Hino Horror 3: Oninbo and the Bugs from Hell 1

Oninbo is sort of a low point in the Hino Horror series. Each of the two volumes features four short stories starring Oninbo, an otherworldly boy who eats “bugs from hell,” little bugs that appear in people’s souls as a result of a bad event.

Each of the stories has almost exactly the same structure. There’s a person that Oninbo will follow around, mentioning a bug from hell and how big and juicy it will be.  The victim will usually be imagining things and freaking out in general. After a couple hallucination events (usually involving the victim causing a scene in front of other people while they see heads melting or murders or something like that), Oninbo shrinks himself down and goes into their minds to find out what traumatic event caused the bug from hell to enter the person. Immediately after we see a flashback of said event, the bug from hell will possess/take over the person so they start going on a violent rampage, which Oninbo stops so he can magic the bug from hell out their mouth and eat it, leaving the victim a normal, happy person.

All four stories in this volume follow the exact same formula, and unfortunately the stories aren’t really that good. Sometimes the formula changes slightly (one involves ghosts and a bug from hell), and the victims vary in that some are school kids, mothers, etc, but the last story is the only one that is really different, and only because it briefly and lamely introduces another bug hunter. There’s a showdown between him and Oninbo which ended right when it was getting interesting, and the new bug hunter winds up serving no real purpose story-wise or character-wise.  Well, he does show us another of Oninbo’s powers, but it’s not a power that comes into play that often.
It pains me to say it, but the stories are just kinda plain, bland horror stories. I would recommend reading the two Oninbo volumes last if you’re reading the entire Hino Horror series, and not at all if you’re only reading the choice volumes. The stories would probably be okay as one-shots mixed with other things… they’re not great, but there are still a couple cool little quirks about them which make them worth reading. When you read all the stories back to back however, you realize they’re identical and the volumes become tedious. It’s unfortunate, because other than Oninbo and Hell Baby, I like pretty much everything else I’ve read by Hideshi Hino.