Doumu is a gripping horror story about an apartment complex that’s being terrorized by a mysterious serial killer with supernatural abilities that’s left the authorities dumbfounded. If you’re used to reading manga, you might have a little trouble at the beginning as this project reads left to right like an American comic book. Doumu is a short enough book to be read in a single day so I can wholeheartedly suggest that you drop whatever it is that you’re doing right now and read this horror hit, preferably at night with an open window behind you. The art is a brilliant accompaniment to this suspensefultragedy and it depicts people in a realistic manner that’s dark and off-putting but not fully photo-realistic. The story unfolds like a classic supernatural thriller that doesn’t discriminate between character status and importance but rather the characters serve as a vessel to convey the horror to the reader that otherwise would’ve been novelized had we spent more time with them. That said, I do prefer character writing that lasts over a few volumes to classical motif writing that ends as abruptly as it starts.