Ultra-Gash Inferno

Rating:
Summary: goreguts style lust, sex victim fetish
Review: A deep perversion of little consequence unfolds in this manga. For adults only and even then, more exclusive to the sexually aroused. Not to be missed by fans criminal sexual awkwardness. Its like peering into a secret cult and the diary unfolds story by story. The art is separated by very emotional faces and stable inflexible bodys. Wild secretions none the less.

Rating:
Summary: Maruo's uncompromising way of illustrating is unique!
Review: Suehiro Maruo's Ultra-Gash Inferno is a fantastic piece of art, unique both in Japan and in the west.

There is no other artist illustrating aberration of erotic and violent human fantasy in a way as direct and uncompromising as he does: love making at the cemetery amidst vermin and rotten fruit, love making in the canalization, love making with grandmother, love making of lovers with their arms being cut off and their eyes being poked out or having group sex with Buddhist monks. Just as grotesque as these various situations is the way the heroes in Maruo's stories live, decide and act: there is a boy who grows up in canalization, a boy who kills his parents, because they laugh at him and he does not know why, a girl who inserts the eye of a bird into her vagina, eats excrements with her two lovers and loves licking banisters, a boy who can sleep only after having put his genital between his grandmother's dental prosthesis, a girl who orally satisfies her leprous father, and a woman who, without knowing it, eats the flesh of her own son at a Yakitori restaurant.

Maruo's stories let us experience a world which is far more horrifying than even our worst nightmare. Although we can not quite understand the characters' behaviour and way of acting, we can anticipate and even duplicate their feelings thanks to the detailed expressive illustrations of faces twisted by either lust or pain.

Readers who do not enjoy seeing bloody violence and obscenity of such a high degree will however be delighted by a mere graphic and stylistic approach to Maruo's work: it is wonderful to look at the detailed lineation and distinct compositions of image, the play of black and white contrasts, the expressive use of Japanese characters which become a part of the image itself, the way how single images are put together to create an overall impression of the page, how certain elements of the image are left out so that important details or mere language do get emphasized, how black and white photographs are being integrated into the drawings or the way Maruo graphically illustrates speed, motion, fear and ecstasy.

Maybe by reading Maruo's work, we might be able to understand elements of the dark side of Japanese tradition in which violence and disgust have been closely linked to fascination.

Suehiro Maruo's Ultra-Gash Inferno is hard to digest yet unique in its taste: highly recommendable.

Rating:
Summary: Absolutely not for the faint-hearted...
Review: You've read "Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show," you've seen his art in John Zorn's "Naked City" album. This is a compendium of nine "stories" by Suehiro Maruo from the last ten years, spread out over 210+ pages.

I suppose I can throw a few lit-critty tidbits into my review -- say, something about Bataille and the politics of transgression, or folks like de Sade, Pasolini, Nitsch, John Waters =), and how this work is directly located within that tradition -- but I won't bother. (Okay, I just did.)

Suffice it to say that this is deeply, *deeply* unpleasant reading. It is also quite enthralling, with a hallucinatory intensity that is difficult to equal. You'll be laughing uncomfortably and shaking your head in horror at the same time. ...--you name it, it's all here, rendered in gorgeous (and gorge-rising) detail. The book is simply awash with bodily fluids of all colors and viscosities; amputated limbs, orifices, and lots of eyeballs -- there's that Bataille again -- crowd the text. (In fact, there's a scene in this book that's clearly lifted right out of the, um, climactic scene in Bataille's "Story of the Eye.")

So: is this an exploration of moral and social boundaries, and the limits of transgression? A cry of rage against the random cruelty of a cold universe? Or just the mad scribblings of a truly sick man? Who knows -- just remember that you *will* feel unclean after reading this book. (Watching "My Neighbor Totoro" did wonders for cleansing my palate.)