MOOOO! Lord Momon cries out, ready for her meal. MOOOO! Baby sister cries out, miserable and cold. As a young teen, sweet Miki learns the bizarre truth about her family: for centuries, they have harnessed half-cow, half-human beasts known as "kudan" for their wealth and power. And soon, another shall be born. The hour approaches. Her mother moans in pain as the contractions begin. But all poor Miki can plead is MOTHER, PLEASE DON'T GIVE BIRTH TO A MONSTER!

Mother, Please Don't Give Birth to a Monster has a story by and art by Marina Shirakawa. English translation is done by Ryan Holmberg and lettering by Ozzy Von Eschen with Sean Michael Robinson. Published by Living the Line (July 14, 2026). Rated T+.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I'm not sure why I was surprised to see the kudan, a human-faced cow yokai, used as the basis for a campy horror manga. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense – it's an unsettling combination of features, and the kudan's lore is that it gives a prophecy before immediately dying. It's a natural fit.

Marina Shirakawa uses the legend of the kudan as a way to explore pregnancy-based insecurities and horror in a way that would fit right into Eleanor Johnson's Scream with Me. The story follows Miki Maki, who was born one stormy night in a graveyard. (Yes, this feels like an homage to GeGeGe no Kitarō.) As far as Miki knows, she's an ordinary girl who belongs to a very strange family, but as she gets older, she begins to question things – why don't they ever celebrate Girls' Day? Why is she kept out of the storehouse? And why is her mother's current pregnancy sapping all the life and vitality from her?

The answer is that the Maki family has a tendency to give birth to twins, one of whom is a kudan. This is all rooted in the Heian period in a way that Shirakawa only sort of makes relevant; he hints at Abe no Seimei and mentions that the Makis were onmyouji, but that's more window dressing than anything. The main thrust of the story is Miki uncovering the truth about her birth, the unscrupulous doctor-turned-priest-turned-doctor who aided in it, and her twin sister. Like Shirakawa's previous work released in English, UFO Mushroom Invasion, this one relies heavily on a suspension of disbelief and highly suspicious medical science – not so much in the existence of kudan, but in things like a head transplant. It's not scary per se, mostly because the levels of camp are so delightfully high. If “silly horror” is a thing, this would more or less fall under that heading.

Still, it's easy to see how awful the entire situation is for Miki. She knew things were odd, but learning the truth is upsetting to her, especially in the moments right before her sibling's birth. There's some definite infant cruelty in the story, and towards the end, the art indulges in grosser elements than in the earlier pages, as if Shirakawa were rushing to get in some more horror before the end; the art is otherwise nicely detailed and reminiscent of shoujo from the 1960s. It's a good example of old school manga horror and a fun read, especially if you're interested in kudan legends.

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

Sometimes when I read random books for Manga guide, I find myself staring at a volume I've just finished, thinking “what the hell did I just read, and what on Earth am I supposed to write about it?” I've read most of Ryan Holmberg's curated series of vintage horror manga for published Living the Line, enjoying many of them, and this one ranks up pretty high on the “WTF-O-Meter”. There are shaggy dog tales, and then there are shaggy… cow… tales like this.

For a horror manga, there isn't a whole lot that's scary, at least not in the first two-thirds of the volume. Things start to escalate towards the end, but until then, it's more of an odd family mystery story, as the protagonist, Miki, investigates her family history with the aid of a suspiciously handy genealogist. Though, to be fair, there are a lot of suspicious people around Miki. There's a creepy gynecologist whose interest in Miki seems more than merely professional. Her parents are obviously hiding something; they both seem constantly on edge, especially her wild-eyed mother, whom we discover is pregnant. What is the secret of Miki's own birth, however? It's certainly… something.

I often struggle to take these older horror manga seriously at all, with their cartoonish art and ramshackle plots held together by horse glue and straw. Random stuff happens, character interactions are stiffly unnatural, and plot exposition is incredibly clumsy. I don't think I could recommend this extremely silly manga for anything other than unintentional amusement. I much preferred the author's even more bizarre UFO Mushroom Invasion , as it was less awkward than this offputtingly odd story of prophesying cow people.

Bolts
Rating:

This has to be one of the most confusing and weirdly laid-out horror stories I think I've read in this entire guide. I am used to reading unorthodox or classic horror stories for this guide, but I think I genuinely felt myself scratching my head more than I was actually getting scared here. Don't get me wrong, there is some haunting imagery in this story focusing on a young girl discovering more about her twisted family heritage and how it led to the creation of certain abominations that she needs to unravel as the story continues. However, the actual panel layouts and progression of the story feel so disjointed that I had to double-check that I wasn't accidentally reading it out of order. There is no natural narrative flow from scene to scene, and I actually don't even know how much time passes throughout this story, which is especially weird because this volume is self-contained.

It starts strong with some decent mystery, revolving around the potentially aforementioned monster that has been birthed, but then the way the story plays out and loops back to that mystery doesn't feel satisfying. A lot of the characters just act weird or uncanny for the sake of it in the story. There are scenes of characters doing strange things like they're extras in a Tim Burton movie, but it never gets addressed or ties back into the main narrative concept. There's also weirdly a lot of history involved in this story. I can tell that the great Lord Momon, the story revolves around, is at least inspired by Japanese folklore, but the book expounds on that folklore so directly that I actually felt like I needed to take notes to fully appreciate some of the reveals.

When the story isn't being confusing, it's being boring, and when it's not being boring, it's not really being scary as much as it is just weird. I appreciate the art style for hitting this uncanny cartoon feel. Sometimes there are solid, exaggerated features that I think would only work in this style rather than in something more realistic. There are also certainly some frames that are probably going to stick with me for a while, just from the sheer vibes they gave off in a vacuum. However, this story isn't just an amalgamation of weird scenes for the sake of communicating unsettling imagery…or maybe it is because that would certainly explain why the narrative feels so off.

I know the publication of this book is a big deal, given that it's apparently one of the author's last pieces. But I wasn't invested in any of the family drama; I didn't really understand the sudden mood shifts of the main character, and by the time everything was said and done, I just felt exhausted, which was the last thing I was expecting to feel reading a horror story. I think you're better off checking out the creator's other works because this does not do his style justice. If I have to find a way to decipher the scares as if I'm solving a puzzle, then it's really not worth the effort.