I was somewhat correct. The manga is comedy, but much funnier than I ever expected. It is a very in-your-face mockery of capitalists, the semi-literate nouveau riche owners of companies, but not of capitalism itself. The way these bosses and their dimwit servants are poked fun of is also the crudest possible - through extreme caricature exaggeration and offensive nicknames. Think of a fat ugly man with snot dripping from his nose being name Dimwit. It's neither subtle, nor especially smart, but it also works in the case of this nonsensical story.
The volume works not because of the thin repetitive plot or the escalating numbers of decapitations, but Man☆Gatarou's art. Drawn with extreme amounts of hatching, using furiously sharp and thin lines, every panel brims with detail and decayed life. Every face is as expressive as it can be, every movement, expression, body shape - as exaggerated as possible. There is nothing "manga" here, not for the majority of the volume, at least. It's all comix and outlaw comics, and it's simply marvelous. Reading some of the pages, I couldn't but be reminded of Ed Piskor's Red Room series. Not for the content or gruesomeness, but for the way both artists draw flabby fat.
The visuals also create a pleasing sense of rhythm, mostly through the use of repetition. Many panels, even whole pages are repeated almost ad nauseam, pointing at the repetitiveness of factory work and life under capitalism. The belt moves, the people do the same robotic movements, things take shape. The things themselves might be different, might even be things that do not usually belong to a conveyor belt, but the workers don't care. Whether they make a tank or a fatty lip, it's all the same. They'll get their measly food scraps, sleep, and come back to build the next thing.
But this repetition also works because it is just damn funny. It is so rhythmical and punchy that looking at the pages, I can feel its beat, see it as an anime sequence. In this sequence there is a lot of pause at every repeated cell, the only sound coming from the speakers a loud, equally long "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH". And then, a reverse shot of something short and insignificant. And then, again, the same, repeated cell and the sound "YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH". And like that ad infinitum, until we stop for the day, go have some slop, sleep, and wake up for another day of capitalist consumption.
