蛇を飼う女 by 胡蝶社

It's been a while, huh? Finally a new batch of purchases has arrived, a rare treat in this period of suffering 33 celsius in front of an oven for six hours a day... Only five dōjinshi, but all of them turned out to be keepers, so I'll probably review each one of them. I might even make a new order post-Comiket, even though my favorite circle isn't putting out anything new this time around.

First of this new batch is a little hidden gem, which I purchased on title and cover alone. 蛇を飼う女 (The woman who keeps a snake, 2003) sports one subdued, yet deliciously creepy cover, and I was instantly won over. Behind the 胡蝶社 circle name hides manga author 武富健治 (Taketomi Kenji), who has published some manga proper, as well as winning a few prizes.

Anyway, 蛇を飼う女  is exactly the kind of not-overt-horror, yet totally creepy story that I happen to totally be into. A young woman keeps a boa constrictor in her city flat, except the snake isn't really hers: it used to belong to her dear friend Kyouko, who died in a car crash. Since then, the young woman (really nothing more than your average Japanese office lady) has been living the life of a hermit, projecting her grief and anxiety onto the pet animal, as a sort of surrogate for her dead friend. An attempt to break out of her shell turns into tragedy, when the pet breaks free and does the irrepairable... or maybe not? 

I noticed that, often, Japanese authors tend to have a very ham-fisted approach to metaphors (might be a cultural thing, who knows), but this is certainly not the case with Taketomi: the parallel between caring for the cumbersome animal, and the elaboration of grief is very well handled throughout, inclunding a spectacular final panel that really tops off the story in the best possibile way. 

Visually, I expected edge in the style of Garo or Ikki, and I wasn't disappointed. The visual style is rough, unpolished, yet extremely vibrant even in black and white. There are anatomical errors and wonly perspectives, but that's more of a part of the alt style, than a fault per-se.

In short, an excellent work from an artist that I'll be digging for from now on.