Tag: webtoons

By B. MURACA

What’s up my fellow book addicts? As you can see from the blood-splattered picture , we are back with another discussion about a rainbow-filled story. I know comics have been written about on The Book Rant for a while now, but don’t worry, we’re still reading some awesome novels. They are still to come.

This horror manga is, Pumpkin Night. I’ll be honest, the reviews for this book are not the best. A lot of the complaints are from the fact the book has not been “officially” translated into English yet, so the manga a lot of us Americans have read although still readable, has quite a few errors. However, if you are a die-hard horror buff like me, and love bloody stories of psychopaths stalking and butchering people, Pumpkin Night is a story you’ll love.

I literally discovered this story twelve hours ago from the time of writing this article by a friend and fellow creator’s Youtube channel (big thanks to Tyler Carpenter for his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k2dGay9824&t=294s). I became addicted as soon as I started. The story follows Naoko and the group of students she stalks in her pumpkin mask. Prior to the beginning of the story, these students bullied Naoko all the time for being a weird girl in school, and finally did something to her so terrible she ended up in a mental hospital. The story does not pull any punches and let’s you know what kind of book this is from page one as it shows our psychopath having killed an entire hospital staff and laughing as she’s covered in their blood.

The bullies then started getting followed on their social media by Pumpkin Night, which was this story’s foreshadowing to tell you this was a character who was in trouble and likely about to be killed.

The deaths in this book are NOT for the faint of heart either. If people passed out and got sick from watching Terrifier 2 in theaters this past year, this book could also cause that if your stomach and head aren’t ready. The characters have slow, brutal deaths, sometimes to the point where one would wonder, “ok they survived, but look at them! They’re not going to have any quality of life.” It was laughable when I was reading today as the doctors tried to bring someone back to life who literally looked so decimated I’m not sure if that character would had been able to even feed themselves if they survived. Some of these people are butchered beyond recognition, and even then, Pumpkin Night keeps throwing bloody hits.

Seriously, this book is a gore fest. Despite the negative reviews, I found myself empathizing with some of the characters like Kazuya and Naoko because of what seemed like a little romance that his friends didn’t know about. The psychological aspect of what drives someone so insane is a continuing theme brought up. Could someone really been driven so angry that they start doing things like this? Sadly, violence in schools is something we already see a lot of in America, so someone going on a rampage for revenge is a common news story these days. Another is that this is my favorite type of horror, which is survivor horror. These characters do try to plan and survive, but because of whatever they did in the past, their resources are limited.

One thinks Naoko really needs to be stopped, but what about justice for her? This is where the detective part comes in, because even though he’s looking for a serial killer, he wants the whole story, and even treats the soon-to-be victims as hostile.

Should American copies be officially made of this book do the right thing, pay the creator for your copy. Until such time, despite some spelling errors and weird wording, horror fans can fall in love with Pumpkin Night here: https://pumpkin-night.com/