Oto Toda

‘To Strip the Flesh’ captured the understated, tired sort of discontent that comes from telling yourself, ‘I just have to hold out until…’ ‘I just have to keep living like this until…’ waiting for that distant future to come to you. When Chiaki talked about holding off on further transitioning until his father has passed and when he was going through the motions of his job, I felt that resignation and disconnect, and it rang very true to me. It made it that much more satisfying when Chiaki broke out of that holding pattern and bloomed into someone vibrant and alive. I also loved the visuals of Chiaki holding his knife to his chest and the dream he has of his father laying him out on the butcher’s table and removing his breasts and reproductive organs. They conveyed his repressed feelings clearly and poignantly.

The other short stories were more hit or miss and not really why I picked up the book. ‘I Just Love My Fave’, which shows the ghost of a famous idol’s grandmother supporting her grandson even after death, was sweet. ‘David in Love,’ which follows a doll replica of Michaelangelo’s David who falls in love with a little girl and tries to win her over, was… strange. It was kind of funny, but also what are we doing with this? ‘Hot Watermelon,’ in which a mother performs a ritual to allow her cruel son to feel her emotions, had some great body horror elements and a nice message. Of the Two-Page Mangas, there were one or two hits, but mostly they didn’t make much impression.… (more)

This is hard to review. I was drawn to this for the title story, which deals with the MC, Chiaki, and his gender dysphoria and eventual transition as a trans man. The depiction of hunting/butchering and the metaphor of removing flesh was a bit intense (I was glad it was drawn in black and white). However, I can understand that some readers might relate to this aspect and connect with it more. The relationship Chiaki has with his father was also handled in an interesting but also maybe problematic way. There’s a certain “ideal” of manliness hinted at here which I just couldn’t relate to. As for the other stories, they were not very interesting to me.… (more)

I enjoyed the titular To Strip the Flesh story, but I found most of the other short stories to be out of place. I was great disappointed that more of the stories didn't share any LGBT themes. I suppose there was some tentative connection of things not being exactly as they appear on the surface, but it's a bit of stretch. I found most of the other stories unappealing, some simply because I found them a bit bland, but others because they were disturbing. Hot Watermelon was very graphic and I was not expecting that level of body horror in this LGBT story.… (more)

I’m not sure if my copy of this book is the complete copy or just serial highlights. To strip the flesh is nothing like what I thought it would be based on the cover. I saw the meat hanging in the background, but I was somehow thinking this would about a serial killer, and it is not. It is about a character who has known their entire life they are a boy but was born biologically a girl. Mother has died, and their father cannot see the truth about his son. The story ties itself to hunting how to strip the flesh off the hunted animals. It also relates to stripping the body of unwanted/necessary body parts. Overall, I liked what I’ve read of this story, but there seems to be giant gaps. Especially since the story only takes up the first 89 or 90 pages. Then there is like nine other stories, and another five or 10 shorts that do not fit with Strip the Flesh.… (more)