The Bug Boy, Post War Psyche Drawn Large

Hideshi Hino Draws on the Horrors of a Past War

Sanpei is bullied at school and mistreated at home. His only real friends are his pets. But when he gets stung by a strange insect, Sanpei’s life changes forever. Transformed into a huge poisonous bug, he escapes to discover the world outside. There he finds only more hatred, and eventually he returns to exact a terrifying revenge. 

The Bug Boy, Hideshi Hino, Cover Image

Book Review by Mike Philbin

In The Bug Boy, loner Sanpei Hiromoto is hated by everyone. His problem is he is distracted by his bugs. He loves bugs of all shapes and sizes. Snakes too. Sanpei can’t get enough of those slimy, slithery creatures. His grades at school are consistently Fs. He is feared by all the girls in the school. He is hated by the boys.

Every night Hideshi Hino’s Bug Boy is beaten up on his way back from school. His family bully him because of his grades, his brother and sister are straight A students – like every good Japanese child.

Sanpei is alone at school and alone at home. He has no-one to talk to, no-one to share his life with, apart from his bugs, and the veritable zoo of cats, dogs, rats and assorted creepy crawlies he has secreted down at his secret hide-away at the local tip. Then one day he is bitten by a terrible red bug and a hideous transformation begins …

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Rather than going into the ‘spoiler’ territory of the gruesome depictions of the story’s detail, you already know the Hino patented subject matter from the review of the first volume, this review will attempt to concentrate on the thematic landscape of this nasty piece of work.

Thematic Landscape

Hideshi Hino is a product of the second world war. He cites the struggle of these post-war years as a major influence on his work. And you can see it. You can see the young Hino growing up around the diseased dogs, the pestilent rats, the poverty and death of those terrible times after the nuclear holocaust delivered by those two American bombing missions. The Bug Boy is in so many ways a coming-of-age story.

Aping etymological themes with reference to the bugs Sanpei adores and the rotting pupatic transformation of his little body from boy to bug, the hideous anatomical and psychological sacrifices one has to sometimes make to achieve one’s true form, you can see a reflection of Hino’s early life in war-raped Japan – the years of social and industrial rebuild, the years of shame at the loss.

A Whole Nation Poised on the Point of a Blade

Sanpei figurizes the shame and isolation of post-war Japan. Sanpei shows how Hino shuffled off his boyness to become a man of ultra extreme imagery that garishly illuminates the distorted world of the Japanese post-war psyche. Look at other Manga (famous in the West) like Akira and you see again and again this brain-spinning gut-wrenching study of anatomical rape, the pain of a nation in turmoil made flesh - shown anatomically.

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Hideshi Hino and The Bug Boy, The Open Critic Verdict

Back to The Bug Boy; he has transformed into a formidable horror monster and eventually realises his power and his revolting murderous exploits are soon making the news. He becomes a notorious and feared entity in his neighbourhood. His frail ego amplified by this stunning realisation, Sanpei embarks on a rampage of revenge.

A truly destructive tale. Find it. Buy it. Read it.

External Links

Hideshi Hino Reviews at The Open Critic

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Published:
02.14.07 / 4pm