This was a fun, fast middle grade horror read. I loved how the stories in this are connected and all based on urban legend type stories. Being that it is a light novel this one is novella length with some really great illustrations sprinkled in. I think younger readers will really love this one.

As many other commentors, I requested this book thinking it was manga from the cover but it is a traditional YA novel. I don't think it's particularly strong in the horror descriptions but I do think it the story itself is pretty interesting. I do think sometimes it felt a little dry in the writing style, but that could also be a translation issue if this was adapted.

A fairly standard scary story collection, though it isn't especially scary. A young reader might get some shivers but it shouldn't be nightmare inducing. The writing is a bit stiff and lacking in description.

“Horror Collector Vol 1 The Faceless Kid,” by Midori Sato, Norio Tsuruta, and Yon

I liked these short YA horror stories. The cover made me think it was manga, it’s not, but that’s okay. They are interesting and give me creepypasta vibes. I think middle schoolers would definitely like this book. It would be a good item to have with my Goosebumps books. 4 out of 5 stars.

If you are into anime for young adults this is a must. The lives of three girls and the horror that happens to them.
I really enjoyed it.
Thanks to publisher JY and to NetGalley for the ARC.

This one is a tough one. I do love horror stories, but the formatting on this book doesn't work. It's hard to read the review copy because of the huge JY paper plane watermark.

In addition, I was also under the impression that this collection of horror stories is a manga. It isn't, and instead is prose horror stories. I love horror stories, so fortunately all is well.

In these stories, a figure called the wriggler, the faceless kid, and a red crayon haunt our protagonists. Few end up well. A boy in a red hood investigates each one, trying to save them.

My recommendation is remove the watermark before publication. Otherwise it is super hard to read.

I really enjoyed reading this, it was a great start to the Horror Collector series, I enjoyed the elements of horror and that it had everything that I enjoyed from a light novel. I loved the idea of legends coming true and that someone comes to save them. It had everything that I enjoyed from the genre and I would have watched this when I was younger and loved it.

This was a collection of short stories, tied together by the title character, the Horror Collector. A young boy in a red hoodie is going around, following urban legends and collecting them into his notebook, while looking for the "faceless child", it seems to rescue someone taken by it. Though he does try to help those with their own brush with the supernatural, he's not a hero and will only go so far to help someone. A morally grey character maybe?

Some of the stories ended well for those involved with the supernatural, some not so much. I felt bad for them all, even when they did stupid things that basically caused them to become victims of the supernatural evil. No amount of stupidity deserves being hurt. A smack upside the head, don't be an idiot, yes. Killed by supernatural evil in a horrible way? No.

Horror isn't my bag, but if you like Goosebumps, this is something you would probably enjoy. This seems to be appropriate for middle readers, as there is blood and the violence happens off-screen. As always, I will caveat this with adults of the middle reader might want to vet this first before handing to said middle reader.

3, not my thing but this will work for horror readers, stars.

My thanks to NetGalley and Yen Press/JY for an eARC of this book to read and review.

Thank you to Netgalley, publisher, and author for this ARC! This was a short and fast spooky middle-grade/YA with different shorter interconnected stories all together about urban legends. MC is a boy going to all the different towns chasing down the urban legends and trying to warn everyone about them. Artwork was super cute and creepy.

⭐️⭐️⭐️
3 stars of 👻 fun, with potential for more.
Target audience in terms of scares: primarily YA (10-15)
A Japanese (mostly; the author does point out one specific similarity to a common US internet legend) based anthology of urban legends. Although the majority of characters are limited to one story a piece, the reader is slowly introduced to one mysterious figure: the boy in the red hood. His motivations are far from clear—at times he seems as sinister as the monsters he studies. One thing is certain however: wherever the boy appears, strange occurrences are sure to follow…

The Good: The illustrations added a nice element to the stories while still managing to leave plenty to the reader’s imagination. I also found the concept of one character linking all the stories to be an interesting premise which could pay off in future installments.
The Meh: While full creature/character illustrations were fine, the inclusion of the large initial set watermark was distracting and difficult to read around at times.
Sometimes the anthology set-up felt too disjointed and at odds with following the red hooded-boy’s story. I think I would’ve preferred longer stories and more interaction with the boy, or just leave him out and focus on fleshing out the creepiness of whichever story is being told in that chapter.

3.75 stars
Definitely enjoyed the pacing of each of the horror stories that are compiled in this book and I will say, the stories itself are unique. I will say that rather than horror to me it was more mystery. There was a bit of time when I was a bit bored and the story dragged a bit but overall a fun fast read. Thank you netgalley and kodansha comics!

Three young friends see a white shadow in a field and then experience a debilitating headache, they aren't sure what the connection between the field and the shadow is but they are positive it will hurt them. A family moves into a home that holds a dark secret about a young girl who once lived there, two villages appear that do not exist on any map one village holds your saviors the other those who will end you but how do you know which one? And through all of this a young boy appears with warnings that go unheeded about each of these nightmares, he's clearly searching for something but what? And why does he know so much about things that are supposed to be legends and nothing more?

The Horror Collector follows Fushigi Senno in his travels throughout Japan as he collects urban legends. Quite literally collects them as each legend has a weird seal attached to them somewhere in the geographic location, which I thought was an interesting twist on the whole urban legend thing. They aren't just scary stories they are physical manifestations of a story which is always a good take. Kind of like if you believe a story enough it'll become real except this is less based around belief and more around these seals having the power to manifest them. Taking this route allows the author to have quite a bit more to work with in terms of future volumes. And while it is a unique take at the same time I found that Fushigi was easily able to "collect" these seals which to an extent was a little bit of a let down, considering how many people these stories end up killing. It's kinda anticlimactic given the havoc they wreak.

Fushigi himself has really little to do with the stories in this volume as well. He shows up someplace, warns people about the stories, gives them some advice on how to protect themselves (which they rarely take), collects the seal and then sets off to his next destination. We get some hints as to what he's doing but that's about it. So at least in this volume I can't even say I really liked Fushigi, he's clearly indifferent to the victims throughout the book though. That I can say for certain. And he's looking for someone. That's really all we know about the Horror Collector himself. Oh and he's apparently pretty cute.

Finally, this one is very episodic but given the premise I think it has to be. At least in this first volume as Sato sets the ground work. Now that we've got some hints as to what's going on I hope that in the next volume it becomes a little less episodic and everything is connected together, if that makes sense.

Overall, I found this first volume to be intriguing enough to warrant reading the second volume. And while it's not super scary it's definitely creepy with the story of the Red Crayon and the two villages being the best ones. I'd totally recommend this for people who want to read something a little scary but will allow you to sleep at night. And it's perfect for that fourth and fifth grade reading level.

And as always thanks to Yen Press and Netgalley for the eArc!

Alluding to the title, this is a collection of six interconnected short stories that occur in six different towns. Each story is based on an urban legend and does not always have a “happy” ending. The stories are set in the horror genre, however are pretty tame and go by fast as they are quick.

Each individual story is short, quick and vaguely related to the next. I liked the concise storytelling of each and how they didn’t all end identically. One particular relation between them all is a recurring character who tries their best to help when asked, but it ultimately depends on the recipient. The recurring character is also trying to unravel their own mystery which is explained later in the volume.

The story is heavily mystery oriented yet lacks some scare. I think the disadvantage of having short quick stories is that it removes the buildup required for a horror story to produce a scare. I think these urban legends do have the potential to become somewhat fear inducing, however the lack of setup, characters, and scenery made it falter.

Given we have six different stories the characters don’t really stand out, although majority of the characters were surprisingly girls. The one recurring mystery character is intriguing, however as a reader we don’t know enough about them except that they are knowledgeable about myths and are willing to help when asked. However there are also a lot of unknowns such as, why are they traveling between towns, or what is the purpose of their book.

I enjoyed the artwork scattered throughout. The artwork is similar to the cover art with its soft manga style that almost alludes to a shoujo genre. The artist has done a good job in depicting a variety of different scenes from each chapter with details, expressions and shadowing. The artwork isn’t scary and helps portray some of the scenes more vividly.

Overall, I liked this story and am interested to know about the overall mystery. I think it’s also a great way to explore urban legends and their various interpretations. I would recommend giving it a try if you’re looking to start reading light novels or looking for a not so scary read.

This was creepy! The stories were all new to me and the book tells several, not seemingly connected stories that, at times, had me spooked. I was so caught up in the different stories that I read in one night; the stories are short but very engaging. I enjoyed learning more about the customs of Japan through these stories and look forward to the next installment.

Horror Collector is a series of interconnected short stories based on urban legends and Internet creepypastas for a middle grade audience. It is also a Japanese Light Novel, which is a novella size prose novel with some really cute illustrations interspersed with the text, perfect for younger readers easing novels from primarily graphic novels and manga.

A very fun read! I can perfectly envision the audience for this book (as I have been a part of the exact demographic) and can see it being a perfect gift for more reluctant readers with an interest in Internet culture and video games.

Review to come December 19th.

I received this book from Netgalley/the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

I was delighted when I heard that Yen Press children/MG’s imprint would be adding light novels to the mix! So I just had to have this one + one about a mystery-solving boy and his ex-police dog (review to come in a few hours). And I can tell you, I need more of these books. They are so much fun! 

And yes, this was definitely the one I was the most hyped about, Shiba Inu's are cute and mysteries are fun, but mysteries with urban legends and horror? Sign me up! 

In this one we travel through six towns and read about various urban legends! From someone who appears in your photographs (a creature named Little Nanoka) and good luck because she is coming for you. To a town with love spells and what happens when you use more than one (nothing good, yikes). To a red crayon and something strange happening at a house (and that one had me scared good especially when the revelations happened). The only one that I found less fun was the one about the the cat. I guess given the whole Fushigi thing it does fit with the story, but I would have rather had something scary instead of something bizarre. But the other stories? Love them. They weren't overly scary (yes, I know it is a kid's book, but I have read many a MG horror novel and know that you can still be terrifyingly scary) but all very fun and some had me look over my shoulder. I really loved meeting all these various characters in the towns and see what happens to them, will they live? Die? Something else? 

The stories are all fast-paced and I found myself flying through the book. Which is quite rare for me for light novels. I don't always read them because the translation can be stiff/unnatural, but while the translation felt a bit bumpy at times, for most it had a good flow, good pacing, and the sentences clicked together and didn't feel too unnatural. 

I am definitely curious about Fushigi Senno and the Faceless Kid (I don't want to spoil but we get a pretty good hint at the end that had me go OMG). I loved how Fushigi tied all these stories together, how every time we got a new urban legend he was there in town. Sometimes he was too late to help, sometimes he helped out reluctantly, sometimes people didn't listen, but he was always around. It definitely added a fun element to it. Not just urban legends and scary situations, oh no, there is someone here investigating and searching for someone/something. It just ties it up all together. 

The manga art inside was a treat! They were so fun and sometimes made the stories more scary. I really liked the style!

All in all, I will be adding this book to my collection because I need it, plus, I would highly recommend this book to all if you are into scary (but not too scary) stories + urban legends!

This is a middle grade horror novel based on creepypastas. There are six short stories that are all a little connected to one another. My personal favorite was the sixth story about a woman version of Slenderman that shows up in photos. The artwork in this book was eerie, but not enough to give children nightmares, which is perfect for a middle grade book. This is a good book, I'm just not the target audience for it.

This review is based on a digital ARC recieved via Netgalley.

A super fun collection of short stories based on Japanese urban legends, connected by the titular, mysterious horror collector, who shows up in each story as a side character.

I think this collection would be perfect for a middle grade reader who likes anime or manga, books like Goosebumps, and movies like Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. I probably would have been too scared to read it as a kid myself, especially since the stories are not shy about killing off their protagonists. (Not graphically, of course, but still. Whether or not the main character survives is entirely up to chance.)

Sign me up for some MG horror and urban legends! Great illustrations and artwork. These 6 stories connect loosely and it's because of this character that's kinda giving me Sam from Trick'r'Treat vibes

There were several things about the book that surprised me, some pleasant and some not as much. I’m going to get the negatives out of the way first before following up with the positives, because I do not want to seem too pessimistic. I did enjoy this book overall but ended up feeling like somethings was left to be desired.

I did not know going into this book that it was going to be a middle grade novel; this may have been an error on my part, but I still felt like most of the stories were very juvenile in their execution, plot, and the writing style. Every single story ended in the exact same way, and no, I don’t mean that figuratively: I quite literally mean that every single story had an identical final sentence, with maybe a single word being changed. The illustrations also did not feel like they belong in the in the book as they never seem to serve a purpose beyond looking nice.

On the topic of said illustrations, I cannot deny that they did not look good because they did - the art in this book is phenomenal, but it’s spread so far in between that it takes a lot of energy to actually try to enjoy it. The character of the titular Horror Collector himself was also a welcome addition, as he serves as a nice connection between the stories, even if [spoilers], the cliffhanger related to the story was definitely not needed, and did not feel like anything is ever at stake; mostly, because none of the characters, except for the Collector, ever felt like they needed to interact with each other.

While I wouldn’t recommend this book to any teenagers or adults, I would recommend it to parents who are looking to get their child in either elementary or possibly middle school into the world of horror. This is certainly a enjoyable book for their reading level but unfortunately, the enjoyment doesn’t stay with age, unlike other horror anthologies as Goosebumps or Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

3 stars overall - nothing special but perfectly serviceable.