Book picks similar to
Frankenstein by Junji Ito


horror
mangá
manga
graphic-novels

Dorohedoro, Vol. 1


Q. Hayashida - 2002
    A sorcerer cursed him with a reptile head and left him with no memory of his life before the transformation. Adding to the mystery, there's a specter of a man living inside him. But Caiman has one key advantage: he's now completely immune to magic. Along with his best friend, Nikaido, Caiman is hunting down sorcerers in the Hole, searching for the one who can undo his curse and killing the rest. But when En, the head Sorcerer, of the sorcerers, gets word of a lizard-man slaughtering sorcerers, he sends a crew of "cleaners" into the Hole, igniting a war between two worlds.

Ghost in the Shell


Masamune Shirow - 1989
    In the rapidly converging landscape of the 21st century Major Kusanagi is charged to track down the craftiest and most dangerous terrorists and cybercriminals, including ghost hackers When he track the trail of one hacker, her quest leads her to a world she could never have imagined.

I Am a Hero Omnibus, Volume 1


Kengo Hanazawa - 2016
    The zombie apocalypse has never been more surreal! A mentally unhinged manga artist witnesses the beginning of a zombie outbreak in Tokyo, and he's certain of only two things: he's destined to be the city's hero, and he possesses something very rare in Japan--an actual firearm! Kengo Hanazawa's award-winning series comes to Dark Horse, and this realistically-drawn international bestseller takes us from initial small battles for survival to a huge, body-horror epidemic that threatens all of humanity! These special omnibus volumes will collect two of the original Japanese books into each Dark Horse edition and include all of the color pages."Probably the greatest zombie manga ever." --Jason Thompson (Manga: The Complete Guide)

Hellsing, Vol. 01


Kohta Hirano - 1998
    Yes, it's hard to believe in this day and age.... but really, isn't this the true age of monsters?Enter Hellsing, an agency, long in tooth, with the experience, know-how, and...er...equipment to handle the problems that arise when vampires, ghouls take on these dark forces. "What equipment?" you may say. How about another vampire, and a big pistol loaded with special silver bullets? That oughta do the trick.Hellsing the long-awaited manga is finally in America, thanks to Dark Horse Comics and the folks at Digital Manga, and you're gonna love it. Come get some smart-ass gore and action as only Japan seems to produce, in that crazy "non-Western" formats the kids seem to love. And nice and thick at over 200 pages!

your name. 1


Makoto Shinkai - 2016
    Taki, a high school boy from Tokyo, dreams that he is a girl living in the mountains. As the two begin swapping lives, a miraculous story is set in motion.

Gantz/1


Hiroya Oku - 2000
    What a waste! And yet somehow they're still . . . alive? Or semi-alive? Maybe it's reanimated . . . by some kind of alien orb with a nasty message . . . "Your lives are over. What you do with your new lives is up to me!" And what this orb called "Gantz" intends to do with their lives is make them play games of death, hunting all kinds of odd aliens, along with a bunch of other ordinary citizens who've recently met a tragic semi-end. The missions they embark upon are often dangerous. Many die-and die again.This dark and action-packed manga deals with the moral conflicts of violence, teenage sexual confusion and angst, and our fascination with death.Hang on to your gear and keep playing the game, whatever you do; Gantz is unrelenting.* Gantz has been one of the most popular adult anime in recent years with over 175,000 copies sold!* Dark Horse makes Gantz available in English for the first time with its U.S. debut.* Gantz has been running weekly in the Japanese magazine Young Jump, which has a circulation of over 1 million.Each volume comes shrink-wrapped and carries an 18+ content advisory.

Berserk, Vol. 1


Kentaro Miura - 1990
    Not for the squeamish or the easily offended, Berserk asks for no quarter - and offers none! His name is Guts, the Black Swordsman, a feared warrior spoken of only in whispers. Bearer of a gigantic sword, an iron hand, and the scars of countless battles and tortures, his flesh is also indelibly marked with The Brand, an unholy symbol that draws the forces of darkness to him and dooms him as their sacrifice. But Guts won't take his fate lying down; he'll cut a crimson swath of carnage through the ranks of the damned - and anyone else foolish enough to oppose him! Accompanied by Puck the Elf, more an annoyance than a companion, Guts relentlessly follows a dark, bloodstained path that leads only to death...or vengeance.

Battle Royale, Vol. 01


Koushun Takami - 2000
    As part of a ruthless program by the totalitarian government, ninth-grade students are taken to a small isolated island with a map, food, and various weapons. Forced to wear special collars that explode when they break a rule, they must fight each other for three days until only one "winner" remains. The elimination contest becomes the ultimate in must-see reality television. A Japanese pulp classic available in English for the first time, Battle Royale is a potent allegory of what it means to be young and survive in today's dog-eat-dog world. The first novel by small-town journalist Koushun Takami, it went on to become an even more notorious film by 70-year-old director Kinji Fukusaku.

Blade of the Immortal, Volume 1: Blood of a Thousand


Hiroaki Samura - 1994
    1- Blood of a Thousand by Samura,Hiroaki. [2010] Paperback

The Book of Human Insects


Osamu Tezuka - 1970
    A modern-day Michelangelo, this twenty year-old is already an established international stage actress, an up-and-coming architect, and the next recipient of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize as Japan's best new writer. Her actions make headlines in the papers, and inspire radio and television programming. And like many great talents, her troubled past is what motivates her to greatness. She has the amazing ability to emulate the talents of others.Toshiko is also the mastermind behind a series of murders. The ultimate mimic, she has plagiarized, blackmailed, stolen and replicated the works of scores of talents. And now as her star is rising within the world of the elites and powerful she has amassed a long list of enemies frustrated by the fact that she has built critical and financial acclaim for nothing more than copying others' work. Neglected as a child, she ischallenging the concepts of gender inequality while unleashing her loneliness upon the world as she climbs the social ladder one body at a time.One of Osamu Tezuka's most wicked tales, The Book of Human Insects renders the 70's as a brutal and often polarizing bug-eat-bug world, where only those willing to sell their soul to the masses and become something less than human are capable of achieving their wildest dreams

Fullmetal Alchemist, Vol. 1


Hiromu Arakawa - 2002
    Equipped with mechanical “auto-mail” limbs, Edward becomes a state alchemist, seeking the one thing that can restore his and his brother’s bodies...the legendary Philosopher’s Stone.Alchemy: the mystical power to alter the natural world; something between magic, art and science. When two brothers, Edward and Alphonse Elric, dabbled in this power to grant their dearest wish, one of them lost an arm and a leg…and the other became nothing but a soul locked into a body of living steel. Now Edward is an agent of the government, a slave of the military-alchemical complex, using his unique powers to obey orders…even to kill. Except his powers aren't unique. The world has been ravaged by the abuse of alchemy. And in pursuit of the ultimate alchemical treasure, the Philosopher's Stone, their enemies are even more ruthless than they are…

Chobits, Vol. 1


CLAMP - 2001
    She can't do word processing, she can't connect to the Internet, and she's incapable of networking with other persocoms. Even her sound card seems broken. No wonder Hideki found her tied up in a pile of trash. But when the 19-year-old technophobe takes her home, he finds that she may be more advanced than her childlike behavior lets on.Chapters 1-12

Opus


Satoshi Kon - 2011
    But before he became a director, he was a manga artist, and Dark Horse is honored to remember Kon with the release of Satoshi Kon’s OPUS,an omnibus collection of a two-volume manga from 1996, created by Kon on the eve of his first film. OPUS contains the mastery of both realism and surrealism that would make Kon famous in Perfect Blue,as a manga artist planning a shocking surprise ending to his story gets literally pulled into his own work—to face for himself what he had planned for his characters!OPUS is Kon's metafictional tale of Chikara Nagai, a creator under pressure to finish his latest graphic novel, Resonance, who finds that the harshest critic of the shock ending he's got planned is the character who'll have to die in it! Nagai's stregths and weaknesses as a creator are tested beyond their limits as his present and his past, and the worlds of the manga and of reality, become the levels of a maze he may never escape... let alone get a chance to resolve the story!

All You Need Is Kill


Ryōsuke Takeuchi - 2014
    Keiji dies on the battlefield, only to be reborn each morning to fight and die again and again. On his fifth iteration, he gets a message from a mysterious ally—the female soldier known as the Full Metal Bitch. Is she the key to Keiji's escape or his final death?

Chainsaw Man, Vol. 1


Tatsuki Fujimoto - 2019
    He’s a simple man with simple dreams, drowning under a mountain of debt. But his sad life gets turned upside down one day when he’s betrayed by someone he trusts. Now with the power of a devil inside him, Denji’s become a whole new man—Chainsaw Man!