The Pits of Hell

by Yoshikazu Ebisu, Ryan Holmberg (Translator)

The Pits of Hell collects eight stories published between 1969 and 1981. Bold, absurd and all too real, Ebisu Yoshikazus work feels distinctly underground, almost punk. The collection features a foreword by Minami Shinbo and an essay by Ryan Holmberg plus a retrospective essay by Ebisu Yoshikazu in which he offers background on each of the stories.

Genres: Comics, Manga, Japan, Short Stories, Horror, Fiction, Graphic Novels

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Peter Landau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring. Primitive. Disturbing. Freeing. More proof that comics are the most flexible and expressive art form.

[Fergus Nm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pachinko players. Awful bosses. Speedboats. Mean-spirited comedy. Salarymen DAMNED to the PITS of HELL.
I am so glad this got translated.

[Stay Fetters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Mummy, I brought the knife! Let’s stab these men until they die! Let’s cut them up! Then we’ll have something to eat with our rice!"

If you’re sleepy at work just have your boss slap you.

This was absolutely ridiculous and brutal with some hilarious parts. Highly entertaining and definitely won’t be for everyone. This was created for a f**ked up individual like me.

[Laura (ローラ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

What is this surreal nightmarish dreamscape? Fantastic publication by Breakdown Press. And, I especially appreciate the essay at the back by the translator, Ryan Holmberg. These are always a treat!

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of Garo (and adjacent) manga. As someone for whom manga never 'clicked' I was floored when I first opened an issue of Garo. I still find myself unable to fully dive into the broader world but these strange, scratchy, ugly and bizarre comics from the "underground" are my door in if ever there was one. Ebisu's obsession with gambling and the banal evil of the salaryman is wonderfully contextualized by Ryan Holmberg's essay in the end.

[Titus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of bleak, absurd short comics. Some might dismiss it as over-the-top, shock-driven nonsense, but I feel it somehow gets at the essence of how ridiculous and terrible life can be. There's a lot of extreme violence, including by adults against children and by men against women, and the way it's depicted walks the line between cartoony and brutal, so as a result it left me feeling an unusual, uncomfortable mix of horror and amusement. I really appreciate work that elicits strong emotional responses in me, especially when the emotions are complex or confusing, so I consider that a real mark of success.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of surreal alt-manga insanity from Breakdown Press. Recommended for fans of Yuichi Yokoyama, Tastsumi, Johnny Ryan, etc...

[Duarte Cabral]

Acabei isto e agora quero tenho uma vontade incontrolável de ir ao casino (elogio)

[Thuong · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a strange strange manga…

We all have intrusive thoughts of fighting someone or verbally going off on someone but we don't because we care about the consequences. This manga is the epitome of letting your intrusive thoughts win.

Taken from the afterthoughts; "Why Is This So Good? (1981) by Minami Shinbo

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but I know that it’s interesting. There is nothing scarier than that, like there is nothing more interesting than something that you're not sure why it's interesting. What's interesting about Ebisu Yoshikazu's comics is that they are our dreams, our repressed desires, and that they allow us to be voyeurs on the strangeness of being human."

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bonkers.

[Tanith Pyner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bizarre, violent & rage-fuelled, this nihilistic collection of Yoshikazu Ebisu's punk manga shorts are nightmarish depictions of the senseless pressures of 1980s Japan, a world thriving on capitalism and the erasure of the individual. Yoshikazu's characters range from long-suffering teachers, salarymen with incompetent workers, housewives tired of rising food costs; almost all of these stories descend into explicit violence which has no consequence or reasoning besides the release of rage.

Strange art and pessimistic, it's clear to see why these comics so quickly established themselves as a countercultural milestone in 1980s Japan.

[Victor · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars.

[Nestor]

I literally have no idea how to rate this so I won’t. What a strange little collection of stories. I loved some and hated some. In some ways this feels like the sacred origin of gonzo pulp manga, in other ways this feels like another unnecessary, overly sexed-up male-centric addition to the alternative manga canon. Conclusion: shrug.

(Read for class.)

[c l o n · Rating 5 out of 5]

highly bizarre, hyper-violent stories of urban decay and moral vacancy; yeah i absolutely fucking adored this book. the art is simple yet expressive, and doesn't shy away from total absurdity. we're talkin' bats & snakes & centipedes attacking a man in an elevator to hell, a teacher ripping a shithead-smartass student's head off, and a spontaneous orgy at the company party (8 men + 1 woman). gambling and starvation ensue as inflation makes it impossible to get by. parents negligently kill their children. as i sit in my apartment watching the world fall apart through my big and small screens, i sit back in my chair after finishing this book and feel a prescience that i'm already here. in hell. sorry, i think we're all fucked.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Office humor meets existential dread (or is that an oxymoron?)

One of the best alt-manga I've read, and definitely something worth checking out if you're seeking something different (and batshit insane).

[Mickey Kowaleski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Instant addition to my favorites. Messed up and weird. A portent for 2020. I can feel it in my bones.

[Mateen Mahboubi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty extreme manga of nihilism and the struggles of salarymen but all cranked up to 10. Maybe a little too dark for my tastes.

[Betzim Gdolot · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Pits of Hell is a collection of short stories . This book is angry, absurd and extremely violent.

All characters in the story are extremely blunt, either super offensive and disrespectful or trying to adhere to the society's rules before finally breaking character and lashing out violently at someone, mostly resulting in the other party's death.
Workplace is a place where people use and abuse each other cynically (both employers and employees), and everyone are just hanging by the thread waiting to explode.

This is my first Gekiga book and it has the same angry energy alternative comix displayed in the 70s.
I'm not sure if there was any influence by American creators, but this book definitely shares same of that angry vibe.

The short stories are RAW, with many shock values and, I am a bit ashamed to admit, a few satisfied chuckles.

I can see why this book was recommended to me - it has a great essay in the beginning, adding value and context for the stories. The cover is gorgeous and intriguing, looking awesome on the bookshelf, and is very inviting to the eye (I know this has nothing to do with the quality of the content and you should never judge a book by its cover, but the coolness of how it looks does add to it).


So why did I give it only 3 stars? The stories are very repetitive and follow a very well expected formula: character is trying to obey society's rule/character is strongly disobeying the rules->character is thrown into an absurd situation->character lashing out at everyone->resolution


After a while it felt a bit repetitive and kind of blew off the magic and shock value from first stories.

I'd suggest reading it, as it is considered a milestone in Alternative manga history, but you should know what you are getting into.

[Oliver Bateman · Rating 5 out of 5]

owing to the assorted autobiographical elements, these strange stories linger in the mind in the way that even offerings from gary panter and other domestic greats don't. ebisu is channeling...something about his various shitty careers and gambling addictions, but what is it? ryan holmberg's excellent essay explains much about this strange salaryman-turned-semipro artist-turned TV guest du jour, but it leaves intact the central mystery about the artist, the one raised (and only partially answered) by minami shinbo's 1981 intro to this collection: why is this so good, given that a lot of it appears to be the result of yokoo tadanori pastiche or just deficient technique (to which the artist admits in his own foreword)? yet it is, it is.

highly recommended, with nearly every short story here a minor masterwork ("workplace," "wiped out workers, "late night party," and "salaryman in hell" are bangers, to boot...labor critiques that are somehow neither pro nor anti-capitalist, nor even anti-work (ebisu was a worker, after all)).

[Seven Pesos · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Pits of Hell had me laughing out loud (real loud too) in public places. Hilariously rendered stories which touch upon real-world issues with such humor, absurdity, and horror. These stories are the disgusting product of a gross man living in an imperfect world. Not quite callous, more crass. Incredible.

The CLEAR standout story for me is "A Brave and Beautiful Family in Recessionary and Sickly Japan". This piece epitomizes the spirit of The Pits of Hell and one of the funniest things I've read in God-knows-how-long. Again - incredible.

Here are some quotes I liked: "They too are focused. They too put their lives on the line. Good for them" (in reference to two men stabbing each other in a Pachinko parlor); "I've gone and pissed my underwear, my long johns, and my trousers. They're so wet and heavy I can't even lift my leg" (same).

[Ryan Mandelbaum · Rating 3 out of 5]

I honestly can't even say if I really enjoyed reading this as much as appreciated it's dedication
to complete and utter nihilism. While the writing (and especially dialog) feels a bit chaotic and haphazard at times and makes it difficult to truly engage with the stories, it follows a certain nightmare logic that doesn't really necessitate any sort of clear narrative either, allowing for the focus to be drawn to what I could only describe as the most pure, unfiltered levels of spite and rage I have seen in manga.

[Nick LeBlanc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nightmares of salarymen and gambling, satirical bullets fired at the capitalist existential struggles that every working person can relate to, and haunting Lynchian dream-logic. Remarkably prescient despite being 30+ years old. The art is great and the stories are dark, funny, and startling. The UFOs, collapsing planets, and other nightmares which float through the backgrounds like clouds are a wonderful touch.

[Stupiid Cupidd]

I’m not sure what to rate this book, so I’m not. It took me a while to read, because some of the scenes of sexual violence were too much. It should definitely come with a trigger warning for that.

That being said, as an ALT manga it definitely delivered as that. Showing glimpses of the result of intrusive thoughts, If carried out as actions.

[Bookist · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this set of stories to be pretty funny, if you can see the subtle humor behind all of the gratuitous violence, wanton lust, mistreatment of small children, frustration at soul-destroying business practices, and absurdist story settings. Take a gamble and race into a realization of your most twisted nightmares. A true chuckle-fest.

[Scot Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

gamble your life away. get into fights, drag-out, rip and tear flesh and meat and skin and tendons, fights you can only wage inside your mind. after all, the worst is the bottom floor. just don't hit the wrong button.

[Aynsley! · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve always liked manga and enjoyed it but never loved it or felt obsessed with it until this. Think Al Columbia does manga, but it’s more about the nightmare of being working class than the nightmare of being a child, or being alive. Totally unhinged. Brilliant.

[Erik Wirfs-Brock · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 70s Japanese version of reddit rage comics, comics about how much life sucks punctuated with sudden violence, with dashes of surrealism and sexual desire. Not like mindblowing, but fun stuff-pretty universal too despite also being very rooted in a specific time and place.

[Kasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the drawing style but the content is too violent

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of classics by one of the recognised greats of underground manga. Bleak, twisted, violent, explicit, provocative.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vulgar punk nightmare manga. Loved it.