YouTube sensation Uketsu--who sports a black body stocking and white mask in his surreal videos--expands his global reach with Strange Houses, his Japanese debut, which hits the U.S. as his second translated title. Like his previous Strange Pictures, Strange Houses is another unsettling, irresistibly entertaining horror mystery. Gratitude again goes to Jim Rion who both championed and translated Uketsu's uniquely unusual oeuvre.
"This is the floor plan of a certain house," the novel opens--complete with visuals. First "normal" glance aside, of course, something's "off" and Uketsu promises "a truth so terrifying, you won't want to believe it." Uketsu's narrator here is a freelance writer specializing in "stories of the macabre." Because he knows "a lot about weird things," a friend calls to ask him about a "mysterious dead space" in a house he and his wife are interested in buying. The writer in turn reaches out to draughtsman Kurihara (who's also a horror/mystery fan) to consider explanations. Their detailed examinations together conjure an alarming possible scenario involving shut-in children and a murderous family, which soon proves shockingly plausible when "a chopped-up body"--missing its left hand--turns up near the house. When a stranger reaches out about a previous appendage-less murder that happened close to a similarly strange house, the writer and Kurihara can't turn away.
Uketsu expertly builds sprawling layers of bizarre revelations, and remarkably convinces with his controlled, methodical explanations about once-powerful multigenerational families, inheritance, sacrifice, loyalty. The angular, crisp floorplans enhancing the pages throughout underscore a sense of careful, contained planning, enticing and enthralling readers to undoubtedly believe. --Terry Hong