Presents, Vol. 1
By Kanako Inuki
CMX, 200 pp.
Rating: Mature (18+)
Kanako Inuki, the creator of School Zone, has written a three volume horror series about, well.. presents. If you’re wondering how someone can make the idea of presents scary, you’re not alone. Thankfully, Inuki manages to get some fairly disturbing tales out of a seemingly non-frightening concept.
The book opens with a short tale about Mayuki and Kurumi, two schoolgirls whose birthdays fall in the same month. When this happens, the class usually holds a single party for anyone born during the month and gives presents to each student. But not this time. Mayuki and the other girls have always been jealous of the much cuter Kurumi, so they conspire to embarrass her by not giving her any presents. This one moment of pettiness ultimately dooms an untold number of people. Presentless Kurumi is humiliated and never seen or heard from again. Under normal circumstances, this might simply mean she transferred to another school, but since it’s a horror manga, that clearly won’t be the case. Through some bizarre twist of fate, Kurumi ends up becoming the spirit of presents, staying forever young and acting as an odd guardian angel of presents and those that receive them everywhere.
The rest of the book is made up of short, unrelated stories, which is a trend I’m starting to notice is mature readers horror manga. (Was Tales From the Crypt popular in Japan?) The tales range from the silly–a girl sends away for all the freebies and enters all the contests she can out of selfishness, and meets a gruesome end–to the disturbing–Kurumi attempts to help a neglected and mentally abused child. A lot of the stories fall somewhere in between these two, with Kurumi delivering justice for tormented children or aiding tortured artists through presents: horrible gifts for the selfish or cruel, and nice ones for those in need. More often than not, the presents she gives to seemingly innocent and kind folks backfire. The aforementioned story about a neglected child is a great example of this. The poor girl never sees her parents, who shower her with stuffed rabbits in an attempt to keep her happy. Still, she feels alone, wondering why her parents stay away so much. Kurumi takes pity on the girl and tells her that the presents are filled with her parents’ love for her. Sadly, the next time the child sees her parents they’re anything but loving. This heartbreaking encounter results in the girl going insane and… well… things get bloody. Very, very, bloody.
Despite the seemingly stand-alone nature of the stories, there are a few longer plot threads weaved through the book. Several stories give us glimpses and hints of how Kurumi became the spirit of presents, and there are suggestions that she’s somehow a kindred spirit to another gift-giving cultural icon, Santa Claus. He even appears briefly with the promise of a return in the second volume.
Inoki’s artwork is surprisingly old-fashioned looking. The eyes on the characters are huge, and there’s something incredibly doll-like about all of the children’s appearances. There’s something oddly seventies-ish about the curly hair and the polka dot dresses as well. Still, once you get past this stylistic tic, you realize just how well the artwork works for the stories. Inoki’s faces are incredibly expressive, and the odd style lends itself to the ugliness that results from the some of the more brutal presents.
It’s a pretty good horror book, though some of the stories are a bit hit or miss in nature. Still, when Inuki’s on she’s really, really on and capable of crafting some emotionally powerful tales.
Volume one of Presents is available now.
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