Horror Manga: Kazuo Umezu, Hideshi Hino, Junji Ito, etc.

[Teetering-Crutches]

I'm a huge fan of the names listed above but don't know much more about the depths of Horror Manga. There is an existing thread about Junji Ito, but his stuff is much easier to find.

Any fans out there with deeper insight?

I own the entire Drifting Classroom series of Umezu, it has some brilliant moments, but lots of bland action sequences. I think his material is generally more geared towards children, and is just less evolved compared to Ito.

Hideshi Hino is more about gross-out horror, but also has some amazing work - like the Zoroku story.

[ramonoski]

Kago Shintaro is also horrific, though his work is even more gross-out than Hino's. But what I really like the most about him is how he can take a really grotesque idea (i.e. abortion as a fashion statement) and run it to its logical conclusion in the span of a few pages.

The Fuan no Tane trilogy is also a fascinating read. It's more urban-legend type stories. I'd also recommend Yamamoto Hideo but to be fair I've only read one of his works, Homunculus, but it's very good.

And of course Franken Fran has a bunch of horrific imagery and body horror, but the series is mainly comical in nature.

[ToALonelyPeace]

If you like Junji Ito, check out this site. It has some fan-translation works of Junji Ito which I hope will be officially released in the future. Lovesick Dead is one of my favorites.
Check out this list here. Some of these are one-shots or Korean webtoons. I would recommend:

Survival: Battle Royale [very graphic with rape & gore], I Am a Hero, Kiseijuu, Distant Sky, Gantz [graphic]
Psychological/Philosophical: Jisatsu Circle, Homunculus, Me Wo Mite Hanase, MAIL, Domu, Orochi, Nijigahara Holograph, Goth [there's also a live action], MW [a work by the Tezuka Osamu]
Straight-up Disturbing: Ibitsu, Zashiki Onna, Drifting Classroom, Fuan No Tane [it's a collection of one-shots], Human Chair
Webtoon Jump-Scares: Bongcheon-Dong Ghost, Oksu Subway Station Ghost [you've to unblock scripts.]
Guro/Strange: Fraction [as recommended by ramonoski], Freesia [Matsumoto Jiro's works in general are feverish and hallucinatory], Koroshiya 1 [very graphic black comedy], Berserk [very graphic, incomplete].

[Teetering-Crutches]

Awesome, thanks for the recommendations.

To the list, I remembered, I will add Hitoshi Iwaaki 'Parasyte' has some awesome creatures and strangeness.

To be honest what I am after is the feeling that I got when reading 'Uzumaki' by Junji Ito. So far I have not been able to recreate that feeling. I do think that Ito is the master or high water mark for this sub genre.

Also,Kentaro Miura's 'Berzerk' is an amazing series. It has a lot of strange and occult references but is mostly an extremely violent adventure series. I would love to own the whole series in paperback, but it's too many books to have on the shelf.

[ToALonelyPeace]

In the past I made it my mission to search out for disturbing/strange manga, and it turns out the hole is very deep.

If you like Berserk, check out Wolfsmund too. If you're after that Junji-Ito-feeling then the fan site should be a gold mine.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

The other names most associated are Shinichi Koga (the most popular without any English translations, apparently a big influence on Ito), Suehiro Maruo and Kazuichi Hanawa. Sadly there isn't a much or any English print options for these guys.

[NewTownManager]

I thoroughly enjoyed Chicken George by Kazuo Umezu

[Teetering-Crutches]

Wow, shinichi koga looks awesome -- wish there were english editions (or even available japanese for that matter).

Also can't afford this:

[Teetering-Crutches]

Shinichi Koga: https://mangarock.com/manga/mrs-serie-67250

Eko Eko Azaraku

Which seems to be a hardcore Japanese Sabrina the teenage witch from 1975-1979.

[Robert Adam Gilmour]

Panorama Of Hell is about the same characters that appear in Red Snake and The Collection (two volumes); I cant remember if they appear in the collections like Lullabies From Hell or Gallery Of Horrors.
They are a kind of horrific fictionalized version of Hino's family and the stories tend to go from strange incident to strange incident rather than telling traditional stories. I have to say that the formula gets to be a bit grating eventually. The Collection seems like discarded ideas that wouldn't fit into Panorama Of Hell or Red Snake.

A lot of people rate Panorama as his best book ever but I think Red Snake was much better. I think part of the reason people rate Panorama so highly is because Hino puts a death curse on the reader at the end, which apparently terrified some japanese children when it was released.

Which always reminds me of hearing about a young Japanese girl afraid to read Fist Of The North Star, because she was worried it would make her pregnant!