Fuan no Tane: Manga Meets Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Fuan no Tane is our manga of interest this week. If you wish to know how I came across this strange manga, I simply Googled "scary manga" and it was the third result to come up. There are only three volumes of it and each one is structured so that there is one opening page with an overall theme, followed by several short anecdotes in the style of the chosen theme making up a chapter. I had a really weird experience with this in that I chose to read it at four in the morning after I got home from work and found myself becoming more and more creeped out as time went on.

I'm having difficulty trying to explain what exactly this manga is about because it isn't really about anything. I guess if I were to compare it to something it would be most similar to an anthology in that it is a collection of several stories kind of tied together by one major idea. It kind of focuses on telling stories that will creep you out, and is not necessarily horrific. I would say Fuan no Tane's American equivalent would be Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark except Fuan no Tane's stories are much, much shorter. You could even compare this to Goosebumps! Those two are pretty accurate to give you an idea of what this is. Short one to three page comics that will leave you feeling disconcerted.

As for my overall impressions, I would say I was mildly impressed. The art was very nicely detailed and definitely creeped me out, however a lot of the stories left me expecting more. There would be a big set up and then something almost dumb would happen and I would find myself laughing at how ridiculous it was. The other half of me was just happy to get away from the overdone trope of kids killing each other I've focused so much on these last few weeks. It was refreshing to read some short stories that were actually innovative and genuinely kind of scary rather than the same old ghost stories we've all read a million times.

All in all, I would say it's worth checking out. It may not be anything special, but it was fun to read and like I said earlier if you were a fan of either Goosebumps or Scary Stories you might find yourself liking this. It's also a really easy read; although each volume is around 130 pages, the length of the stories makes reading go by much faster and if you're like me you'll probably speed through them. Fuan no Tane was definitely something weird but interesting and for that I am grateful to it. Give it a read!

-BookWyrm