This solid adaptation is a great take on the impossible: visualizing Lovecraft's description of what is incomprehensible to man. Tanabe’s realistic style effectively illustrates the story in volume 1 (despite fairly plain character design) and goes on to a unique artistic vision for the more fantastical volume 2. However, the manga suffers from its source material. Lovecraft was a master at description, tension and world building- but was prone to bland characters, stilted dialogue and long exposition dumps. Here, dialogue often reads as if it's irrelevant which character is speaking. Still, lines from the original work are selected effectively to efficiently move the plot forward.A driving tension leads up to the last third of the story (certainly aided by Tanabe’s illustrations) but is unavoidably disappointed by over-exposition. Thankfully, this exposition gives Tanabe the chance for some wonderful illustrations.

As an adaptation the work absolutely succeeds, but judged as a standalone manga- the characters are bland and the last third leaves a lot to be desired in terms of story. Overall, I'd recommend this adaptation as an alternative to the original novella.