100 GHOST STORIES THAT WILL LEAD TO MY OWN DEATH is a spooky countdown to the end

100 Ghost Stories That Will Lead to My Own Death Volume 1

Story and Art: Anji Matono
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment (Print & Digital)
Translation: John Neal
Lettering: Kai Kyou
Publication Date: December 10, 2024
Rating: Older Teen
Genre: Manga, Horror, Supernatural

I’m a fan of horror manga and the premise of this one drew me in—an elementary school boy, Yuuma, tries to kill himself by jumping out a window, and his classmate Hina attempts to save his life by telling him about the legend of the 100 ghost stories—if you tell 100 spooky tales, at the end of it all, you’ll see a ghost. This has Yuuma intrigued enough to prolong his life, and he begins the ritual. Every night he tells a new ghost story to a camera, filming himself, and plans on meeting his goal of 100.

The reader accompanies Yuuma on his adventure, taking a seat behind his camera to observe each tale being told. The stories are short: ten different stories fit into this single volume. They vary from macabre and grotesque to weird and oddly funny.

The art style of the manga changes depending on the emotions of the scene. Yuuma is depicted on the cover with overly large all-black eyes—I see this motif a lot in horror manga, where the eyes look like solid pupil. This tends to happen in scary situations, with either the supernatural creature having freaky eyes, or the victim having them. It usually suggests the idea of being dead inside, or close to death.

Yuuma doesn’t always have these eyes in the manga. His eyes are still large, showing innocence and emotion and even wonder at times, but they look more balanced and less creepy. When you get to Yuuma in front of the camera, he looks less startling and more like an ordinary boy, and dare I say it, kind of adorable.

The art of the characters in the stories Yuuma tells also changes. When characters are in everyday situations and their lives are relatively normal, the art reflects that. But when emotions kick up, or the supernatural gets involved, faces become more exaggerated, and the lines in the art become more pronounced and detailed. The eyes are a major focus in this to indicate when things are terribly wrong, like in this scene.

Here’s another one. The eyes are more realistic here, but still larger—her eyes aren’t completely blacked out, so we know she’s not a supernatural character—but something disturbing and mysterious is still going on.

The stories here are pretty original to me. Some of them feel like they could be urban legends, passed down over time, while others seem completely invented on the author’s part. Matono is very talented in this—giving stories different tones and making their origins unclear. The effect of this is that the tales feel more real, as though a storyteller is really there sharing what they know, whether they’ve heard it before or are making it up as they go.

Some of the stories follow horror’s unofficial rule that there is a moral lesson included in the tale. In other words, if someone does something wrong or taboo, there will be payback, or at least a warning. For example, in one of the stories, a man is trying to swindle an old woman, and his comeuppance is quite dire.

One of the stories even gave me Junji Ito vibes—particularly the tale involving slugs in the ear. That is one of my biggest fears, to have a living creature climb up in there. When I lived in Japan, I heard that roaches climbed in people’s ears while they slept, and I lost many hours of sleep trying to figure out ways to protect my head. It may or may not have been true, but it scared me all the same. So when it came to the slug story, my stomach dropped seeing images like this one.

And of course, things get much worse and more disgusting than this picture even shows.

Overall this is an excellent addition to the horror manga genre, with a wide variety of stories and plenty of haunting images to get your imagination to run away with you. The title of the manga, 100 Ghost Stories That Will Lead to My Own Death, suggests that things aren’t going to end well for little Yuuma when all of this is said and done. He’s a morbid little boy, and we don’t know why he tried to kill himself (at least not yet), but he’s still a child all the same…and perfectly capable of scaring himself as he shares his tales.

Maybe you should leave the light on, too, as you read.

The first volume of 100 Ghost Stories That Will Lead to My Own Death is available now from Seven Seas and wherever manga is sold. The second volume is coming soon, with a release date of April 8, 2025. You can learn more about the manga and purchase here.