Two new horror manga are coming to English readers. Yen Press announced a set of new licenses yesterday at MCM London Comic Con, and two of them should be on every horror fan's radar: the manga adaptation of the Japanese found-footage novel About a Place in the Kinki Region and a new deluxe omnibus of Yoshiki Tonogai's psychological horror series Secret.
About A Place In The Kinki Region
About a Place in the Kinki Region started as a novel by Sesuji and grew into a phenomenon in Japan, eventually getting a live-action film adaptation last year. The story is told the way a found-footage film would tell it, through documents instead of a straightforward narrative.
An editor for an occult magazine goes missing while researching unsettling stories tied to one particular area in the Kinki Region, the part of Japan that includes Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara. His friend sets out to retrace his steps. As he gathers scraps of old magazine articles, strange letters from readers, and outlandish posts from online forums, a disturbing story starts to take shape. Yen Press describes the realization at the center of it plainly: something really is wrong with that place.
The format is what makes it stand out. Like the best found-footage horror, it lets readers assemble the terror themselves, piece by piece, and the slow realization that all these unrelated stories point to the same place is where the dread comes from. A manga version gets to add visuals to that formula, which could make some of the stranger documents even creepier.
Secret: Homicide Edition
Tonogai is best known in English for Doubt and Judge, a pair of horror thrillers about strangers trapped in deadly games. Secret takes a quieter, more paranoid approach. Six people survive a tragic bus accident, and then they receive a message: "There are three murderers hiding in your midst."
The ultimatum that follows gives the murderers one week to agonize over what they did and find a way to answer for it. If they do not, evidence of their crimes goes to the police. Since every one of the survivors is hiding something, nobody knows who to trust. Yen Press is bringing the series back as an all-new deluxe omnibus.
The original series was a short one, which makes it a natural fit for a single collected edition. Yen Press has a long history with Tonogai, having released both Doubt and Judge in English, so the omnibus brings one of his most tightly plotted stories back to readers who may have missed it the first time. It is also a good starting point for anyone new to his work, since it does not require any knowledge of his other series and the premise hooks you from the very first chapter.
Other Yen Press Announcements
The rest of the publisher's London slate leaned toward fantasy and romance. It includes the light novels Cross-Dressing Villainess Cecilia Sylvie: Extra Round! and And Thus, the Wizard Noi Garene Became a Bride 100 Years Later, the manga My Yandere Girlfriend Hiding in the Dungeon Kills Me Over and Over Again and My Childhood Friend Meows Under the Skirt, the BL titles Summer Boy Blues and Is the Hot-Voiced Streamer Into Me?!, and audiobooks for 'Cause I'm Freedom! and Mamoru Hosoda's Scarlet.
For horror fans, though, the two titles above are the ones to watch. Release details for each are listed on Yen Press's official site, and both should be easy recommendations for anyone who likes their scares slow and unsettling.
Which of these two Yen Press horror picks are you more likely to read first, About a Place in the Kinki Region or Secret: Homicide Edition?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.