I have a package coming with the worst company on the planet… so I’ve got to hold off on work and the gym to make sure I can personally greet them at the door. (Otherwise they won’t make an effort to deliver it).

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

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While I wait I just wanted to post about Masaaki Nakayama.

As a teenager I found myself scrounging for every little piece of Japanese horror I could find after being introduced to ju-on here in Canada. Gyo and Uzumaki by Junji Ito had only been translated by fans online at that time and they were relatively unpopular compared to other anime/manga like Paranoia agent.

At the same time I had come across PTSD Radio, which to this day is still my favourite manga collection ever. The apparitions, ghosts and monsters are all relatively effective at being disturbing. He’s also very good at his environments and architectures, which is important for adding characterization to these creatures and his characters.

There was no translation for this manga at the time, but the stories were so quick and their visual storytelling was so powerful that the language just did not matter.

When I was living in Tokyo with my friends, I still remember finding the books in Shibuya one night and was absolutely beaming with excitement. (I’m still missing second volume and everything after four… but I also found a little flatwoods monster pin at the same place).

To my surprise recently I had seen the manga had been localized and was being sold at indigo in English, but I don’t think I’ll ever grab them to hold onto the mystery of the stories a little bit. at some point I’d like to take my own shot of doing a few ghost paintings in his signature style. (:

Ghost stories rock