This is the second book in Ryan Holmberg’s imprint of classic SF/horror manga from the 1970s/80s. I will say I enjoyed Her Frankenstein better but I thought UFO Mushroom Invasion was also interesting and had some striking moments that made me glad I read this. I do understand that smaller print books tend to be more expensive because they have smaller print runs and tighter economics to work out, but $19.95 is a tough price point for me here considering that most manga is ranging around $13-16 right now. But this also has an essay and an overview of Shirakawa’s other work, which I was happy to have and to gain some more knowledge about other books I may never get the chance to read if they’re not translated. So this was worth it for me but your mileage may vary.
UFO Mushroom Invasion does basically what it says in the title — a UFO crashes and brings spores with it that cause the mushroom invasion. This book was way darker than I thought it would be, which is maybe the result of my being raised on triumphalist American narratives where we beat the aliens. The tone here is more one of man’s folly and stupidity, as well as the idea that if aliens do come to earth it will not work out well for us. The storytelling is very straightforward and the art verges on the crude. Shirakawa likes to include big blocks of text and several pages of asides of folktales about mushroom monsters. My favorite part was probably when the little boy main character gets blinded in his left eye and then thinks, “Well, at least I’ll look cooler this way.” He then wears an eye patch for the rest of the book, except for one double page spread where he’s shocked and his left eye suddenly reappears. That’s the sort of book this is, but I find that endearing. There’s some great horrific imagery here as people are turned into mushroom monsters, and some jarring moments that make this worth checking out for the horror aficionado.
Warnings for — children in peril, children and adults being killed, body horror, maiming