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Living the Line Licenses Shinichi Koga's Mansect Horror Manga (Updated)
posted on by Alex Mateo
Koga debuted the single-volume Mansect manga in 1975.
Living the Line describes the manga:
Humans grow and age. They change. But always we are the same person, the same creature. Not so with insects, whose powers of metamorphosis alter not only their shape and size, but also their very beings. And now, because of one young man's unhealthy obsession with bugs, humans also find themselves transformed into disgusting, decrepit, bloodsucking insect monsters! Published in 1975, Koga Shinichi's MANSECT is a shonen horror classic by one of the undisputed masters of the genre. Swarming with mesmerizingly gnarly imagery and freakish bio-evolutionary speculation, Koga here demonstrates why his name is uttered with the same quivering reverence as horror manga legends Mizuki Shigeru, Umezz Kazuo, and Ito Junji. MANSECT is the third volume of SMUDGE, a line of vintage horror, occult, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg.
Koga serialized the original horror manga Eko Eko Azarak in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine between 1975 and 1979, and Akita Shoten published the series in 19 volumes. The manga inspired six live-action films between 1995 and 2006, as well as a live-action television series in 1997. The manga also inspired a two-episode OVA series in 2007. In addition, the manga has inspired two video games.
Koga died on March 1, 2018.
Living the Line describes Smudge as "a line of classic pulp, horror, and dark fantasy manga, curated and translated into English by award-winning historian Ryan Holmberg." Her Frankenstein was the first title under the imprint.
Update: Removed line about the Barairo no Kaibutsu manga as it was published in error. ANN regrets the mistake.
Source: Ryan Holmberg's Instagram page
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history