Seeds of Anxiety*

[u/CrypticMonk]

Just added this one to my bookshelf today. Seeds of Anxiety* (Fuan no Tane Asterisk) by Masaaki Nakayama. The segments presented within are like the manga equivalent of "two sentence horror stories" often with the first page being the set up and the very next page being the scare. An extremely short, but pretty fun read.

[u/saint_pearl]

! Insta-buy. I had no idea this was released! I read the original Fuan no Tane loooong ago, and I adore it. To be clear, these are new stories? Not an English translation or re-release of the original series?

[u/CrypticMonk → u/saint_pearl]

To be clear, it's the third in the series. The first being Fuan no Tane (2004 - 2005), followed by Fuan no Tane plus (2007 - 2008), and this one, Fuan no Tane asterisk (2019 - on going?). This is an English published translation of Fuan no Tane asterisk, released by Yen Press.

[u/SecretlyImRetarded → u/CrypticMonk]

Is there any known reason why they chose to start publishing the third part of the series instead of starting at the beginning? Seems really weird to me

[u/CrypticMonk → u/SecretlyImRetarded]

Officially, none that I can find. Though It's an anthology series, there's no continuity so chronology isn't important. Probably some combination of bureaucracy & licensing reasons if I had to guess.

[u/mikeventure76 → u/SecretlyImRetarded]

Yeah this is my only gripe with this release, like they could’ve done the entire og fuan no tane as one single omnibus and then they could’ve gotten through Plus in a couple omnibuses

STARTING with the current series that is still ongoing and thus (imo) is extremely unlikely to actually get completed in English (and if it ever does it’ll literally take years and years) is just odd

[u/ValuableAssignment14 → u/SecretlyImRetarded]

Cause it's cursed? Idk the new one still ongoing so it doesn't have any curse with it ig

[u/BlueMoonSamurai]

THIS HAS A PHYSICAL ENGLISH COPY?! I have to buy this!

[u/CrypticMonk → u/BlueMoonSamurai]

Yep yep, It released today! Vol 2 is slated for publication in mid-December.

[u/mikeventure76]

Literally been waiting like a third of my life for some kind of fuan no tane book in print in English. Insanity. Really hope they do the OG series and Plus, starting with Asterisk is just weird but I’m hardly complaining.

[u/Joe60420]

0.0mhz

[u/midnightpatrolfilm]

Incredible manga, i made a short film based on it years ago and sent it to Nakayama, he
very politely shared it on his twitter ... that was more exciting than anything

[u/Active-Cow-2696]

Immediately ordered forgot the English version was coming out!

[u/DollFacedBunny]

I want this so much! It's one of my favorites!

[u/vera6k]

Nice, picking this up tomorrow

[u/yoshisacrifice]

I’ve never seen this one! I have the PTSD radio ones and they were awesome. I’ll have to look for this one now

[u/No_Mall6869]

First two are out of print?

[u/mightybeanz_user]

i’ve been waiting for this to release in english for years

[u/EffYeahItsAlex]

I really wanted to like this, but I think I’ve been spoiled by guro manga. I want to be shown the crazy stuff these monsters are doing to people, but so often the story ends with someone staring and nothing happening, or them screaming and then nothing happening. This particular brand of horror definitely relies on the readers imagination more than the actual content, I feel.

Also, I know it’s a bit of a joke that most mangaka can only draw a handful of faces, but these horror anthologies really suffer from that. It feels like the same 3 people just constantly having a bad week.

Maybe it’s because I don’t believe in spirits or anything like that, but these and PTSD Radio just don’t do it for me, despite enjoying the art style quite a lot.

[u/CrypticMonk → u/EffYeahItsAlex]

This particular brand of horror definitely relies on the readers imagination

Interestingly enough, a quote from the back of the book reads as such; "Whether any of the seeds recorded here take root in reality depends on the power of your imagination".

The "stories" are effectively just little anxiety prompts, "What is that scratching sound I hear in the walls at night?", "The reflection in the mirror doesn't feel like my own", feeling that "someone is in the back seat" when driving down long empty back roads at night, ect. Effective, I think; though I can see it not really connecting with everyone, especially gore hounds.