This is such a great series!!! I have been following it since before it got translated and published over here, so every new physical volume is a treat and I put them right on the shelf with a very satisfied feeling. This series is basically what the title proclaims. Every chapter is a ghost story told by a young boy, Yuma, which is a framing device that really works. He is telling the ghost stories straight to camera in the first page of every chapter and then the last two pages show us more of his life as well, with the bulk of the chapter being the ghost story. Yuma is telling these stories for a reason and part of the reason that this has the emotional weight it does is we’re watching him go through an awful time and so there are two horrors going on — Yuma’s story that we’re witnessing and then the scary tales he’s telling.
It’s just such a smart and effective framing device, I really love it. By this point in the third and fourth volumes, we’ve gotten more of an understanding of some things that Yuma is dealing with, but there are some real shocks here and I remember the first time I read these chapters (late at night, probably the worst time and the best time to be reading visceral horror) and being legitimately jarred by what was happening. It all feels fresh and even though some of these stories are folk tales or retellings of urban legends, the way the author draws them gives them new life. They’re just scary!!! The art is perfect for this and I find it genuinely unnerving. I have to face them down and away from me so I don’t get taken aback by the covers or the back cover are. I love these books, the artist is great at what she does, which is frightening me late at night. I’m very excited for the next volume to come out in May!
Definite warnings here for gore, murder, lots of blood, unsettling and frightening imagery throughout. Basically everything you would see in a particularly frightening horror movie.
