Author: Nukuharu (no website found)
Publisher: Gen Manga
Rating: WARTY!
Illustrated by Nukuharu
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This is another line drawing manga written in English but expected to be read backwards (not the entire comic, but each individual page) as though it's in Japanese. I do not get that at all. As it happens, it appeared to make very little difference to the story flow if I started a page with the panel on the right on the one on the left!
The manga consists of several short stories, the first of which is the title story about some sort of god or demon who has eyes all over his body, and who donates (or perhaps more accurately, trades) a pair of them to a boy, who eventually decides that he's better off without them.
he story was flat and ultimately uninteresting except for the unintentional humor on page 16. There's a panel which has the text, "It is really pretty" (referring to the scenery), but all we get is a roughly shaded drawing of a hill! It's neither prettily drawn, nor is it a pretty view! I don't know if this was meant to be ironic or was just clueless.
The second story has a Japanese title, with the words 'Keiken Sosa' underneath. I have no idea what that means or if it's intended to be a phonetic translation of the Japanese. if so it tells me nothing. Maybe it's the Japanese equivalent of 'Sherlock Holmes', judged by the way the story goes. This story itself was nonsensical - it might be entertaining to young children (if you don't mind the slightly gay intimations) but it's not of interest to me.
The third story began in very much the same way: a Japanese title with what appears to be a phonetic translation which tells me nothing. I love Japanese culture, but that doesn't mean that I worship it or that think it's somehow especially spiritual. It certainly doesn't mean that I want to blunder around in it in the dark! The story of human eating demons was boring.
The fourth story was the same, and at this point I could not stand to read any more of this. The stories were entirely uninteresting and made no sense. Perhaps if I were steeped in Japanese tradition and folklore, which I am not, I would have enjoyed these more, but to me these were like children's fairy tales and were entirely unappealing to me.
