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He's no man, he's no cat, he's Cat Eyed Boy! A young boy with feline features and supernatural dispositions, carrying his bindle across Japan, irresistibly drawn to places where mystery lingers and horrible tragedies are about to strike.

Viz published his adventures in two larges volumes in 2006. As observant readers may guess from the fine realistic graphic style, this work by horror manga master Kazuo Umezu is actually from a much earlier period. It was originally serialized in Shonen Gahosha, Shonen King and Shonen Sunday from 1967 to the year after, preceding well-known classics such as The Drifting Classroom and Orochi.

The eleven stories that make ... up the books are very uneven in length, some span only a few tens of pages, others one or two hundred. There's also a central story much longer than the others that connect the two volumes; it's the Band of One-Hundred Monsters, where Cat Eyed Boy tries to defeat the nasty three-eyed dwarf Kodomo and his hideous minions. In his first adventure, The Immortal Man, Cat Eyed Boy's role seems more that of a witness. But it is in truth misguiding as he takes an active part in all the following stories, often changing the course of events or solving the mystery himself.

In the tradition of Japanese horror, the basis for the story is often set in a - presumably fictitious - legend, be it monsters roaming deep forests or statues protecting villages. There's a strong cultural theme in several of the plots and this alone should rejoice fans of Asian horror. The way it is told, however, is not so satisfying. Some stories, especially the central one, seems to drag on needlessly. It's all about showing monsters and scary scenes and oftentimes the narrative seems to be used as a piece of canvas, stretched in loose ends to fit whatever Umezu wants to draw.

The writing is especially weak, although it is hard to tell who is to blame, Umezu or the translator. Viz usually provides good translations but that one seemed below their usual standard. Take the title for instance, where's the hyphen between "cat" and "eyed"? After the train wreck in The Meat Ball Monster, a sentence caught my attention, too, because it made no sense in the context and not much on its own, either: "And in the present day - the national railway frequently raised fares. And railway accidents occured frequently." There's a lot of tepid, uninspired dialogues, pointless exclamations and one-liners of bewildering blandness.

But Umezu is fore and foremost a graphic artist, and in that department he delivers with the ease of a true master. Each story abounds of ugly monsters and twisted human faces looking at them in utter horror. There's a good deal of blood, too, although some stories are more violent than others. But what remains afterwards is the intense imagery; many vignettes leave an imprint in the mind, fleeting nightmare visions of a black and white world. There's a few color panels in the second book, one page in full color with a dark haunting palette and others with monochromatic (green or red) tones that gives a really nice feel.

Cat Eyed Boy may be not an essential read, but it's definitely worth a look! Umezu's vivid creativity and his eye for horror make up for the various shortcomings of the writing. Not to mention the titular character, whose quaint style and good-hearted devilishness are the right traits for a companion on this macabre journey.