Kiriko Nananan is another artist who started out with Garo and became well known. Kiriko Nananan's Heartless Bitch and Painful Love, from Water.

The art is nothing special, and it's probably my least favorite work of the collection. It's about a 32-year old grade school student, and follows his usual pattern of a cool, detached protagonist. is inspired by the short story ' Me and Miss Mandible' written by Donald Barthelme. Yoshitomo Yoshitomo's Jr., from Greatest Hits +3.Ī popular mangaka who's worked for both shojo and seinen magazines, Yoshitomo's Jr. Swing Shell is a short surrealist piece about a young girl, her father and her escape. Yuko Tsuno is a painfully independent artist who avoid commercializing her work. Yuko Tsuno's Swing Shell, originally published in Garo. Gedatsu Man seems to be about robots, monsters and whatever crosses his mind at the moment - the art is simplistic, but the layout and plot is extremely non-linear in an interesting way. Hironori Kikuchi is a Garo alumni whose work is firmly situated in the absurd. Hironori Kikuchi's Gedatsu Man, selected scenes. Gloomy and strange, with its own special charm. Her webpage can be seen at Momongo is about a human insect who lives in a famine-starved 2020 and her urge to mate. Junko Mizuno has a interesting cute-grotesque style which combines child-like feminine drawings with skulls and blood. Junko Mizuno's The Life of Momongo, originally published in Comic Cue. This book is not suitable for children - several of the works deal with sex in fairly adult ways, and a few are downright disturbing. Each work is prefaced with his notes on both the author and the work itself. Chikao Shiratori, a Japanese editor with ties to the innovative, influential if not incredibly well read Garo magazine, picked a wide variety of authors for this collection in both style and popularity - as far as I know, only one author included has been published in America. The book opens with a small introduction from the editor talking about the diversity of modern Japanese manga and the blurring of 'mainstream' and 'underground' work that has followed the differentiation of genres.

The book is printed Japanese style, right to left, and a small note on the inside of the left cover reminds people that not every language reads the same.

Unusually, it doesn't fit the usual tankoubon proportions - the book is as tall as the usual American graphic novel and a centimeter or two wider, which combined with the depth of 200 pages makes for a fairly large book. Published by Viz Communications under the Pulp or Cadence Books imprint in 2000, Secret Comics Japan is a look at the more underground or indie Japanese manga artists.

Secret Comics Japan by Chikao Shiratori