The Most ABSURD Horror Manga I've Read | Brain Damage EXPLAINED

Added: 2026-05-04

[00:00:06]Hello friends, this is Grief speaking and today I'm looking at another manga horror anthology, Brain Damage by Shintaro Kago. It's a collection of four horror stories that are kind of insane.

[00:00:17]The author really takes you on a roller coaster ride here, and I was honestly shocked at several points in these stories. Whatever you think you're getting into here, your expectations will be shattered. The stories take several interesting turns and have a unique style that blends genres. For instance, in the middle of a very disturbing body horror sequence, you might find yourself laughing, and I consider that a plus. Anyway, just a warning, these are pretty disturbing at times, but wildly entertaining. So, let's take a look at the four stories.

[00:00:44]This is Brain Damage Explained.

[00:00:47]Story one, Labyrinth Quartet. A young woman wakes up in an empty room. She looks over to see another girl waking up beside her. They look at each other and are surprised to find that they're nearly identical, even having the same hairstyle and outfit. They then notice that they're not the only ones. On the other side of the room are two more girls that look the same. As they all question what's going on and where they are, one of the girls tries to leave through the only door, but it's locked.

[00:01:13]She turns around and asks the others why they all look like her. This causes an argument as another girl claims that actually they look like her. Another suggests that this is a cloning experiment and that she's the only real one. Of course, this is contested as well as they all claim that they're the real one. Soon, they find that they're not all exactly the same. They actually all have different names. The girl who suggested the clone theory says that their names are implanted memories and says that her memories are real. Like the fact that she's a high school student who was on her way home from school when, well, now that she's trying, she can't remember. The rest of the girls also seem to have lost their short-term memories. This makes them wonder if really they were drugged.

[00:01:51]Maybe someone roofied and kidnapped them. But that doesn't explain why they all look the same. Before going back to the clone idea, they notice that they're all different heights. And while they have similar faces, they're all slightly different and their moles are in different spots. One of them points out that this isn't her typical hairstyle either. Finally, one of them says that they're getting out of here and using a hair clip manages to pick the doors lock. Despite the fear of the kidnapper being outside, she doesn't want to wait here to die and heads out. The door opens into a series of hallways in the form of a labyrinth. And the girl runs off to find an escape, leaving the others behind. One of them catches up to her just as she finds another door, and they open it to find something quite disturbing. Another empty room like the one they escaped from, full of mutilated corpses. It's another set of four girls that all look the same, though these have long hair and different clothes.

[00:02:42]Regardless of appearance, they're all dead and each has some of their body parts chopped off. At this point, all four of the living girls show up to see the mess. Obviously, they're horrified and start running the other direction in a panic. As they turn the corner, one of them falls on her face and busts her head open. At the same time, she's grabbed by the hair by a masked killer who doesn't hesitate to cut her head off. It all happens so fast that the other girls are frozen with fear. Still gripping the severed head, the killer raises their knife and starts in toward them. Finally, the girls run for it, except for one who's still frozen on her knees. The killer moves in, ready to take her out. Then, something strange happens. They pull out a paper of some kind and hold it up as if for a reference. They then look at the head they're holding and the girl on her knees as if they're comparing them all.

[00:03:27]It's almost funny because of how unexpected it is. After a brief moment of comparison, the killer stabs the girl in the stomach. Meanwhile, the remaining two girls travel through the maze until eventually they come upon a set of four large square holes in the wall. There's a light shining through from the other side. Maybe this is a way out. The girls argue about whether it's a smart idea to crawl through, and eventually one of them just goes inside. The further she crawls, however, the more narrow it seems to get. Finally, she sees the exit. But by the time she gets there, she's stuck with only her head poking out the other side. At the same time, the killer comes into the room she just popped out into and places the severed head in one of the four squares before readying their bloody knife. She basically just served herself up on a platter. Before the killer beheads her, they once again pull out some kind of paper to reference. They then grab the girl by the hair and pull her partly out of the hole, ready to kill her. Luckily, the other girl pulls her out from the other side before she's hurt. The two run for it, but now the killer knows exactly where they are and follows them.

[00:04:24]After an almost Scooby-Doo like chase scene, the girls enter the room from earlier with the dead bodies. They close the door and try to block it with the desk, but the killer is pounding on the door, ready to break through.

[00:04:34]Unfortunately, there's nothing left to barricade it with. or is there? In a morbidly comical sequence, the girls start piling up the dead bodies against the door. I really can't tell if this is disturbing or funny. Finally, the attacker seems to give up, but now what are they going to do? That was their only exit. They stop for a second and notice that the corpses all look the same. But what's the reason? In the corner of the room where the desk was, they find several boxes full of various high school yearbooks. One of the girls finds theirs, and sure enough, their picture is circled inside. On top of that, there are dozens of photos of similar-aged girls. It looks like whoever did this searched all over Japan for girls that looked alike. They also find a notebook with some diary entries, one of which reads, "What can I do to stop this feeling? My appetite increases. I can't take my eyes off her face. Her hairstyle is perfect. I want to become one with her." Creepy. It's clear that this is some kind of psycho stalker. In the back of the notebook are candid photos of the four girls who woke up together and notes regarding each one and their appearance. The final entry says, "I can't quit my feelings for her, so I'll find someone to replace her."

[00:05:39]So, this is no cloning experiment. This is a psychotic person trying to make a copy of their obsession. They take a better look at the corpses and notice the fact that the killers seem to intentionally take particular body parts from each one. They also find a box of tools used to cut up the bodies and grab some to use as self-defense. Suddenly, there's more banging on the door, and this time they're ready. They open the door, and one girl armed with a hacksaw cuts into the attacker's hand. However, it's not who they thought. It's the girl who was stabbed earlier. She's alive and made it back here. They block the door back up and should be safe for a while, at least, or so they thought. In a shocking twist, the girl they just let in stabs one of them in the back, and she's clutching the killer's knife.

[00:06:21]That's because she is the killer. She reveals that she just took the dead girl's clothes as a disguise. It turns out that she wasn't chosen as a lookalike, but instead was finding girls who look like her. The remaining girl is just sitting in shock, and the killer brutally stabs her in the gut. She then cuts her in half at the waist and thanks her for providing the third body, whatever that means. She then picks up the head of one of the longerhaired girls from this room and says, "You'll do perfect as Micho's head." She declares that she's finally ready to present Micho and Shagmi's four panel romance comic special. Turning around, she sees the girl that she literally stabbed in the back is still breathing, but tells her not to worry, she'll bleed out soon. She then slices the dying girl's leg off. Brutal. In the final sequence, we see what this madness is all about. The killer, Sheagi, stands on one side of the four square holes and slowly moves the body parts she collected into them and props them up.

[00:07:15]Finally finished, she moves back to the other side of the holes where she sits next to a dead girl. Micho, her obsession. She says, "At first, you were reluctant to accept my love, but thanks to your patience, I was eventually able to realize how perfect we are together."

[00:07:28]She smiles as she looks up at her creation. From this side, the four squares look like manga panels come to life, and Shagmi has even placed speech bubbles. The panels tell the story of Sheagi and Michiko's love. Miko tells Shagmi it was her fault and asks if they can try again. And in the final panel, they say, "I love you." And that's where the story ends. So, this was all an elaborate cope for Sheagami. It kind of seems like maybe Sheagimi and Micho actually were dating, but Micho broke up with her and the comic special she put together is a fantasy alternate history where they got back together. This is open to interpretation, of course. Maybe Micho was just a girl she was obsessed with. And it's not completely clear whether the Michiko she sits by at the end is even the real one or another lookalike. Either way, it's a disturbing and surreal story.

[00:08:17]Story two, Curse Room. This one begins with a woman named Shinatu having a kind of weird day. While showering, she finds some loose hair that she doesn't think is hers. After getting out of the shower, she walks out into her studio apartment and notices her fridge was left open. On top of that, she has a ton of missed calls from an unknown caller and has gotten several repeat emails with an attached blurry image. Later, she discusses these strange occurrences with her friend who tells her she really shouldn't open anonymous email attachments. Chinatu then mentions a weird voicemail that she can't make out, and when she tried to take a selfie for her boyfriend, it just didn't look right, like her face was off somehow.

[00:08:53]Her friend says that she could ask a classmate to investigate the photo and voicemail she got. And later that night, Chinatu wakes up at 4:44 a.m. on the dot. It's worth noting that in Japan, the number four is often associated with death because of the fact that it's actually the same word. Anyway, Chinatu finds that her TV is playing static, and she was sure that she turned it off. The next day, her friend gets back to her and says that she managed to enhance the voice message, which turns out to be a Buddhist sutra. They also were able to adjust the image quality of the email attachment, and it's a cemetery. This makes Chinatu feel like she's cursed, especially paired with the strange occurrences in her apartment, like the hair in her shower. She feels like she's being watched at all times and wakes up at night feeling paralyzed, like something's crushing her chest. Clearly, this girl's got problems, and her friend says that she knows a spiritualist she could bring over. With nothing else to lose, Chinatu agrees. So, the spiritualist shows up and after looking around for a few moments, declares that this apartment is a passageway for spirits. As they pass through, they cause disturbances, and she recommends that Chinatu take immediate precautions.

[00:09:58]That night, as usual, she wakes up screaming and clutching her heavy chest.

[00:10:01]At 4:44 a.m., her TV is on again, only this time, amidst the static are the words, "Tomorrow's dead." She doesn't seem to notice this, though, and takes a shower to try and relax, but finds more hair. This time, there's a lot more hair in her hands, and she screams in a full panic. Later, her friend comes over and after doing some research informs Chinatu that the previous resident of her apartment committed suicide and the resident after that went missing shortly after moving in. The one after that fell out of the window and died. As Shinatu tries to process this, it hard cuts to her waking up at 4:44 again. The TV reads, "Tomorrow's dead." Only this time, there's a list underneath. Kona Shizu died age 51. Tomizuka Sachiko died age 4. And finally, Aoyama Chinatu died age 21. Later, she tells her friend that she's doomed, cursed to be killed by an evil spirit, almost like she's accepted her fate. Oddly, her friend smirks and we hear her in her monologue. She says, "Good girl, the more you suffer and fret, the more you despair. Eventually, you'll pass unwaveringly to the other world. For you see Chinatu, you're already dead." For the first time, we see Chinatu's back, which seems to have suffered a gruesome injury as her shredded flesh is falling off and her spine is exposed. Now, that's a pretty big twist in and of itself, but things get even crazier. In a big zoom out, we see Chinatu's apartment is actually constructed like a set, and there are dozens more right beside it, all filled with what look like undead people. What the hell is going on here? Well, next we see Chinatu's friend talking to the spiritualist from earlier. Only in reality, the friend is a woman named Nishimura, and this is her boss. The boss says that Nishimura has improved a lot and is doing great work here as the subject seems to be coming to terms with their own death. Just outside the window, a truck pulls up and carries a corpse into the building, which Nishimura calls a new subject. Then, thankfully, she explains a bit more of what this facility does and why it does it. The rooms in the facility recreate the subject's living environment as closely as possible. And once the subject wakes up, they resume their routines. As she explains, we see the new corpse wake up, and Ishimura stands at top the walls of the room watching him. She states more clearly that these subjects are in fact the living dead.

[00:12:14]And as the man gets out of bed, we see that his brains are pouring out of the back of his head. These beings are known as returners, and the phenomenon started roughly 18 years ago when an old man came back to life and started trying to eat his family. The first solution to this was to eliminate the subjects.

[00:12:30]However, further research revealed that when they first reawoke, returners were actually docile and retain some of their memories. Even though they are dead, they're unaware of their deaths, so they continue acting normal. If they do find out that they died, they then lose all reason and begin to attack people. We see an example of this when a high school student shows her zombie friend a picture of her busted open head, and the girl goes completely apeshit upon seeing it. Her friend is then forced to kill her again by smashing her head to bits.

[00:12:57]This, of course, is traumatic for people who are forced to kill their friends and family, which is why the restful dead research facility was founded.

[00:13:06]In a flashback, we see Nishimura being assigned to Chinatu's case, as she vaguely resembles one of her real friends. The ceilings in the rooms are made of one-way glass. And now we can see that Nishamura was the one disturbing her apartment. She opens the ceiling above the shower and drops hair in, then leaps down and opens the fridge slightly. She also took a picture of gravestones and recorded a Buddhist chant to send to Chinatu. Later, she changes the clock to 4:44 a.m. And it turns out the heavy weight Chinatu has been feeling on her chest at night is actually Nishimura pressing a heavy block into her chest. It's clearly a lot of work slowly convincing the dead that they should be dead. But it pays off. In the present, we see Chinatu accepting her death and coming to peace. After this, returners stay dead. I have to say, I didn't expect this at all, but it's a pretty out of the box idea. The boss congratulates Nishimura on a job well done, but she admits that she did make one mistake. She accidentally overdid it on the hair the second time, and when Shinatu freaked out, she was pretty close to going berserk. Either way, her boss says that she has another case for her. And this one is going to be a lot more challenging. As Nishimura walks into the room, she comes face to face with the new subject, a high school girl whose brains are exposed and has one eyeball falling out of the socket, as well as her intrails hanging out of her side. Jesus. Apparently, she was the only surviving victim of a large explosion. Well, the only returner, that is. Her name is Mjome Junko. And next, we see her in the shower. It looks like she's been stitched up at this point, but her wonky eye pops out and lands on her foot. For some reason, this panel of the eyeball between her toes is the thing that made me squirm the most from this comic so far. Luckily, her visual perception is off, and she doesn't know that it's her own eyeball. Nishimura tries several of her usual tricks, but Junko isn't really taking notice. She ignores the fridge being open and has no reaction to the sutra voicemail. I guess her hearing is damaged as well. Ishimura tells her that she can investigate the voicemail and email for her, but Junko says it's okay. Even more, she doesn't wake up to the TV and alarm at night.

[00:15:02]She doesn't even wake up to the old block on the chest trick. And in a brutal scene, Nishamura pushes too hard, sending the rod through the girl's stitched up stomach. Whoops. Well, that woke her up. And Junko decides she needs to shower. Honestly, it's pretty disgusting. Her guts are all hanging out. Of course, she's basically blind and thinks that she's actually covered in sausage, which really made me laugh.

[00:15:24]But what can I say? I got a sick sense of humor. What's even weirder is she says that the sausage looks delicious.

[00:15:29]And if a returner gets a taste for human flesh, it's too late. To add to the grotesque comedy, Nishimura creeps in and shoves the girl's intrails back inside of her. Obviously, this isn't working out, and Nishimura tells her boss the situation. So next they try bringing her in to play the spiritualist role again. Junko asks if she'll take a look in the bathroom as that's where she feels like she's being watched. After a minute or so, the boss and Junko don't come back, so Nishimur goes to check on them and finds her boss is dead. With Junko eating her guts straight out of her stomach. The girl says, "I just needed a little snack." With a staff member dead, armed units rush to the room to execute Junko, but they're stopped by Nishimura. She points out that something is different here. Junko is not acting like a typical returner.

[00:16:14]Despite the fact that she ate somebody, she seems to still have her rational senses. She hasn't completely turned.

[00:16:19]Nishimura theorizes that the reasoning portion of Junko's brain is larger than usual. She tells the armen to let her try and work with the girl a bit longer.

[00:16:28]This could be a breakthrough in the field, and more importantly, it's her job to try and put the girl to rest peacefully. This sequence is kind of interesting as the manga puts a little ego and ID chart above Junko to show which part of her is taking control. At the moment, Junko is getting hungry again. So, Nishimura, in a gruesome act, takes her boss's body and drains it of blood to feed to the girl. This satisfies Junko's urges for the moment, but it gets even more crazy. Nishimura then chops up her boss's leg into small meat chunks and cooks it along with some rice to serve to her. Over time, she starts slowly mixing in pork with the human meat. Junko happily consumes it until finally Nishimura serves her all pork. It seems like this may be a new way of satisfying Returner's hunger.

[00:17:12]However, in yet another crazy twist, the last page shows several of the other zombies eating some food and talking about how delicious it is. And in the final reveal, we see that Junko is the one cooking food and it's made from Nishimura's body. This final page is slightly confusing to me because I guess it implies the meat swap didn't work and eventually Junko couldn't resist eating Nishimura. Also, the other zombies eating her cooking implies that they killed everyone in the facility or at least there's no humans left to stop them. Either way, this is definitely a wild ass story. It starts as a standard ghost story, then there's the first big twist, and it turns into an interesting take on zombies, and I expected it to end after Chinatu's segment, but that's only the halfway point. Next, we got the Junko reveal. Then, another shocker scene of the boss dying, which also could have been the end, but that just turned into the battle of Ego and ID as Nishimura cooked up her boss's corpse.

[00:18:05]And finally, another big twist of Junko becoming a zombie chef. I know it's not necessary to recap all that, but I just want to make sure I haven't gone crazy.

[00:18:12]I mean, what a bizarre story. Well, I have to tell you, this isn't even the most absurd story, and we have two more to go.

[00:18:20]So, let's move into story three, family portrait. The story starts off with a girl named Ma getting ready in the morning when her grandpa slaps her butt and makes an inappropriate comment.

[00:18:30]Apparently, the old pervert is going scenile and is getting away with all kinds of stuff. Mika's a-hole brother actually blames her for it. No joke. He says now that she's getting older and has developed, it's igniting their grandpa's sexual desires. This kid has the audacity to act like the grandpa's the victim here. Anyway, at breakfast, Mika's parents tell her she needs to get off her phone at night because she isn't getting good enough sleep and her grades are dropping. She meets her friend Sachi outside to bike to school and greets her neighbor, Mrs. Canannada, and her baby across the street. Mrs. Canada seems concerned about Mika's grandpa. I guess he was hospitalized recently, though we don't know what for. But Ma says that he's livelier than ever. Well, that's one way to put it. Further down the road, another neighbor offers a gift for her grandpa. I guess the neighbors really like the dirty old perve. Next, we see a montage of Mika's day with school exams and a fun trip to the arcade with Sachi. This repeats as another day passes, including Ma's grandpa getting handsy again. This time, on her way home from school, Ma sees the police outside her neighbor's house.

[00:19:26]Apparently, the Canada's baby's gone missing, and they suspect it to be a kidnapping. A week goes by, and Mika is glad to find that her grandpa hasn't been paying her any mind. Things have gotten worse at the Kannata's house, however. Now, the wife has gone missing as well, and the police came back to question the husband, who's now a suspect. Mika waits for Sachi outside as usual, but she never shows up and she's absent from school as well. On her way home, Mika stopped by a woman who says her husband hasn't come home in a couple of days and wonders if Ma knows anything since this was the man who gave her grandpa a gift. Okay, now things are getting weird. Is there a large-scale series of kidnappings going on? The next morning, Mika gets ready for school and doesn't see her grandpa around. She finally finds him, having fallen down by the front door. And when he manages to get himself up, he soils himself, which I really didn't need to see. Later, Mika's mother takes him to the doctor, who says that he has Alzheimer's syndrome. At school, Sachi still hasn't shown up, and now it's been 3 days. So, Mika decides to pay her a visit. She's greeted by Sachi's mother, who says she doesn't know what to do, as what happened to Sachi seems unreal. She leads Ma to Sachi's room where she went missing. Sachi's mother said she had just seen her minutes before, but when she checked again, Sachi was gone. And even weirder, her full set of clothes were sat in Sachi's chair, all done up, as if the girl disappeared while still wearing them. On her way home, Mika runs into a very defensive Mr. Kannata. Mika tells him what happened to her friend, and he says that he actually has a similar story, but was afraid to tell the police exactly what happened. After his son disappeared from his crib, he and his wife fell asleep holding each other. And when he woke up, only her clothes were in his arms. Mr. Kanata freaks out on Mika, suspecting she thinks he did it. She pushes him away and suddenly he vanishes, leaving only his clothes behind. After this, Mika runs home in tears and tells her brother she just killed someone. She assumes that she's a curse and that she's the one causing everyone to disappear. Her brother has a pretty casual reaction and tells her to calm down. Then he lifts up her shirt and shows her stomach, which has massive chunks missing from it.

[00:21:26]Oddly enough, it's not bloody or anything. It looks more like Swiss cheese. What the hell is going on here?

[00:21:32]Well, when you guys figure out what's really going on, you're going to flip out. Of course, Ma panics at her disappearing body, but her brother says it's not too bad yet and pulls up his shirt to show that he's actually missing more of his body. He then says he thinks he knows who the true cause of this is, Grandpa. He's become increasingly scenile and is rapidly losing his mind.

[00:21:51]Well, the day before, Makato collapsed when half of his foot suddenly vanished.

[00:21:55]His grandpa then stumbled into the room and after a reminder of who he was, Makato's foot went back to normal. He assumed it was his imagination until his right hand vanished, which he really found upsetting as he calls this his tissue hand. You can put that one together yourself, but it made me laugh.

[00:22:11]Once again, Makato reminded his grandfather who he was and his hand came back. So to put it simply, whoever their grandpa forgets about disappears for real. Makato confirmed this when he found that several of their relatives in the countryside have disappeared as well. As they discuss this, they hear a loud thump and find their parents in the other room have collapsed with much of their bodies disappearing, including parts of their heads. It's pretty disturbing, especially Mika's father missing his lower jaw. They realize that their grandpa's memories are rapidly deteriorating, and Mika's leg starts disappearing as well. Marto suggests that they kill the old man. It may be the only way to restore everyone, but Mika stops him. What if instead killing him makes them all disappear? In an absurd act of sacrifice, Ma jumps over and shoves her butt in her grandpa's face, saying, and I quote, "You may have forgotten your grandchild's name, but you're never going to forget this ass."

[00:23:03]That's probably the craziest line in a manga I've read in a long time. Anyway, it seems to work, and Mika's body starts returning. Somehow, it gets even more bizarre as Makato remarks that it's only restoring Mika. What about the rest of them? Well, in a desperate attempt to copy Mika, Makato's parents start stripping in the hopes that it'll have the same effect. And on the final page, we see that in the end, they all vanish.

[00:23:27]This is one of those mangas that you try to explain to someone and they think you're just making this [ __ ] up. It's definitely a creative idea, but the ending really undercuts what would have otherwise been a pretty good premise.

[00:23:37]Well, it's funny at least.

[00:23:40]Let's move into the final story, Blood Harvest. Two friends, Mayu and Hakaco, are stuck in a big traffic jam on the highway after visiting the beach. We get a flashback of them having fun in the sun, as well as an odd encounter with a woman. They get in line at a local store when the woman approaches them saying they cut her. She only moved into the shade for a minute to get out of the sun. An argument ensues until the odd woman grabs Mayu's arm and immediately her expression changes into fear. She falls to the ground in terror and then runs away. Well, that was weird. In the present on the highway, Hizako falls asleep waiting on the traffic and wakes up to find that every car apart from hers is smashed and her friend Mayu is missing. It's an eerie sight seeing all these smashed up empty cars. Looks like an apocalypse or something. Just then, Hizaka wakes up again. All the cars are fine and this was only a dream, but reality is much worse. She looks over to see Mayu is dead. Not just dead, but smashed up. Her body mangled and crushed. It's pretty gnarly. An ambulance arrives at the scene and later at the hospital, a detective named Okyama has come to ask Kasako some questions. She's already told her story several times, but the detective is trying to make sense of it and sees two reasonable scenarios. One, Mayu was killed in the car, and two, she was already dead when Hako put her in the car and drove away. The first has a complication. It would be impossible for Hizako to do that kind of damage with her bare hands, and there was no weapon found in the car. Plus, there was no blood on Hakaco's clothes. That's where possibility number two comes into play.

[00:25:11]That Mayu was killed in an accident or by Hakaco herself, and Hasako put her into the car and drove away like nothing happened. Of course, there's a third scenario, Hasako's story, that somehow Mayu was smashed to bits right next to her while she was sleeping. Even she admits this sounds pretty crazy. The detective then mentions a similar case he looked into some years ago. A courier driver was stuck behind a car left in the middle of the road. And when he got out to tell them to move, he found that the car's occupants, a family of four, were all dead. Their bodies burned and lifeless. Usually, when people are burned up in a car, it's because of a cigarette or something similar. But in this case, only the bodies were burned with no clear cause. Much like Haku's case, he was left trying to figure out what happened with two scenarios that don't make sense. This isn't the only time he's encountered this either. We see a montage of several similar cases with people found dead and mutilated in their cars with no rhyme or reason. The reason Haku's case is of special interest to Detective Okyama is because of all these incidents, she's the only one who's ever survived. Later, Hakaco is discharged from the hospital and her mother picks her up. On the way out, they run into the detective again. He takes them out for a cup of coffee and wishes to discuss the case one more time. He says he's the only person investigating these occurrences and the only one who thinks they're connected.

[00:26:24]Recently, he found that every victim was driving a used car, including Hizako. He looked up the history of the previous owners of these cars. And in a dramatic panel, the mom suspects that the previous owners of the cars are all the same person, but the tension is instantly diffused as Okiyama says that they're actually all random. Afterwards, Isaku's father comes by to pick them up.

[00:26:45]But when they approach the car, they find that he too has been killed, smashed up in a horrific manner that's left his arm and half his face in the passenger seat. Hakaco collapses and has some kind of shock induced vision of a hole opening up in the sky and dropping a smashed car in front of her with more victims. More cars start falling around her and she suddenly finds herself on the highway again, which is broken. And the smashed cars are all driving off the edge into a hole that opens up above the city like some kind of endless cycle.

[00:27:14]It's a pretty cool sequence, actually.

[00:27:16]Later, after her father's funeral, the detective shows up again with some more developments. He tracked down several of the previous owners of Hakaco's car and found that eventually they all died.

[00:27:26]What's weird is at one point, the car was totally smashed. So, how did it end up being resold in perfect condition?

[00:27:32]Things get stranger when he talked to the dealership that resold it.

[00:27:35]Apparently, the previous owner, who had already died, came in and sold it a few days later. We get a look at the guy in a flashback, and something's off. His eyes are glowing white. Okyama then runs the whole thing back, organized by date.

[00:27:47]Originally, the car was burned up in an accident, and the owner, who we know died, somehow sold the car, which was resold to the next family that burned up without any damage to the car. And finally, Hakaco bought it secondhand.

[00:27:59]So, basically, the car is cursed.

[00:28:01]Okiyama questions where it came from to begin with, and Hakaco remembers back to her vision and eerily declares that they came from there. We once again see the cars driving off the broken highway. It jumps ahead and after days of searching, Hakaco has managed to track down the woman who argued with her in line all that time ago, assuming she has some kind of supernatural insight. At this point, Hakaco and the detectives only guess is that these cars crave human blood and disguise themselves along with normal cars. They have no way of knowing which cars might be cursed, and they need the woman's insight to help find them. The woman admits that since she was little, she could see certain things, like Mau's oncoming doom. She also sees something in Hakaco, more specifically her blood. She cuts Hakaco's finger and drags her through a nearby parking lot, wiping her blood on several cars. Eventually, one of them reacts to the blood. It begins to sizzle, and then the entire car lights up in flames. It seems Hasako's blood revealed the car's true form. The woman explains that, to put it simply, there's something unique about Hizako's physiology and that they don't like her blood. And by they, she means vampire cars. Yeah, if it wasn't clear by now, this is a story about cars that prey on human blood. I told you it got crazier.

[00:29:14]Basically, cars that are involved in fatal accidents get a taste for human blood, and they return to this world seeking more. The psychic woman says that there's been a lot more lately, and she suspects the victims to increase in time. Well, Hako can't smear blood on every car on Earth, but they need to do something. So next, Hakaco fills a glass with her blood, and using a dropper, she starts moving through the parking lot looking for another vampire car. This time, the plan is to videotape it and prove to the world what they've discovered. After 80 cars and 80 drops of blood, they find nothing. And so, Hakaco draws more blood to try again. At this point, she's getting a little lightheaded from blood loss and finally has to lay down. The detective tells her she needs to stop for today, but Hakaco feels she has an obligation to try again. She gets up but loses her balance and hits her head on the sidewalk. In a kind of funny panel, she says, "Quick, don't waste the blood." And as the gash on her head spurts blood, Okyama catches it in the glass. The psychic reluctantly says she'll help her on her mission and gather some nutritional vitamins and liver for Hakaco to eat to build her blood back up. Then they start again, dropping her blood on cars.

[00:30:17]Unfortunately, they're too late as they come upon a vampire car that's already killed its passengers. A family is completely mutilated inside. Well, at the very least, they can still destroy the car and get video evidence. So, they do just that. It bursts into flames, and Okyama records it with a camera. This video reveals the truth to the world.

[00:30:35]Cars that have been in accidents develop a taste for human blood and disguise themselves to mingle in with the herd of regular vehicles. Well, that's a sentence I never thought I'd say out loud. After this, an ordinance was passed prohibiting driving used cars, and any used cars were immediately scrapped. However, fear has spread, and people don't trust that only used cars are dangerous. The only way to truly verify their car's safety is by a blood test. More and more tests are requested every day, but no one else with the same physiology has been found besides Hizako. In a truly disturbing final page, Hakaco is shown laying in a hospital bed wearing a diaper. Several tubes are drawing blood from her arms and legs, and the psychic woman is feeding her liver. In order to keep the world safe, she's become a living blood factory. That's the end of Blood Harvest and the final story of Brain Damage. I mean, what can I say? I never would have guessed the story would go this route.

[00:31:25]Honestly, I don't know how I feel about this manga collection. It's not necessarily one I would recommend to many people. But what I will say is that it's legitimately shocking and very creative. None of the stories go the direction you would think. And though they are primarily horror, most of the stories blend in humor and other elements to make them quite surreal. I think the worst thing a story can be is boring and brain damage is definitely not that. I couldn't stop reading it because it was constantly surprising me and that counts for something. But what did you guys think? I suspect this could be a divisive one. So, I'm really curious to see what you guys think in the comments.

[00:32:01]Shout out to Kill Me Katie as always for the intro and outro music, which is likely playing right now. And if you want to see your art at the end of my videos, email me a submission to the address below with the name or social media handle. But I appreciate you guys watching at all. This is Greece speaking. Goodbye, friends.

[00:32:17]I felt the notion to kill your delusion.

[00:32:22]I can't believe that you think you know heaven. I'm nothing but organic pollution.

[00:32:32]I can reaches ghastly impression.