A review by nolansmock
Domu: A Child's Dream by Katsuhiro Otomo

4.0

A high-paced, pulpy, supernatural thriller from the creator of 'Akira', a series I still haven't read despite it being the most recommended manga of all-time, but I recently found it at a reasonable price and wanted to read an earlier work leading up to it. Its style and storyboarding are remarkable. It feels like watching a movie (and apparently a few times it almost became one; I just read a story about how it almost happened with David Lynch -- wowww) something like 'Poltergiest III' or 'Scanners', and the high-rise setting is catnip to me. What it lacks in character development it makes up for in being a tight, gritty, genre exercise. I can't believe this was written four or five years before 'Mai: The Psychic Girl', a conceptually similar series that feels very dated today and never reaches the levels of darkness and creepiness of 'Domu', a story that is light years ahead of its time, both artistically and thematically, a horrifying allegory about the chaos of mental health going on unchecked, socially and institutionally.