寄生人

This volume collects two horror manga drawn for Togetsu Shobou by Goro Sugimoto (1924–1987, under the pen name Tsuyuki Saburou)—a legendary film collector with deep ties to Shigeru Mizuki. 1. Kiseijin (寄生人) [circa 1961, Togetsu Shobou] “Shigeru Mizuhara is a young reporter for a third-rate weekly magazine. On his way to work, as he was daydreaming about how nice it would be to live a life of leisure if he were a twin, he was stopped by an old woman claiming to be a fortune-teller. When he peered into the crystal ball she held out, he saw a double image of himself, and the old woman told him that his wish would come true, albeit in a different form. That day, for some reason, his leg began to ache, and when he returned home early from work, a human face had appeared on his left knee. It was a “parasite”—a monster that had entered his body through his nose when he peered into the crystal ball, and was now growing by feeding on his blood. The parasite says it will be reborn as his twin, but what will become of Shigeru Mizuhara...? 2. Miira-jima (ミイラ島) [circa 1962, Togetsu Shobou] Summer vacation was just around the corner. A notice recruiting elementary school students for part-time work was posted at a school in Arakawa Ward. It was a job organizing books at the Rockefeller Library, and a male teacher from the school was tasked with chaperoning as many as 150 students. However, the male teacher grew suspicious of the foreign interviewer’s attitude when he went to apply for the job, as well as the method used to split the students up and move them separately. The teacher and the children traveled by boat from Yokosuka to a small island in the Seto Inland Sea. There, the task assigned to the children was to read books one after another. Two weeks later, five children returned home each day, but according to a maid, five wooden crates were delivered to the island the very next day. In fact, the wooden boxes contained the mummified heads of children... (Source: Kaiki Manga no Anagura, translated)