Hino Horror 9: Ghost School
October 16, 2008
Woah, Hino does shoujo! There’s something so wrong about this, and it’s reflected in these stories. I can’t help comparing it to Reptilia, Umezu shoujo, for obvious reasons, but these are definitely less… er, polished and subtle than the stories in Reptilia. And I don’t know that Reptilia was all that subtle.
This volume also reminded me a lot of Mantis Woman since I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not the stories were taking themselves seriously. I… I think they were. I’m not sure if that’s a problem or not. Generally, this is not such a problem when reading Hino’s short stories (which are usually either straight-out horror or comical over-the-top horror), but here it is a problem since these stories are somewhat weaker than his other ones.
For some reason, while I didn’t like the first story about a girl being kidnapped and kept in an abandoned school full of dead bodies guarded by a crazy man, I did like the second story about a girl who is stalked relentlessly by a creepy boy who eventually enlists his parents help in abducting her for use in a crazy ritual. They were very similar stories, but I just liked the second one better. Maybe it was because the creepy guy in the second one was a doll collector, a fact that was utilized pretty well in the story itself.
The fourth story, about a boy who dresses like a girl, was a little unsettling because the horror element was based on the fact the boy reveals the truth about himself to a classmate, who is then very terrified and is descended upon by the boy’s family. That the girl was torn apart or something in the end is just as ridiculous as anything else that happened, but I just didn’t think that the horror element, the boy’s real gender, was really something to be scared about. It just seemed… er, yeah. On the other hand, I shouldn’t be looking for really PC stuff in a manga where little girls are sacrificed in bizarre rituals.
The best story in the volume was also the longest and most confusing. It reminded me a lot of an Umezu-like psychological horror story, except Hino isn’t quite as good at it. We are led through a horrifying situation where a young girl, a recent beauty contest winner, wakes up one day looking like an old lady. She doesn’t go out anymore, and basically we are run though the paces as we see her life fall to ruin. The time frame isn’t terribly clear though, nor are some of the things at the end which reveal what is actually happening. We do get a bit of what Hino does best, seeing the old woman disintegrate into a rotting lump of flesh, but this is a bizarre story for more reasons than one.
Sadly, this is one of the weaker Hino Horror volumes. There are better ones to come, though again, if you’re looking for a good horror story, look no farther than the first volume of the series. Red Snake is still one of the finest horror manga in English.
