Goths Cage

Author: Yasushi Suzuki
ISBN: 978-1-59796-157-4
Date Published: 10/27/2008
Format: Hardcover/ Color
Number of pages: 32
Rating: 15+
Price: $12.95

Goths Cage is an enchanting manga-esque picture book anthology of three short stories with a malicious twist of love and romance. It is based on Yasushi Suzuki’s art series that was previously released online in Japan under the name Phantoms KADAN. Suzuki re-adapts his art series and transforms it into a bewitching picture book with entrancing grace and charm. Each of his gothic tales is exquisitely crafted with elegant detailed illustrations that transport readers into a wickedly wondrous world of gothic glory.

In his first story, Glass Magic, Suzuki does a twisted take on the classic Cinderella tale. An ugly corpse-like servant girl wishes to fall in love with a prince and become a beautiful princess. A sinister old witch offers her a magic potion that can grant her heart’s desires, but in order for the magic to work she must abandon her soul. She gets rid of her memories, her face, and her master to become a cruelly beautiful glass princess.

The Feeling of Pain features a young boy’s excruciating attempts to escape the devilishly impregnable prison he is trapped in. His cries of pain call forth a wickedly malicious devil, who jeers at his futile attempts to escape.

Lastly, in The Pair, the shop keeper of an enchanted barbershop attends to his beautiful victim under the moonlight. He snips away at her body, only keeping the “pretty” parts to add to his collection of parts he needs to resurrect his dead wife.

Prepare to be mesmerized by Yasushi Suzuki’s spine-chillingly dark stories of love and entrancement in this splendid collection of spellbinding illustrations and twisted tales.