Did Masaaki Nakayama’s horror manga end up haunting its creator? Possible, but unlikely.
Masaaki Nakayama is the second most mentioned horror mangaka after Junji Ito. His most famous work, PTSD Radio, is an anthology of manga stories centered around an ancient cryptic deity known as Ogushi who haunts and tortures humans. The legend goes that the author himself ended up being haunted, so he permanently shelved the unfinished manga series for the sake of his sanity. Is there any truth to this legend at all?
The most likely source of the rumor is volumes 5 and 6 of PTSD Radio. Somewhere in the pages, Nakayama included a few short stories explaining his inspiration for the manga vignettes. According to these stories, eight years before the release of volume 5, he rented new office space for himself and his assistants. Everything was going well until strange, scratching sounds started coming from the attic.
Upon inspecting the attic, Nakayaama discovered a broken shrine, and this is when bizarre things started happening in the office: lights flickering on and off on their own, unexplainable foul smells, loud noises… Classic ghost stuff. The story culminates in his assistants spotting shadow-like figures around the room, from small crow creatures to what looked like human beings. Whenever anyone noticed these figures, they’d fall sick, including Nakayama himself. He even got hospitalized with a rare blood disorder.
Now, it’s up to the reader to decide what is real and what is fiction, and which one came first. The short extras do sound like chapters from Nakayama’s anthology, so it could be that the author decided to pull a Blair Witch and add some mystique to his creation by implying that it was inspired by real events.
The non-paranormal explanation for PTSD Radio's hiatus is a bit anticlimactic: apparently, the magazine it ran in ceased publication a few years ago, and as a result, so did the manga.
For now, the author has yet to announce if and when the manga is going to continue. The last volume came out in 2019, so fans consider it the official conclusion of the series. Nakayama is still very much active as a manga author on another horror anthology called Fuan no Tane, although it is much harder to find a proper translation into English.
Did Masaaki Nakayama’s horror manga end up haunting its creator? Possible, but unlikely.
Masaaki Nakayama is the second most mentioned horror mangaka after Junji Ito. His most famous work, PTSD Radio, is an anthology of manga stories centered around an ancient cryptic deity known as Ogushi who haunts and tortures humans. The legend goes that the author himself ended up being haunted, so he permanently shelved the unfinished manga series for the sake of his sanity. Is there any truth to this legend at all?
The most likely source of the rumor is volumes 5 and 6 of PTSD Radio. Somewhere in the pages, Nakayama included a few short stories explaining his inspiration for the manga vignettes. According to these stories, eight years before the release of volume 5, he rented new office space for himself and his assistants. Everything was going well until strange, scratching sounds started coming from the attic.
Upon inspecting the attic, Nakayaama discovered a broken shrine, and this is when bizarre things started happening in the office: lights flickering on and off on their own, unexplainable foul smells, loud noises… Classic ghost stuff. The story culminates in his assistants spotting shadow-like figures around the room, from small crow creatures to what looked like human beings. Whenever anyone noticed these figures, they’d fall sick, including Nakayama himself. He even got hospitalized with a rare blood disorder.
Now, it’s up to the reader to decide what is real and what is fiction, and which one came first. The short extras do sound like chapters from Nakayama’s anthology, so it could be that the author decided to pull a Blair Witch and add some mystique to his creation by implying that it was inspired by real events.
The non-paranormal explanation for PTSD Radio's hiatus is a bit anticlimactic: apparently, the magazine it ran in ceased publication a few years ago, and as a result, so did the manga.
For now, the author has yet to announce if and when the manga is going to continue. The last volume came out in 2019, so fans consider it the official conclusion of the series. Nakayama is still very much active as a manga author on another horror anthology called Fuan no Tane, although it is much harder to find a proper translation into English.
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