Hino Horror 6: Black Cat
Posted: November 2, 2007 Filed under: Hino Horror 3 Comments »It’s still Dia de los Muertos, isn’t it? I can still talk about horror manga, can’t I? For, like, 20 more minutes? Eh, I’ll keep talking about these until I’m through with them anyway, but I was hoping to finish by Halloween.
This one’s slightly more interesting than the previous three volumes. We’re presented with a framing device, in this case a black cat, which has a beginning and existence very much like the Hell Baby. His brothers and sisters are all adopted from the garbage dump he was born in, and then only he is left. It jumps abruptly from the life of the Black Cat to the lives of people he eventually lives with, which was kind of weird, but the stories of the people he then lives with are just… awesome.
The first person he moves in with is a clown who takes tickets at a circus. He’s also a big drunk, so the other workers use the clever double entendre “red nose” as his name. This somehow morphs into a creepy ventriloquist doll story.
The story in the middle I didn’t like as much, but was about a small boy who started keeping a pet dog when his mother disappears and he’s left at home by himself. This dog kills people, much to the delight of the little boy. Later, his mother comes back complete with stepfather, and things get weird, and the weirdness may or may not have anything to do with the dog.
Another story has an elderly couple that abuse the hell out of each other by constantly yelling vulgar insults back and forth. This story morphs in strange and wonderful ways too, and is the only situation the Black Cat later comes back to so we know the full resolution. Except… well, there’s no explanation given, but it’s a full resolution all the same.
Really, I liked this volume a lot. The stories in it aren’t very solid, and aren’t even very good. But the rules about sensical, continuous narrative that they break make them unique and wonderful. Black Cat as a whole will leaving you asking yourself what just happened, but in a good horror manga kind of way. Not the strongest of the Hino Horror stories, but cool all the same.
[...] Connie wrote an interesting post today on Hino Horror 6: Black CatHere’s a quick excerptHe’s also a big drunk, so the other workers use the clever double entendre “red nose” as his name. This somehow morphs into a creepy ventriloquist doll story. The story in the middle I didn’t like as much, but was about a small boy who … [...]
[...] Connie wrote an interesting post today on Hino Horror 6: Black CatHere’s a quick excerptThe story in the middle I didn’t like as much, but was about a small boy who started keeping a pet dog when his mother disappears and he’s left at home by himself. This dog kills people, much to the delight of the little boy. … [...]
[...] Connie wrote an interesting post today on Hino Horror 6: Black CatHere’s a quick excerptThe story in the middle I didn’t like as much, but was about a small boy who started keeping a pet dog when his mother disappears and he’s left at home by himself. This dog kills people, much to the delight of the little boy. … [...]