Howling at the Moon
Seike Yukiko's Tsuki ni Horean nee is definitely the strangest manga I've come across lately. The title of the manga comes from a poem by Hagiwara Sakutarou, who is sort of the main character of the story. In essence, the story is a reimagining of real-life Japanese poets (sort of, since each major character in the manga is based on the poems written by a particular poet, and not so much based on the actual poet) from the last century or so living in a fictional town. The author considers this manga a "derivative work".
You would think that this will turn out to be a parody, and in a way, it is (with loads of gallows humour), but it goes beyond that. The manga touches on the pain and labour of creation (staring at a blank page for half an hour, for instance), and how fantasy breaks down in the face of reality, as well as World War II and homoerotic relationships. The first chapter is pretty disturbing (a dried-up corpse hanging on the tree, maggots, slasher smile, and lots of hallucination), and it hints at something disturbing about the main characters as well. I suppose you could say that "every poet has a can of worms in his head"? Despair and ecstasy, madness and loneliness, love and lust, war and death -- this is not for the faint of heart.
http://afternoon.moae.jp/lineup/313
You would think that this will turn out to be a parody, and in a way, it is (with loads of gallows humour), but it goes beyond that. The manga touches on the pain and labour of creation (staring at a blank page for half an hour, for instance), and how fantasy breaks down in the face of reality, as well as World War II and homoerotic relationships. The first chapter is pretty disturbing (a dried-up corpse hanging on the tree, maggots, slasher smile, and lots of hallucination), and it hints at something disturbing about the main characters as well. I suppose you could say that "every poet has a can of worms in his head"? Despair and ecstasy, madness and loneliness, love and lust, war and death -- this is not for the faint of heart.
http://afternoon.moae.jp/lineup/313