Hideout

For week 1 I chose to look at a manga called Hideout by Kakizaki Masasumi.  I had seen very striking images from it online and had been meaning to read it for a while.

Hideout is told as a memoir by the main character Kirishima Seiichi.  It starts out very ominous, it is very obvious from the beginning that things are going to go horribly wrong with this character's story.  We see him bloody and tied in a chair with the constant imagery of these eyes like those shown on the cover.  The reader begins by being very sympathetic towards the main character.  It is soon revealed that he is taking a vacation to heal things with his wife after the death of their son.  The wife, Miki, is very hostile towards Seiichi and blames him for the death of their son.  We can assume this hostility has been going on for a long time.  In chapter 1, he decides to kill his wife.

After this, none of the events in the story go according to plan.  Miki escapes and the two of them find themselves in a cave with the owner of the iconic pair of eyes that has shown up several times in the story already.  This man ultimately ends up kidnapping them.

As a horror story, Hideout aims to be eerie and at the same time psychological.  Not in a mind puzzle type of way, but in a way that it tries to get the reader to examine aspects of what they might do when faced with trauma.  Every character in this story is faced with horrible things and ends up a horrible person because of it.  Despite Seiichi and Miki having already shown a monstrous nature, they call the emaciated old man in the cave a monster and consider themselves better.  

There are points where I think this comic tries too hard.  Seiichi is an unlikable character from the get-go and it is hard to sympathize with him past the first few pages, which makes his transformation into a despicable character have far less of an impact.

Where I think this comic is really successful is in the art.  It is high contrast and extremely detailed in a way that makes it very memorable.  The art made far more of an impact on me than the storyline which is okay for a horror comic I think.  Imagery can be just as effective as a shock tactic as plot can and in this case I think the plot comes off  very strong and could benefit from a bit more subtlety.

Since this is the first comic I have looked at I cannot say yet how it compares to other horror comics aside from ones I have read in the past which are very similar.  Next week I will probably have something very different so I can compare similarities and differences.