I enjoyed this manga. I liked all the bizarre, weird and graphic horror stories. I loved the art in this book, it was so good. I am a huge fan of Junji Ito and some of these stories reminded me of him.

This was a very strange collection of short stories. I loved that the ideas were unique but was put off by the unnecessary nudity and other choices.

thank you to netgalley and the publisher for access to an eARC! all opinions are my own.

this is a horror manga short story collection with some interesting stories except one. the family portrait one was so disgusting and i really did not enjoy it. it would have been like 4 stars if it didn't include that. the others are very intersting, almost supernatural things that make you wonder what's going on. the family portrait one is just disgusting.

These stories are grisly, gory and certainly not for the faint hearted. Some stories push boundaries and are uncomfortable. One story pushes these boundaries because they hint at sexual abuse within a family which seems to go unnoticed by some family members. It is uncomfortable and dark and also horrifying but isn’t that what abuse is?

So this volume holds nothing back and so it is great if you want those boundaries pushed. I enjoyed reading this because I enjoy horror manga. I am a great fan of Junji Ito and this author delivers both horror and weirdness with twists, turns and pushes the reader into dark places that they would rather not go to.

The artwork was great and enhanced the storytelling. I shall definitely read future books from this author.

Copy provided via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

Enjoyed the style & the majority of the stories however there was part of one which really wasn’t needed & ruined the rest of the book for me.

Thank you so much Net Gallery for the ARC!
Can I just say that the cover is fantastic?
The art was phenomenal, the plots = outrageous. The body horror was done right and stomach churning at points! Well done! I’m going to explain some of my ratings for each story. Especially one in particular (😶)

Labyrinth Quartet
3.5⭐️
This story was good and the art style at moments was.. alright. I think when comparing to some other horror mangas, it’s really in the middle. Solid horror but I wouldn’t recommend.

Curse Room
4.25⭐️
This was kind of awesome and a great take on zombies. I thought the storyline was interesting and I found myself at times really shocked and surprised. Overall a really cool story and one I would recommend.

Family Portrait (😭)
0.5⭐️
Oh my god. Why was this a story. Firstly we need to discuss the pedophilia. WHAT THE FUCK. There was no need for the book to include pedophilia. Sometimes I can see when a book does include those themes that do it with grace and care. This was not that. It seemed to me like it was completely glorifying this and it made it seem like pedophilia and INCEST is normal. Which, I don’t need to explain how that’s messed up.
Incest is always going to be weird in books but this especially.
This was just completely disgusting in my opinion and really tanked my overall review for this book.
Final thoughts - Please don’t glorify pedophilia and incest, thanks!


Blood Harvest
4.5⭐️

After that last one, yeah, I was surprised too. I genuinely considered not finishing the book based on that last one but I thought that I was in too deep. Imagine my surprise when this one BLESSED me with the art. I think objectively it has the best story line out of any of them. And while it had shocking moments, it never seemed like it was shock factor.
I highly recommend.

So yeah. It’s good horror manga short stories collection but that 3rd one.. yikes!!

A little PSA before we get into the review! I requested this book on netgalley, never heard anything back on it, and then was granted access!! Very thankful and grateful!!

With that being said, Brain Damage features four gripping manga's that kept me interested! This was my first manga I've read of Kago's and I was absolutely blown away by the art style! I loved this book so much, I'm so sad it expired on netgalley.

Big thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this!

A spread of four horror manga stories. First is the blend of Saw and Cube films that nobody knew they wanted. Having seen this, they still don't want it. The second piece is again evidence of how much the artist enjoys drawing cute eviscerated girls, and not much more – it feeds off The Truman Show in a tiny way to add to the Hollywood analogies. Part three drops the guts, but ramps up the incest, for a bonkers look at the problems of the elderly. And the fourth story starts with some intrigue, and then just makes a pile-up of dead body after dead body. Throughout the presentation of the translated script is horrendously comical, to the extent there is a complaint of people's "internal orchards" showing. I can't remember such a shoddily presented file, whether for us early digital reviewers or not. It's almost as if people thought this too cruddy to deserve a proofreader. And with bright sparks of horror treated as naffly as here, those people were barely wrong.

I found the nudity, incest, and sexual assault in the story to be so off putting and unnecessary. Not to mention the victim blaming and sexualization of a minor. This was gross. The story was also all over the place and confusing. There were also spelling errors.

Fans of Junji Ito will savor these stories that reflect Ito's style but have their own socially conscious message.

Intense horror manga. Illustrations are precise and detailed. Gore Is not exaggerated and fits the narrative

I love love love a horror manga collection. This was great and an amazing introduction to a new author.

It really is kind of impressive how far Kago can push boundaries to create really effective horror stories in the graphic novel format. There are multiple distinct stories here and they're so unusual and impactful. I wouldn't recommend this for someone who doesn't enjoy horror.

Thank you to NetGalley and fantagraphics for this ARC. I enjoyed the premise and found the writing engaging overall. A few sections dragged for me, but the story had enough momentum to keep me reading. I think many readers of manga and thrillers will really enjoy this

***ARC from NetGalley***

Brain Damage is a manga comprised of four separate horror stories. Beautifully drawn, using vibrant colors and bold expressions to demonstrate the inner conflict and fear of the protagonists. The first story, " Labyrinth Quarter," is violent and graphic. And my favorite. The ending was a bit confusing, but that is typical in Japanese horror. Sometimes not knowing is more horrifying than the brutal truth. The second story, "Curse Room," is humorous and shows what happens when you are too compassionate - you end up on the menu. The third, "Family Portrait," should come with a trigger warning. It was disgusting and ruined the whole manga for me. The final story, "Blood Harvest," was interesting.

Would recommend to horror fans and as another reviewer mentions, not for the faint of heart.

I’m a big fan of Shintaro Kago – I even have two original drawings of his (he drew them from photos of me) – but I’d actually never read his manga before, so I was curious to finally dive in.

The collection reminded me a bit of Junji Ito: horror stories rendered in Kago’s inimitable, gory style. There are four short stories here, all of them quite…gross, pushing the envelope in ways that won’t be for everyone. I’m not sure who I’d recommend this to, but I did enjoy the experience.

The art is in black and white, and there’s some sameness to the characters and imagery across the stories. None of them fully engrossed me, but if you’re already familiar with Kago’s work I think you’ll appreciate it.

One note: while the text is in English and the pages turn right to left (at least in the ebook), the panels also read right to left. I didn’t realize this at first and thought the storytelling felt disjointed—once I adjusted, it made much more sense. This isn’t a flaw in the book itself, but it might be worth NetGalley noting so readers aren’t caught off guard.

Thank you to Net Galley and Kago for the opportunity to read this advance copy!

Reading Brain Damage by Shintaro Kago was one of the most bizarre, unsettling, and strangely fascinating experiences I’ve had with manga. I’ve read disturbing works before, but nothing quite like this Kago plays not only with horror but with the very structure of the page, breaking panels and twisting perspectives in ways that made me stop and stare. At times I honestly felt uncomfortable, but I couldn’t look away.

This is definitely not a book for everyone but definitely for fans of Junji ito. The body horror and graphic imagery pushed me outside of my comfort zone more than once. But at the same time, I admired how bold and experimental it was. Kago forces you to feel the chaos, and in a weird way, that made the reading experience unforgettable. If you’re open to unsettling, avant-garde manga that challenges how stories can be told, Brain Damage is worth picking up.

overall i think this manga was not consistent in quality. like there was one story i fucking hated, whereas one i adored and actually found to be scary. i do think globally the body horror art was superb, but the non-gore art was… i don’t want to say mediocre because i couldn’t draw anything in this book but. it wasn’t great. it wasn’t even really fine. it was slightly subpar.
im gonna break my thoughts down chapter by chapter because they do vary a lot, but my overall rating of the book is like. an averaged-rating of what i think of all the stories.
labyrinth quartet: i found the dialogue to be very stilted, generic and uninteresting. the premise was the worst in this anthology but still interesting, yet almost nothing was done with it. also because these stories are so short, the plot moved so fast in this story, what was happening was barely explained. i gained no attachment to the characters, but i did find the ending regarding the killer to be interesting. overall, the execution could’ve been better, but this wasn’t terrible unlike a certain story in this anthology (i’ll get there….). ⭐️⭐️/5
curse room: to begin with, i did not like this premise, but the reveal that happens at the mid-point of this story reeled me in. i overall did enjoy the premise, but i found what actually happened, yet again, to miss the mark. the returner concept was also very interesting to me, and i found the second returner to be a lot more fun. this was globally a fun story and defo an improvement in this collection. ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
family portrait: in the wise words of tiktok user @shaiie_foeva, “the pear of anguish for you and your uber driver”. what the fuck was this. this disgusted me, and not in a fun way that i look for in horror. who approved this. the horror is boring. the plot is boring. why is there explicit fucking incest. why is a line written in this godforsaken story: “you may have forgotten you grandchild’s name but you won’t forget this ass” (yes i copied the grammar exactly from the page). horror is supposed to touch on tabboo subjects yes, but this story almost seems to be glorifying pedophilia AND incest. what the fuck. why did i have to lay my eyes on this. if i was someone who gave stories zero stars i would give it to this. if this was a whole book or a manga extended to 200 pages i would’ve dnf’d. ⭐️/5
blood harvest: this is the most insane whiplash i’ve ever experienced in an anthology because this was easily the best story in this collection. i think the gore is easily at its best in this story, and the mystery is the best at its core. the execution was also phenomenal, and the ending was so good i actually gasped out loud. i do think the concept is zany enough to fit in for what i think this author’s style is, yet is delivered well enough to satisfy my pragmatic self. i literally have no complaints with this story. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
i think if every story was at the level of the last one this would be a 4/5-star manga for me. on the other hand, if every story was like mr incest grandpa, i would’ve thrown my phone at a wall and deleted it off my netgalley account as fast as possible. i’ve never experienced such a gap in quality in a single anthology. as much as i liked 3/4 of the stories, gross grandpa easily tanks this down.
based on averaging my scores, my average rating for this short story collection is 2.75, but i hate using anything other than whole ratings, so 🤷
will i read this author’s other collections? maybe. i might first check other reviews and content warnings though, because im so serious i do not want to read AND VISUALLY SEE pedophilia and incest. no thank you.

I always love seeing horror come alive through art. The stories here weren’t super impactful, but they were bizarre and creepy. I would read more from the author.

Absolutely love this manga. I now have this manga artist on my favorites list and will be purchasing this manga in physical form. Only good things to say.