Shintaro Kago
駕籠 真太郎
Shintaro Kago at Lucca Comics & Games 2015
Born1969 (age 54–55)
Tokyo, Japan
NationalityJapanese
Area(s)Manga artist

Shintaro Kago (駕籠 真太郎, Kago Shintarō, born 1969) is a Japanese guro manga artist. He debuted in 1988 on the magazine COMIC BOX.

Style

Shintaro Kago's style has been called "fashionable paranoia," although he has stated the term stems from Western media and he doesn't use it himself. He has been published in several adult manga magazines, gaining him considerable popularity. Many of his manga have strongly satirical overtones (heavily influenced by Monty Python),[1] often parodying Japanese and Russian politics. Separately, he deals extensively with grotesque subjects such as extreme sex, rape, scatology and body modification (to the extent of forniphilia).

He has also written non-guro sci-fi manga, most notably Super-Conductive Brains Parataxis (超伝脳パラタクシス) for Weekly Young Jump. Many of his shorts are experimental and bizarre. He frequently breaks the fourth wall, and he likes to play with the page layout in extreme ways, mostly for comedic effect.

When asked about his influences, he's mentioned Shigeru Mizuki, Fujiko Fujio, Masamune Shiro, and Katsuhiro Otomo.[2][3]

When not working in manga, he sculpts gag figurines of the same themes.[4]

In popular culture

On April 4, 2006, an exhibition of his works, Unsanitary Condition Exhibition (不衛生博覧会) was opened. The same month he held the opening of his movie convention: Shit Film Festival (うんこ映画祭).

From September 3–15, 2007, the Vanilla Gallery in Tokyo held another exhibition of his works, Unsanitary Festival in the Cool of the Night (納涼不衛生まつり). In 2013, Kago Shintaro was invited for a new exhibition outside of Japan titled Unsanitary Hong Kong Exhibition at CIA (Culture Industries Association).[citation needed]

His work has been seen as album material for the 2014 Flying Lotus release You're Dead!, released via Warp. He designed the album's cover artwork and provided illustrations for each of the album's songs, which are featured on the inner sleeves of the vinyl album.[5] In addition, Kago designed the album cover for Offset's Bent Benevolence.[6]

On June 17 2022, Kago announced the development of his first anime, Abstraction, produced by DRP. The animated film will be based on tales from the Bible.[7] To fund the work, Kago held a digital exhibition, Dessication, for the purpose of selling NFT's of his work. It was followed by another exhibition, Eve of Revolution, showing behind-the-scenes content.[8]

List of works

Collections of One-Shots
  • Bride in Front of the Station (駅前花嫁) (collection of 13 one-shots)
    • Collects: Bride, Drawers, Excavations, Faucets, Fixation, The Flying Bride, Labyrinth, Particles, Pyromania, Reflexions, Saws, and Quartering
  • Contamination with Foreign Matter (異物混入) (History Lesson #1-7 and 22 bonus one-shots)
    • Collects: History Lesson #1-7, The Abandoned Children Championship, Angel, The Anteater, The App From Hell, The Bang Wall, Cataclysm, The Dentist, Explosive Sexual Satisfaction Syndrome, The Genius of Cunnilingus, Grains of Rice, High Noon, Just Married, Maternal Instinct, A New Athletic Discipline, The New Minamida Funeral Services, New Product; Panda! Go, Panda; Phimosis Hunters, The Prison Guard, SM Temptation, Snot, and Stomatitis
  • Dance! Kremlin Palace (踊る!クレムリン御殿) (collection of 12 one-shots)
    • Collects: Borscht Fight; Call The Storm!! Violent Soviet Land Strikes Back!!; The Cossacks, Perestroika and Me; His Excellency the Daredevil; I Can Hear The Warsaw Anthem; Let's Go Gorbies! Baseball Tournament; Let's Ride a Bicycle!; Love Beyond the Tundra; The Overthrown USSR; Summer Of Stress, Russian Summer; Under the Star of the Red Flag, and The What and Why Encyclopedia: What is Communism?!
  • Dream Toy Factory (夢のおもちゃ工場) (collection of 13 one-shots)
    • Collects: Closed Hospital, Drafting a Water Goddess, Dream Toy Factory, The How and What of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, The How and What of Excretion in the Future, The How and What of Future Sports, The How and What of a Space War, Lament of the Headless (aka Head Prolapse Elegy), Mr. Urashima, Sweet Fashion Notes, Tale of Reversed Oddity, White String, and White Teeth are Nice
  • Eccentric Pictorial (奇人画報) (Collecting #1-6 and three bonus one-shots)
    • Collects: Collecting #1-6, Harakiri, Holy Night, and Voracious Itches
  • Hannya Haramita (ハンニャハラミタ) (collection of seven one-shots)
    • Collects: Animal Kingdom, Aogeba Totoshi, Ataraxia, Demon Seed, Hannya Haramita, The Summer Bugs that Fly into Your Eyes, Tail Study
  • Kasutoru Shiki (かすとろ式) (collection of 14 one-shots)
    • Collects: Abstraction, Akutagawa, Back Streets, Blow-Up, Communicable Mouth Disease (aka Oral Cavity Infectious Syndrome), Genesis, Local Tourist Information, Lord of the Ring, Memories of Others, Multiplication, No Need for Caution, Spinning Thoughts, Superglue, and When All's Said and Done
  • Is It Possible for a Collision on the Way to School to Result in a Kiss? Experiment (登校途中の出会い頭の偶然キスはありうるか?実験) (collection of 45 works)
    • Collects: 19 art pieces, five Paranoia Street spin-off shorts, and 21 one-shots (The Apollo Conspiracy, The Art of Skinning, Burgers, Burn-Out, The "Can an Accidental Collision on the Way to School Result in a Kiss?" Experiment, Caries, Change, Disintegration of a Face, The Five-Second Rule, The Girl Nobody Noticed, The Implementation of Urban Legends, The Last Moments of a Manga Artist, The Mosquito-Crusher, No Parking, Paradise of the Bun, Rubik's Cube, Selective Memory, The Stretcher Rally, Summary; Terror on the Town!; and Tubes)
  • Murder Techniques Throughout the Ages (すべての時代を通じての殺人術) (collection of 11 one-shots)
    • Collects: The Artist's Hellscape, Blood Magic and the Spell of Love, A Convex World, The Dwarves and the Shoemaker (adapted from The Elves and the Shoemaker), Gipangu Products Don't Break, Malice of the Void, The Mystery of Sanae-san, Nice Balls, Super-Dimensional Love Gun, Vampirism Through the Ages, and Violent Homicide Friend Park
  • Super-Dimensional Love Gun (Bizarre Manga Artist Shintaro Kago's Pretty Girls Collection) (collection of 15 one-shots)
    • Collects: Collecting #1: Touch (aka The Collection); Collecting #6: Loss (aka Fetus Collection); Communicable Mouth Disease (aka Oral Cavity Infectious Syndrome), India Station, Inviz, Lament of the Headless (aka Head Prolapse Elegy), Local Tourist Information, Miss Tomezuka's Refined Hobby, Ready-to-Assemble Super-Dimensional Love Gun, Shigure Konno's Blessed Life, The Summer Bugs that Fly into Your Eyes, Super-Dimensional Love Gun, Tono Station, The Town of Japan's Best Beauties, and White String
  • Uneven Nymphomania (凸凹ニンフォマニア) (collection of five one-shots)
    • Collects: A Certain Hero's Death, The Great Traffic War of the Power Plant, Guard Your Left, The Power Plant, Vacation of the Power Plant

References

  1. ^ Sisley, Dominique (February 25, 2019). "The wonderfully weird world of Shintaro Kago, manga outsider". Huck Magazine. Retrieved October 8, 2022.
  2. ^ Sisley, Dominique (February 25, 2019). "The wonderfully weird world of Shintaro Kago, manga outsider". Huck Magazine. Retrieved October 8, 2022.
  3. ^ "DRP". drp.io. Retrieved October 8, 2022.
  4. ^ "New Shintaro Kago Toys | AkaTako.net - USA Based Japanese Art Online Shop". www.akatako.net. Retrieved September 27, 2022.
  5. ^ "Flying Lotus Album to Feature Kendrick Lamar, Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg". spin.com. August 12, 2014. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  6. ^ "Bent Benevolence, by Offset". Offset. Retrieved October 8, 2022.
  7. ^ "Shintaro Kago announces upcoming film with exhibition Eve of Revolution". retrofuturista.com. June 17, 2022. Retrieved June 23, 2022.
  8. ^ "DRP". drp.io. Retrieved October 8, 2022.

Interviews