I was first exposed to this manga when I was 8 years old and it stayed in my memory ever since. At the time I had just discovered the world of manga through Naruto, which was being published monthly in tankobon form here in my country. I fell in love with the format and wanted to learn more about the different types of mangas that existed out there. At the time I wasn't much online and resorted just to looking up on the "comic book" section of bookstores I was just a child and didn't really have any money so I wasn't really planning onbuying any manga in the bookstore but they allowed us to just browse and take a quick look at the stuff. So I was looking at the spines of the books for interesting things. I remember there being your usual Full Metal Alchemist, Samurai X, One Piece. But near the top of the shelf was this red book with dark red snakes. I picked it up and the image of the woman being covered in snakes while a little boy watched from a distance instantly imprinted itself into my head and still hasn't left

I was somewhat of an impressionable child, and I had no idea manga could be gorey and violent. I mean, I had read Naruto which does have blood and violence, but not on Hideshi Hino levels, of course. What really hooked me was the boy, who looked genuinely terrified, and perhaps I identified with him because the image was as impressionable to me as it seemed to be to him. I instantly flipped through the book

I don't remember stopping to actually read any of the individual pages and was just more interested in looking at the images, and oh boy did I see some shit. This manga has some really gruesome imagery which maybe for someone who's used to guro and Junji Ito stuff might not be THAT impressive but for a child who had never seen anything like that before, it absolutely was. I remember specifically the old man with a disgusting face and a huge tumor on his chin, and, what is probably the thing that terrified me the most, the deformed mother putting a comb on her head and it stabbing her skull and leaving a bloody mess

As I read this now as an adult I realize I've grown quite used to these violent sights and all the things I remember being awful to look at were just bizarre at most now. The part with the mom wasn't even the way I remember it lol But it was absolutely interesting to go back and actually read through the story to understand what was actually happening.

I'll say that the manga in my head was a lot more terrifying than the real one that exists, but that's just my subjective memory anyways