Japanese mangaka Kazuichi Hanawa remains largely unknown here in the west, but his influence can be seen across horror and mature themed manga (With work going back as far as early 70’s). “The Early Years” collects various stories ranging in composition, but focused around macabre/mature themes. Nothing is off limits within the pages of this collection, which is bound to insult the senses; however, hidden within the filth is some of the most visually engaging work within its respective genres.

The quality of the tales play a secondary role to the artwork in many regards. The collection quality is certain to be divisive in its different approaches to horror and erotica, with the first several chapters offering up stories of sexual deviancy in a nauseating fashion. Within framing these stories as a parody of militarism and Japanese culture at the time, helps soften the blow a bit, although it is difficult to deal with some of the scenes, with the creator adding a tongue and cheek ending in one chapter exclaiming it is better for the audience if they don’t see what happens next. In a strong tonal shift, the later chapters explore Hanawas’ traditional horror tales, which are often centered around Yokai (Japanese Monsters) and contain scant nudity or sexual deviancy. Overall, the collection offers a fascinating look at the early, varied career of Hanawa.

With the first section of the focused on erotic grotesque tales, and the latter focused on horror, it is hard to really see where the appeal on the reader would lie, as both genres have a respectable fan-base, that intersect occasionally. Perhaps, the one thing limiting the opening erotic focused segments is the evolution of the genre within the years, with mangaka’s like Suehiro Maruo (“Panorama Island”, “Lunatic Lovers”) and Shintaro Kago (“Dementia 21” “Super Dimensional Love Gun“) really elevating the genre of Ero-guro into something more absurd and surreal. Ultimately, Hanawa’s odd fixations on subjects such as coprophilia seems immature and anachronistic when compared to contemporaries in the genre. With this in mind, it is easy to say that the later portion of the book will hold a more universal and timeless appeal. Particularly, with the popularity of Yokai, offering a morbid and unique take on the beloved Japanese creatures.

Regardless of whether you connect with the stories of Hanawa, it becomes difficult to denounce his immense artistic talent, with certain panels containing a great degree of detail which has found comparisons to early Ukiyo-e prints (traditional woodblock prints). This is notably seen in his full page illustrations where the style and layout reflects chimidor-e (blood-stained pictures) aka muzan-e (atrocity pictures) which in the 1800’s would be distributed by artists depicting true crime or war atrocities/conquests. The mix of classic and contemporary melds in a really appeasing way that gives the impression he was an influence on iconic creators like Suehiro Marou. This style and paneling transitions into the supernatural tales, but are also accompanied by red highlights in the artwork that give it some additional flair.

Being a fan of traditional Japanese woodblock art and the ‘ero-guro’ manga movement, Hanawa seemed like he would be the perfect amalgamation of the two. However, it is really hard to get behind his more sexually driven tales, as outside of the artwork the stories are rather uninspiring and revolting without much redemption, even looking at it as a parody. This was almost enough to make me pass on the creator and put my exploration of the early years of ‘ero-guro’ manga aside, but the images were so fascinating I could not help to plod forward for the sake of the art. The second half transitioning into horror was a welcome reprise, and the grim folktales acted as a needed deviation from the sexually explicit material in the first half. With so little work available, I could see a collection of the monster stories (if expanded) gaining praise in both visuals and narrative. Comparatively, his work in the erotic is maybe better kept in obscurity, which left me with mixed perceptions of the creators early work. Regardless of the narrative, the art style of Hanawa is bound to entertain fans of both horror and the erotic grotesque and deserves further exploration for connoisseurs of the respective genres.