for Hideshi Hino’s works. What results is not main-stream culture. It does not entertain.

Pyschotherapy perpaps? Was The Cosmic Puppets about Philip K Dick as a boy? Is The Bug Boy about Hideshi Hino as a youth?  It sure feels that way?

Regardless, The Open Critic was only just recently introduced to the author via a post by Mike Philbin, who had this to say: 

Hideshi Hino is hailed as the master of macabre in an inscrutable society where depraved and disgusting things happen in ‘Manga’ books every single day. Let’s examine the gory evidence for Hino’s royal stature — munching maggots, sensual centipedes, filth, wailing foetuses, worm-riddled body bags, headless chickens, young girls with fetishistic blood lust — what the fuck are these books? Horror, Japanese style.   
Mike Philbin of Chimerecana Books

Hideshi Hino. Reviewed at The Open Critic

Thanks to Philbin, The Open Critic now has the opportunity to publish a series six Hideshi Hino reviews. Enjoy. Don’t puke.

• The Red Snake
• The Bug Boy
• Oninbo and the Bugs From Hell
• Oninbo and the Bugs From Hell Two
• Living Corpse
• Black Cat

Hideshi Hino, Biography

For those who’s interest is piqued, we’ve clipped Hideshi Hino’s bio from  DH Publishing and published it below. Full credit goes to the original writers at DH.

Hideshi Hino may not be a household name. But his inimitable style has put him at the forefront of Japan`s horror manga genre. Perfected over a 30-year career dredging the depths of the human mind, the terrifying and often grotesque images that his graphic novels portray have gone on to influence a new generation of manga artists, such as Kanako Inuki. Unlike his counterparts however, Hino is able to capture in his meticlulously drawn storyboards a haunting blend of spiritual poverty and pathos that remains the hallmark of his work today.

Hideshi Hino as a Young Man

Hideshi Hino was born in China in 1946 and soon after moved to Tokyo with his mother. The immediate post-war landscape and widespread destruction that struck him then reoccur throughout his work. He enjoyed drawing but believed his future lay in film. After seeing Masaki Kobayashi`s “Seppuku” he set his heart on becoming a director or cameraman. It was only during highschool, when his drawings captured the imagination of classmates desperate to escape the tedium of exams, that he first seriously considered a career in manga.

Hideshi Hino, Early Work

Initially, he worked with a group of manga artists creating self-published comics, known as doujinshi. Work was also available in animation, but Hino`s style was rejected as unsuitable for what was at the time a medium for kids. His break came when a publisher friend, looking to fill a few blank pages of a magazine, asked him to throw something together. Praise for his work pursuaded the friend to take him on as a regular contributor. He quickly gained recognition, publishing his first graphic novel in 1978.

Hideshi Hino, Today

As well as adventure and curiosity, Hino can clearly recall the fear that haunted his childhood and that of those around him. Horror and suspense, he suggests, are “deeply hidden emotions that surface when we are confronted by a disturbance of our everyday lives.” He found the crossover from comedy to horror particularly trying, believing horror to lack ideal forms and balanced designs. His numerous experiments slowly evolved into the demented characters we see today. Tormented by twisted spines, deformed eyes and mishapen bodies, they populate over 400 Hideshi Hino books, and have helped make him Japan`s master of horror manga.

Hideshi Hino Reviews at The Open Critic

• The Red Snake
• The Bug Boy
• Oninbo and the Bugs From Hell
• Oninbo and the Bugs From Hell Two
• Living Corpse
• Black Cat

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