Cat-Eyed Boy: The Perfect Edition (2023)

More Kazuo Umezu, and the gentler way into his work. The title character is a boy who comes from the world of demons, lives among humans and is despised by both, and he drifts through these stand-alone tales sometimes as the lead and sometimes as a sideline witness to whatever horror the people around him have brought on themselves. Think of it as Umezu's Twilight Zone. The 1960s art is rough and the delivery is campy by today's standards, which softens the shocks but suits the folk-tale cruelty. If The Drifting Classroom sounds too long or too shrill, start here. Viz collects it in two hardcover volumes as Cat-Eyed Boy: The Perfect Edition.