Edited By KEVIN QUIGLEY (Blast Books; 1996)

This was the fourth and, sadly, last entry in Blast Books’ extreme manga series (following Hideshi Hino’s PANORAMA OF HELL and HELL BABY and Suehiro Maruo’s MR. ARASHI’S AMAZING FREAK SHOW, essential acquisitions all). COMICS UNDERGROUND JAPAN contains fourteen manga pieces, all of which, as the title proclaims, hail from the Japanese underground. Specifically, most of them originated in the long-running periodical Garo (essentially the Japanese equivalent of Zap Comix), whose rocky history is chronicled in a highly authoritative five page introduction.

Of the comics themselves, they’re what you might expect: exuberantly grotesque and subversive, reveling in bloodletting, scatology and incendiary political sentiments (although they’re far from the most extreme manga that exists, examples of which would be illegal in the US). If nothing else, they make for an excellent sampling of manga madness.

Standout portions include lengthy offerings by Blast Books’ previous manga standard-bearers Hideshi Hino and Suehiro Maruo. Hino’s entry is a bloody and surreal account of a paranormal circus that comes apart due to the intervention of human beings, while Maruo delivers a nasty variant on Philip K. Dick’s MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, positing an alternate timeline in which Japan wins WWII and engages in a systematic campaign of rape and destruction throughout the US.

Also quite worthy is “Mercy Flesh” by Kazuichi Hanawa, a beautifully drawn depiction of scumbags who capture flying Buddhas and imprison them in tiny cages with a young woman on hand to administer to their needs, and “Hell’s Angel” by Yoshikazu Ebisu, an especially depraved bit of comedic surrealism that incorporates back rides, crushed heads and a woman’s transformation into an animal skeleton. Muddy Wehara’s “Bigger and Better” is quite striking in its evocation of uptight businessmen who find themselves trapped in a world populated by giant reptiles, as is Takashi Nemoto’s “Future Sperm Brazil,” whose densely detailed S. Clay Wilson-esque illustrations (Wilson, appropriately enough, contributes an enthusiastic back cover blurb) illuminate the depraved fantasies of a deranged man living in the 1990s who believes WWII is still being fought.

More problematic entries include “A Love like Lemons” and “Selfish Carol’s Summer Vacation” by Carol Shimoda, which satirize traditional girls’ romance manga—meaning those of us unfamiliar with that format will have a hard time. The wild and hallucinatory “Mary’s Asshole” by Hanako Yamada is likewise unsatisfying from a dramatic standpoint, although taken purely as a glimpse into a tortured mind (Ms. Yamada committed suicide in 1993 after a lengthy stay in a mental institution) it’s quite potent. Regarding “Cat Noodle Soup” by Hajime Yamano and Nekojiru, about a cute cat’s journey through the afterlife, it may be a profound work of art or simply uber-pretentious nonsense.

It all adds up to a collection that’s good enough to make one lament that Blast Books didn’t publish any further manga volumes, as they clearly had a great eye for talent in that field.