Title: FractionAuthor: Shintaro Kago
First Published: January 1, 2009
Publisher: IMHO
Pages: 208
Genre: Ero Guro, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Seinen
Format: Web
Source: Web
Rating:
Synopsis:
The first half of the book is made up by the titular story, a serial killer thriller that gets all kinds of meta and crazy as it progresses. The second half of the book consists of a short interview with Kago (and Ryuichi Kasumi, a Japanese crime fiction writer) and a number of short stories.
Get the Book: AmazonReview
Fraction is a collection of experimental stories by Shintaro Kago, a notable ero guro artist. The collection comprises of a longer work, Fraction, and a series of one shots, one of which ended up being my favorite. Following the titular story there is a short interview between Kago and Ryuichi Kasumi, a crime fiction writer, discussing the creation of Fraction and the mystery genre, which was a nice inclusion.
I picked up Fraction after reading one of Kago’s other works, Brain Damage. Though I felt overall neutral about that collection, there was at least one good story that I enjoyed and I was curious to explore some of Kago’s other works.
As expected, the stories delve into some pretty bizarre territory that I found hit or miss, but all were fascinating. His art for most of the volume is also excellent with highly expressive faces, especially in Fraction. The two stories I liked the least, Tremors and Collapse, were quite a bit weaker but it’s not necessarily a complaint. Overall it’s a decent taste test for Kago’s work without diving straight into the deep end.
Individual Story Notes:
♥ Fraction: The titular story of the collection is one part serial killer thriller, one part meta commentary on manga and narrative framing. I was actually really fascinated with the serial killer story and things move into some truly bizarre territory that I found surprisingly funny. The other half of the story, which consists of an interview with the author, was also interesting at turns but eventually started to drag for me. I get what he was going for with the commentary, but it felt self-indulgent.
♥ Back From the Front: The first short story of the collection, and I really liked it. I also found it to be funny, inappropriately so. This story does far more showing than telling, but there is enough that you get the gist of the situation. A battered woman lives alone with her war veteran husband and well, that spray was that man’s 9/11.
♥ Tremors: A tamer story compared to the previous one, about a strange phenomena involving tremors. The story unfortunately didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
♥ Collapse: Story about a woman with a very unusual and dangerous job. Featured a character I didn’t expect to see which gave me a chuckle. Otherwise a forgettable story.
♥ Voracious Itches: This was the strongest story of the entire collection, and it finishes things off with a bang! As someone with a skin condition that suffers from itchy dry skin every day this story made my skin crawl, it’s a solid parasite horror story that reminds me of the works of Junji Ito.
Rating Breakdown
| Fraction: ★★★☆☆ Back From the Front: ★★★★☆ Tremors: ★☆☆☆☆ |
Collapse: ★☆☆☆☆ Voracious Itches: ★★★★★ |
Quote
“Do you remember? You used to call me a worm.”
Content Warnings
View Spoiler »About the Author
About Shintaro Kago
Kago Shintarō ( 駕籠真太郎) is a Japanese illustrator and manga artist. Kago was born in Tokyo in 1969. He debuted in 1988 on the magazine COMIC BOX. Since then his comics, usually short stories, have been published in several adult manga magazines, gaining him considerable popularity around the world.
Kago specialises in ero-guro, a Japanese visual genre that puts its focus on eroticism, sexual corruption, and grotesque body horror. Many of Kago’s manga have strongly satirical overtones, and deal with grotesque subjects such as extreme sex, scatology and body modification. His unique style has been called “fashionable paranoia.”
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