Despite being a prolific horror manga creator, very few of Kanako Inuki‘s works have been released in English – Dark Horse translated School Zone and the now-defunct CMX released Presents, back in 2006 and 2007; both series are currently out of print. That means that fans can hope that Kodansha‘s release of Be Very Afraid of Kanako Inuki! is testing the waters for a (re)release of her works, because this slim volume is a collection of some of Inuki’s favorite short stories she’s written. Each of the six tales comes from a different series, with the oldest dating to 1991. If you didn’t know that they were from separate collections, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell, because although each features a recurring theme or character, the stories all stand on their own decently enough.
Of them, the strongest is in many ways the earliest, “Happiness Hidden in the Dark” from…
