Hauntress

right well, this is horror done right. zashiki onna isn't horror in the sense of gore/torture/etc. but there's something so horribly disconcerting about it, that you can't look away. the plot's not overly complicated, as should be expected of only 11 chapters, and the artwork's straightforward (though not bad) too. nothing's particularly impressive about the majority of the character cast too. it's a simple manga, and that's what makes it terrifying. the way the stalker woman is drawn isn't horrific - she's not got blood dripping out of her eyes, or a smile cut across her lips - but honestly i'm expecting that face to be poppingup in my nightmares. it's so normal, yet just not quite right. honestly, i think the normality of zashiki onna is what makes it so terrifying to read. this isn't a far fetched story; we can separate ourselves from a torture scene but not a woman walking down the street. and that horribly ambiguous last chapter means that, to the reader, it really doesn't feel that the manga's finished. she could be outside, right now, asking for a guy called yamamoto. and she'll be outside for a very long time.

Story- Story itself is pretty cliche. Those things run down in urban legends. Art - This is actually one of a handful of horror mangas which I actually felt a bit uneasy. I think it has something to do with the artist's style, which deviates from the regular pointed chin, big eyed characters. Character -The lady who stalks the main character is scary, and I believe the story itself is scarier that Ibitsu, partially because of how the story is drawn and for one of the characters in the story to actually be able to touch "zashiki onna", which made the lady become this sortof touchable being for a chapter or two, instead of the usual "mysterious, unstoppable being/spirit". Enjoyment - The only thing I have to argue with is that the manga ends pretty abruptly. There's no full explanation for what has happened, which I imagine isn't really such a big deal in a genre such as horror. But still, when a story is being told, it would feel better if some sort of solid conclusion is pulled through. I still re-read the manga from time to time; I like it because the artwork matches with the story. It's short and very strange, but there are a couple of strings that are left untied in the plot. But it's an interesting manga, overall.

Well, there isn't much to say about this manga in all honesty. It's about a dude who encounters some unhinged phantom of a woman while he's getting ready for bed, doing college dude stuff and killing time. A lot of horror manga with phantom lady plots start the same way from what I have read, dude has neighbor who has weird stalker creature/woman/thing WHATEVER unbeknownst to him and somehow manages to gain it's love and or attention after the briefest of brief encounters with it. It's nothing new, at all, and I would honestly say the fact that it takes on such a common and generic cookie cutterpremise and manages to make it somehow more boring than it already is pretty impressive. I love horror manga, even the bad ones, I just do. I find them borderline addicting and I just can't get enough, but this one is just boring without any of the charm or quirks of your standard horror manga. It's not even B-Movie tier, it's just bad movie tier ya know? The art though, is dated and I do find it nostalgic in a sense but it does not fit this type of stories tone or theme whatsoever, I'm sure it could but in this instance it was just left as is and untouched. There was no real effort to make it work or seem more appealing, which I think may also be the point seeing as it's an urban legend based manga. Maybe the author wanted it to seem grounded which would make some sense given the fact that the rest of the story is realistic outside of a few gripes here and there that are honestly easily to forgive and glance over. I do hate the apparition/woman whatever it is though, and just how it's portrayed in general. I don't know what it is about some of the horror manga I've read and their weird fixation on women being ugly. Because that's literally the only about this woman that is "off putting" or "ghastly". She's just tall and happens to be unattractive, not even grotesquely so either, she's just like a 3/10 or something. It makes the whole manga sort of a pain to read, because you just have this giga chad 7 foot tall lady being a weirdo and tanking shots like she's got diamond armor on under her coat and just chugged an invincibility potion or something. It's really silly, not at all something you would take serious, and it takes you out of the story. You see her getting curb stomped american history X style by the MCs friend then all of a sudden she's chasing him down the street like Usain Bolt while he pees his pants, it's silly and not really anything spooky. I don't hate the manga or anything at all, and it's a crazy short read, but I don't recommend it. It's just bland, and fails to be anything. Like anything at all, It's just a story you read really.