"imomushi"/"caterpillar" is the ultimate confluence of maruo's lifelong obsessions with edogawa ranpo (whose short story serves as the source material here) and with undermining japanese nationalism, imperialism, martialism, masculinity, and whatever other institutions you can smear shit on in a comic panel. prior to this the "new national kid" collection was maruo's most sustained assault on 20th-century japan, but as you might expect from work produced a decade later "imomushi," like maruo's recent "binzume no jigoku" collection, displays a newfound stylistic discipline. but this discipline should not be taken to imply respectability.

in fact "imomushi" is one of the few works to fulfill what i've always believed is the promise of "ero-guro," and it's no coincidence that it comes from one of the few artists ever to produce anything worthwhile in that mode. a suffocating, claustrophobic, desperate nightmare ... which is to say ESSENTIAL !!!