Suehiro Maruo - The Strange Tale of Panorama Island Manga

Set in 1920s Japan, the story follows Hirosuke Hitomi, a failed novelist who discovers that his recently deceased university classmate Genzaburo Komoda  bore an uncanny resemblance to himself. Hitomi fakes his own death, conceals the body, and successfully assumes Komoda's identity, inheriting his company, fortune, and wife. He then redirects the family's wealth to the realization of his most obsessive dream: the construction of a private pleasure island of total hedonistic excess, replete with grand architecture, elaborate gardens, feasts, and dark secrets. As Hitomi guides his "wife" Chiyoko through the layers of his creation, the island becomes less a paradise than a descent — beautiful, perverse, and inevitable.

The Strange Tale of Panorama Island is a manga adaptation of Edogawa Ranpo's celebrated 1926 novella of the same name, illustrated by Suehiro Maruo; one of the defining figures of Japan's ero-guro artistic tradition. Originally serialized in Enterbrain's Comic Beam from July 2007 to January 2008 and published in English by Last Gasp in July 2013, this standalone hardcover collects Maruo's complete adaptation in a single 272-page black-and-white volume.

Suehiro Maruo is the master of ero-guro manga — a visual tradition that fuses the erotic and the grotesque within lush, hyperdetailed black-and-white linework drawn from the aesthetics of Taisho-era Japan. His adaptation of Ranpo's novella is widely regarded as one of his finest achievements: the story's emphasis on spectacle over suspense suits Maruo's strengths perfectly, and the double-page spreads depicting Panorama Island itself are among the most visually ambitious sequences in his career. Readers who found Ranpo's literary original too restrained in its descriptions of the island will find Maruo's version unflinching. This is ero-guro at its most literary and its most beautiful, and an essential volume for collectors of transgressive manga and Japanese pulp art.

Edogawa Ranpo; whose pen name was itself a phonetic approximation of "Edgar Allan Poe", was the founding figure of Japanese detective fiction and psychological horror, and The Strange Tale of Panorama Island is one of his most celebrated works. Maruo's adaptation was first published in Japan by Enterbrain under the Beam Comics imprint in February 2008 before Last Gasp brought it to English-speaking readers five years later. Note: this volume contains graphic depictions of nudity, sexual content, and mature themes and is intended for adult readers only.

Other Notable Works

Suehiro Maruo: Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show (Manga), Midori (Manga), Shojo Tsubaki (Manga), Ultra-Gash Inferno (Manga), The Laughing Vampire (Manga), Maruo Suehiro Theater (Manga)   Edogawa Ranpo (Original Story): The Human Chair, The Caterpillar, The Fiend with Twenty Faces, The D-Slope Murder Case

Series Details

Japanese Name: パノラマ島綺譚 (Panorama-tō Kitan)
English Title: The Strange Tale of Panorama Island
Story: Edogawa Ranpo (Original Novella, 1926)
Art & Adaptation: Suehiro Maruo
Original Publisher: Enterbrain (Comic Beam / Beam Comics)
English Publisher: Last Gasp
Original Serialization: July 2007 to January 2008 (Comic Beam)
English Release: July 1, 2013
Volumes: 1 (Complete)
Age Rating: Adults Only (18+)
Genre: Ero-Guro, Psychological Horror, Historical Fiction, Seinen

Comics & manga are assumed VG+ or better unless otherwise noted. No broken spines, no writing, no stickers, and may have light shelf wear. All manga and comics are assumed to be pre-owned.