Customer Reviews

Living Corpse (Hino Horror)

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A man wakes up in a cemetary, having no knowledge of his identity or where he is. Stumbling upon some villagers, he is confused when they react to him in horror, screaming and running away, declaring that a monster is after them! He realizes what happened when he passes a mirror and sees his own visage for the first time. He is a hulking rotting corpse with dripping flesh and maggots falling out of his right eye. Captured by the police and handed over to some well-meaning but flabbergasted scientists, he is poked and prodded and unintentionally tortured in an attempt to reverse the process of his living death. And then they find a family portrait pendant in his stomach that just might give a clue to the living corpse's identity.

Hideshi Hino wrote Living Corpse at a bad period in his life. He was suffering from some personal ailments which required him to be hospitalized. After he got out he could not take time to recuperate because he had a family to support so he had to go right back to making manga. At that time, thoughts of death went through his mind. Living Corpse is a horror story or persecution and ignorance of the workings of the universe, but underneath is the theme of love of one's family going beyond physical death. It's amazing that in one of Hino's worst times, he was still able to let that love overcome horrible circumstances. While Living Corpse at times wallows in melodrama, it's a good book.