Last Gasp will publish Yusaku Hanakuma’s horror comedy manga, Tokyo Zombie, on September 18th.  The 164-page collection first appeared in installments in AX Magazine in 1998-1999.  The collected Tokyo Zombie manga was published in 2000 by Seirinkogeisha, a Japanese publishing house that specializes in releasing cutting edge, underground-type works known as guro manga, which mix disgusting and erotic elements—a genre typified by the works of manga-ka such a Suehiro Maruo (Mr. Arashi’s Freak Show), Shintaro Kago (Superhuman), and Toshio Maeda (Urotsukidogi).  In 2005 it was made into a slapstick-filled Shaun of the Dead-type horror film directed by Sakichi Sato (who wrote Miike’s Ichi the Killer and Gozu).

 

Hanakuma’s manga concerns two hapless and hopeless factory workers whose ascent to martial arts stardom is thwarted when zombies take over Tokyo.  Tokyo Zombie is weird, violent, disgusting, horrific, and most of all, a very humorous read for adult connoisseurs of the truly bizarre.