Last Gasp has licensed Suehiro Maruo’s manga adaptation of Edogawa Rampo’s short story The Caterpillar and will publish it in hardcover and paperback in 2026.  Written in 1929, the story centers on the wife of a war hero who lost all four limbs and was horribly disfigured in the war. Isolated in the country and shunned by their friends, Sunaga, the wife, cares for her husband but eventually grows to hate and mistreat him.  Maruo’s adaptation was first published in 2009 in Enterbrain’s Comic Beam magazine and is done in his signature ero-guro (erotic grotesque) style, depicting erotic body horror with a crisp, clear line. Rampo’s story was adapted into the 2010 film Caterpillar, directed by Kōji Wakamatsu, which was nominated for the Golden Bear award at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival.

Last Gasp will publish a paperback edition of Maruo’s The Strange Tale of Panorama Island, which is also based on a story by Rampo, in October 2025 (see “New Edition of ‘The Strange Tale of Panorama Island’”).