Red Night

“Hanawa’s comics, while linked intimately to the very foundations of culture and education, are imbued with the reality of nonsense.” — Akasegawa Genpei Breakdown Press is honoured to publish another classic of underground manga in the shape of Red Night by Hanawa Kazuichi. A wild entry into a violent world of obsession, madness and the perversity of the gods. In Hanawa’s work cruelty and decadence go hand in hand, and desire is accompanied by a macabre twist. Hanawa Kazuichi is one of the true pioneers of manga — his trailblazing work in erotic grotesquerie and folk horror has made him one of Japan’s most revered and imitated mangaka. Since his debut in the legendary alt manga magazine GARO in 1971, Hanawa has been skewering the morals of Japanese society through chilling tales of debauched medieval aristocracy, many of which are collected in this volume. First published in 1985, Red Night was Hanawa’s breakout book in Japan. This translation of the expanded edition is his first collection in English since his 2006 manga Doing Time, about the artist’s imprisonment for illegal possession of a firearm.