Hideshi Hino

[Memory]

Sometime in the late '90s one rainy evening, back when I used to frequent a store in London called Forbidden Planet, I remember coming across Junji Ito and Hideshi Hino's work for the first time - I fell inlove with both artists. Though I remember what stood out to me the most that particular day was Hideshi Hino's manga Hell Baby and the vinyl figurine of Hell Baby herself, by Planet Toys.

At the time I did not have a job or any real money to spend, so it would be another 20 years before I got my hands on the actual manga and the green colored variant of the figure (which I now prefer, but back then I was hyperfixated on getting the fleshy colored variant I'd seen in the store).

Since then I've amassed a few Hino items; one of my favorites that was given to me as a gift in 2004 is the VHS of Mermaid in a Manhole (which I've also got on dvd) which is a 1988 movie Hino directed based off of one of his comics. 

My green variant color figure still boxed (and the back to show off the art) aswell the manga itself!

  Anyone else here familiar with Hideshi Hino and like his work? Same with Junji Ito - I have a ton of his comics (Uzumaki being the first one I ever got all the way back in 2001!)

Hell Baby is a really sad and heart warming story with a lot of gorgeous depictions of landfills/garbage, decomposition, gore, night-time cities from strange perspectives... and Hino's typical 'horrified face' expression he does a lot in his work. I adore this comic, it brings me a lot of comfort to read it (and I do a few times a week!). I recommend it if you wanna get into his work! That and Bugboy (it kinda reminds me of a more cartoony version of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka which is an amazing novella!)