Story and Themes: 3/10
Characters: 3/10
Overall: 6/10
Art and Composition:
The art is absolutely the greatest aspect of Snake Woman - as a matter of fact, it’s the aspect that has clearly had the most effort put into it. That’s (presumably) on purpose, as the focus on the visual element really stands out from the manga that was being published at the time. The heavy usage of darkness and shading makes the entire story feel dingy (although it is occasionally difficult to discern what’s actually happening) and the drawings of the titular snake woman are very good, capturing a creepy in-between of a human and a snake (although the fact that she has a nose is a little strange). The artwork of Kazuo Umezu combines the more traditional manga style with horrific events and visuals splendidly and the way he draws facial expressions just… works for me.
Story and Themes:
The plot is very simple - there is a woman who thinks she is a snake so she becomes like a snake. A little girl, her family, and the wider community are tormented by the snake woman in various ways. The events near the midway point of The Spotted Girl really kicked the story up a notch and actually managed to unnerve me, which surprised me as I had thought I knew where the story was going by that point.
Characters:
Almost all of the characters exist solely to interact with (and potentially get attacked/killed by) the snake woman, with only a small handful of main characters even getting names. This makes sense, as there is little time to develop the characters (as the entire focus is on the antagonist) but I can’t in good conscience give the characters anything more than a three. It was originally a two, but the snake woman alone brought it up a level.
If one has interest in historical manga, horror that is mainly visual, or snake women, then this is absolutely worth checking out. It's not a large time investment and it managed to make me genuinely unnerved at a few points.
