Japanese artist Shintarō Kago (Dementia 21), who publishes as just Kago, displays his penchant for guru--as in grotesque--manga in Brain Damage, a disturbing, can't-turn-away collection of four-shorts. Zack Davisson, notable translator of classic manga fare (Shigeru Mizuki; Satoshi Kon) provides smooth English access.
"Labyrinth Quartet" captures four imprisoned, strangely look-alike women wading through savagely dismembered body parts while attempting to escape a knife-wielding, masked murderer. Experts work to methodically curtail--or escape--the increasingly violent, cannibalistic impulses of the institutionalized undead in "Curse Room." In "Family Portrait," sudden inexplicable local disappearances are linked to a deviant grandfather who is quickly succumbing to dementia. As vehicles become fatal autonomous death traps in "Blood Harvest," a lone young woman might hold the only viable antidote--in her own body.
Kago works in crisp, black-and-white line drawings, always contained within sharply delineated, exacting panels, never breaking through boundaries, as if exerting the last single measure of control over the graphic gore and horror mangling and destroying his characters. Backgrounds, scenery, clothing, expressions are often enhanced in meticulous detail--even more intricately precise when depicting gaping wounds (dislodged eyeballs, spilt innards) and missing appendages (headless corpses)--heightening the already visually shocking realism throughout. His ending commentary, presented with exquisite illustrations, adds narrative provenance, mixed with an entertainingly healthy dose of self-deprecation: "manga artists can only draw a few variations of female faces" or "it drags in the middle." Enthralled readers, however, likely won't agree with any such criticism. --Terry Hong