May 3, 2026
I can endlessly praise Tsuki Kuu Mushi, the first collection of short stories from Ookoshi-sensei.
These are the bizarre stories with perversions, cripples, incest, but it’s not what the stories are really about. They’re about broken dreams, about struggles of the people renounced from society, about the desire to create, to coexist, and to love.
Ookoshi‑sensei’s ideas aren’t obscure or pretentious, and he conveys from unexpected angles which keeps the stories interesting and fresh. What’s remarkable is how carefully he avoids sensationalism. Even when the subject matter drifts into explicit and grotesque imagery, he refuses to indulge in it and juice it for shock value.
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This shifts the focus from the act itself to the inner world of the characters. The result is something far more poetic than provocative.
The amount of detail in every single panel and their creative composition are truly remarkable. The metaphors, the worldbuilding, the surrealism - all of it is crafted with a sense of lyrical precision. The art style may lack the sensuality of Ookoshi-sensei’s later works (which I deeply love), but it has its own charm: clean, consistent, and intentional.
More than anything, Tsuki Kuu Mushi feels like a work of pure passion, as if the author created it because he had no other choice - because these stories, these ideas, needed to exist somewhere outside of him. And he brought them into the world in the best way he possibly could.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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