Four gory and intriguing horror stories with beautiful art style I really loved.

Wow, the second story 𝐂𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐑𝐨𝐨𝐦 was absolutely brilliant, chilling and surprising. Definitely one of my favorites of this collection.

𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐇𝐚𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭 the last story were another favorite of mine from this manga. It was phenomenal, I could definitely have read more of that.

If you love horror and enjoy reading mangas I highly recommend checking out 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞! It was a quick but interesting experience.

𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞: 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟏𝟓 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓

Thank you so much NetGalley and @shintarokago1969 for an ARC of this manga in exchange for my honest review.

A collection of stories that got more disturbing as they went. I think this was effective in both artwork and storylines overall. I enjoyed the 2nd and 4th stories the most in the end. I do wish some of the stories took it a bit further and we’re more gruesome to stick with me longer.

The 2nd story is a new take on zombies and I found it disturbing but also kind of funny in the end.

The 4th story took a dark turn and the final imagery is left sitting with me.

Overall a strong horror collection!

I really liked this. Brain Damage is an excellent collection of interesting and entertaining horror stories. I read this immediately after receiving it and couldn't put it down. Definitely more suitable for people who find entertainment in absurd situations (aka me) than those looking to not be able to sleep at night.

Thank you for the review copy!

I’m a huge fan of the kind of weird horror manga artists like Junji Ito create, so I was hoping to love this one too. And there is a lot to like about this collection! The stories have fun twists with a creepy edge and it’s definitely weird enough for my tastes. Unfortunately, I feel like there was a lot of unnecessary sexualization of the female characters (including young teenagers), which I wasn’t a fan of. I’m no prude, and I’m fine with sex and nudity if it serves the plot, but it was just so clearly shoehorned into stories where it wasn’t relevant and it felt kind of gross. If you’re not bothered by that kind of thing, you’ll probably enjoy these stories, but I’ll be sticking with Ito for my horror manga fix.

Thanks to the publisher for giving me access to an early digital copy!

Fans of Junji Ito will enjoy this volume of four short stories that are sure to amaze. The stories are unique in their creativity and execution. The art style is traditional manga-style, reading left-to right. I personally enjoyed the stories unique creativity. My only issue is that I found it difficult to follow some of the stories due to consistency in the narrative style, but it did not detract from the story's main narrative. I would be interested in reading another volume from the author.

A somewhat enjoyable manga short story horror collection. The four tales were each interesting if somewhat unevenly executed. I found "Curse Room" to be the best of the lot, followed closely by "Blood Harvest". Both presented some rather interesting twists to the standard horror tropes they were playing off of. "Labyrinth Quartet" and "Family Portrait", however, were awkward and confusing at best, perhaps as a result of translation or unshared cultural norms. While I really wanted to enjoy "Family Portrait" and loved the concept, the execution just didn't land for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Fantagraphics for the opportunity to read this eARC.

This is compared with Junji Ito's works, and for good reason. They are dark and bizarre horror stories, quintessential to this style of Japanese horror. But readers should be aware that this is on the grittier end of this style of manga, leaning heavily into body horror, at times of a sexualised nature.

It is a visceral style that is not for everyone, but for those it is for, this is a solid collection of stories with engaging art and intriguing storytelling. I would be curious to pick up Kago again.

I knew nothing about Kago or Brain Damage before reading this book other than I liked the description of absurdist manga short horror stories. This book contains four such stories on topics such as killer cars and knife-wielding stalkers. The book is as described! Each is only a few pages; they contain confusing turns and lots of gore. However, I absolutely cannot stand the one story where the granddaughter uses her body to be sexually assaulted by her grandfather with dementia for reasons that, while related to the story, are beyond appropriate or necessary. Honestly, everything after that point was irredeemable to me despite enjoying the concepts of the other stories. Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for this ARC.

This definitely wasn't my favorite horror manga that i've ever read. Generally, the stories felt pretty dumb and while there might have been an interesting concept somewhere in there, I do not think the author did a good job executing it.

Brain Damage presents a collection of short stories by Kago-sensei. Reality, madness and gore merge with enthusiasm and give rise to some of the most disturbing stories I've read recently.
Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this advanced reader's copy.

HOLY SHIT. What an f-ed up group of stories, and I mean that in the best possible way. I’ve read my share of Junji Ito and Kazuo Umezu, but Kago takes horror manga to another level. I was truly creeped out by all four stories. Kago gives readers a new take on the classic tropes of zombies, vampires and serial killers. You’ll want to add this one to your shelf.

This is one of the creepiest books I've read in awhile. One of the stories could be triggering for anyone who has experienced SA. Great gore and horror manga. The art is fantastic. This is a very dark book. Not for those who prefer their horror only be suspenseful. Good book for library collections, though should only be recommended for those who truly like dark horror. Be selective in recommendations.

This title is slightly difficult for me to review as I have very conflicting feelings. As someone who has only dabbled in horror manga, namely Junji Ito, I don't have a lot to compare this particular collection to, most of all Kago's other works. What I can say definitively is that the imagery is disgusting and stomach churning (in the most positive way possible), but I found a lot of the story telling to be a let down. For me personally, I found the stories to not have clear direction and only be a means for the gross payoff. That's not necessarily a terrible thing, I would still recommend this title to my friends or patrons who are into Junji Ito or want a brutal horror manga. Overall, it will most likely escape my memory and not have the staying power that some other manga's have for me.

Four stories, two great, one fantastic (squeezing way more twists into the narrative than the other three), and one was solid. You can decide for yourself which is which.

If you're interested enough to read this review, you should just pick up the book. Trigger warnings aplenty, but this is actually pretty mild compared to some of the creator's other work.

Also, I loved the mini commentaries on each installment by Kago at the end of the book, I wish all short story collections included this kind of honesty and insight.

In 2018, manga artist Shintaro Kago made his English debut with Dementia 21, a collection of absurdist manga short stories. Readers found themselves delighted and disgusted by his penchant for body horror, black comedy and the surreal paired with his emphatic, kinetic art style. Kago returns at the height of his powers with Brain Damage, where both the gore and the horror are amplified.

Brain Damage is an anthology of four new short manga stories steeped in existential horror and dismembered body parts. In “Labyrinth Quartet,” four identical women are hunted in an urban labyrinth by a masked serial killer who seems obsessed with tetrads. In “Curse Room,” a nurse is tasked with administering to zombies, keeping them calm and accepting of their death, and protecting the world from their flesh-eating rampages. In “Family Portrait,” a perverted old man who is beginning to struggle with dementia deteriorates in front of his family and their town, but when strangers start disappearing, his grandchildren suspect something. Finally, in “Blood Harvest” a series of gruesomely mangled bodies are found in automobiles, and it appears something hungry haunts these hulks of glass and steel.

Shintaro Kago’s storytelling, with its surreal scenarios and bizarre endings, is disturbing. Readers are oft provided with an explanation for the horror, but rarely a resolution, which makes these tales all the more gruesome. There are points where the gore and the sex become extreme, so readers sensitive to body horror are cautioned, but those are not the focal points of these stories at all. The way Shintaro Kago crafts a tale, inventing worlds where very little is as it seems or is expected and the environment itself is always predatory, is more than enough to scare readers. The graphic novelization of these tales, complete with the internal organs and scattered limbs, simply propels the horror further. Anyone interested in horror graphic novels, especially body horror, will thoroughly enjoy this book.

kago's work is definitely an acquired taste, but this one unfortunately didn't match up to his earlier work. the first story in this collection was definitely the most solid--that final page was truly a gut punch. but! the rest of the stories truly didn't make much sense, and not in an absurdist way. it was more so that the stories didn't really get too fleshed out and it made kago's trademark grotesquerie fall flat.

I specifically chose this book to read for the cover art and the description. I'm someone who likes horror in certain settings, and this was done pretty well. As a big fan of Junji Ito and his macabre elements, this felt very similar to his work, so enjoyed it. There were some elements that I felt were a little out there, but I'd be willing to read this again.

Brain Damage was a typical horror manga in my opinion. The common tropes were there. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't. It was visually unsettling, but some of the stories did not seem fully formed. The most innovative and surprising story was Blood Harvest. I am not traditionally a fan of haunted car stories, but something about it made me really enjoy it. Curse Room gave me similar feelings where it is a play on an undead/zombie theme, but it works really well. I didn't really care for Family Portrait (due to the subject matter) or Labyrinth Quartet (I was confused about what was happening the entire time). Overall, I would read another horror manga by Kago, but with a fresh perspective that it will be hit or miss for me personally.

Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC.

Compared to other horror manga, this had more light humor intermingled, but this didn't align with the overall tone of some of the stories. It made the stories feel rushed. That said, each story had brilliant concepts and ideas, and I was intrigued to keep reading to find the reasoning or end. Kago's work can be profound in ideas, but maybe my main issue is with the storyboarding.

This had promise at the beginning and then went downhill fast for me. "Labyrinth Quest", which I would argue was the best, was the shortest of the stories by a long shot. I wanted more from that one. Why were they doing what they were doing? "Curse Room" was an interesting take on zombies and brought a new twist on an old tale. That is where the good ends for me. "Family Portrait" was vile. It is supposed to be horror but pedophila and incest are not it. I hated that one. The last story, "Blood Harvest" had potential but went on too long and over explained what was happening.