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Reviewed by Michael Aronson Okay, I kind of see Hino’s appeal. He can draw creepy stuff and he can draw it creepily. His bugs are creepy, his murder scenes are gruesome, his monsters are pretty horrific. He’s got the makings of a great horror artist – and on that note, he needs a suitable writer, because this stuff isn’t cutting it. Oninbo can hardly be considered a horror story. Oninbo – the creepy little kid on the cover – is more of a supernatural protector. The formula remains the same in each of the four stories included in this volume: Oninbo locates someone who is suffering terrifying hallucinations about murder or being murdered; he notes that a “bug from hell” must be growing inside them; he waits and watches as the hallucinations get worse; he dives inside them to make sure there is in fact a bug from hell in their souls; he glimpses the person’s past traumatic event which they continue to suffer due to the effects of the bug from hell; finally he decides to suck out the bug from hell and eat it, freeing its victims; the victims feel relieved, Oninbo moves on. This series has more in common with superhero tales. It’s not that I have a problem with Oninbo being a heroic entity rather than a villainous monster, but rather this isn’t a horror story but a story with horrific elements. As a one-off tale, it could be reasonably satisfying, but it’s essentially the same story repeated four times. I’m not really sure what the reader is supposed to gain from each new iteration that they didn’t the first time. It doesn’t help that Oninbo’s dialogue repeats nearly word-for-word each time, and that the dialogue in general is littered with errors here and there. I was curious to see what the buzz is over Hino’s horror output, but this clearly wasn’t the best place to start. Comment on this review of Oninbo and the Bugs From Hell v1 on the Manga Life Forums. |
6 October 2009
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