Hinatsugimura

Shimizu (Qwan) stitches body horror into the aesthetics of traditional Japanese ghost stories in this gleefully gruesome chiller. In a forgotten Japanese village hidden in the mountains, Lady Kamiya and her beautiful, strangely scarred daughter Kiriko rule over deformed villagers who worship Kiriko for her healing powers. Outsiders who wander into the village soon find themselves absorbed into its weird rituals—and cannibalized for parts: “Will you become one of us?” Lady Kamiya asks. “Or will you become part of us?” The loosely connected early chapters, in which unfortunate victims keep stumbling into the village, give way to a larger story arc when Minato, a neurotic young man, is kidnapped to become Kiriko’s husband, a process no one has survived intact thus far. He sets out to uncover her secrets and discovers that they share scars—literal, in her case—from abusive, controlling parents. Shimizu’s delicate, fine-lined art is somewhat generic to the genre but effectively lends eerie elegance to dismembered bodies, sewn-up monsters, killer cultists, and creepy poppets (the ceremonial dolls displayed during the Japanese holiday of Hinamatsuri provide a running motif). Despite its uneven seams, this patchwork is suitably unsettling for manga horror fans. (Jan.)