![]() ![]() She grows up into a deformed scavenger who eventually makes her way back into the city to cause terror and mayhem. This horror one-shot is a simple tale of a the life of a demonic female baby, hopelessly abandoned by her father at birth and forced to grow up in a junkyard struggling against other vermin. All while being grotesquely drawn by horror manga mastermind Hideshi Hino (who I have previously read the excellent Panorama of Hell from). ![]() It's quick, sweet, easy, and to the point. Hell Girl is the start to my Halloween Horror reading fest. Heads and arms may fly off, but the pervasive unreality - and the cute style - make it darkly funny and never grim or sadistic. This isn't icky, it is just very silly - and brilliantly so. Also, the treatment of body horror in general echoes through his work: presented an aesthetic spectacle in which the joy is looking at the artistry of gore as much is it is being icked out by it. ![]() The fountains of blood, the dismemberment and the random violence are tropes Hideshi Hino obviously loves. Some of the visuals re-occur in Guinea Pig films, as does the transgressive and extreme spirit. The narrative is very silly but is knowingly so, the whole arc being a pastiche on elements of Frankenstein - with a dash of Sophocles. This is a delightfully dark tale full of over the top gore - all through a cutesy aesthetic. An early(ish) manga from the man who would go onto direct two of the best Guinea Pig films (and was, seemingly, the inspiration for the series). ![]()
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