Everyone who lives in Chibon Kaburi knows to stay away from the Forbidden Lands. But not everyone knows why. For Tasuku Suzusaka, a middle schooler suffering under his abusive father, one unfortunate act unleashes an ancient curse that will change everything. Monsters emerge from the Forbidden Lands, and a nightmare begins. Suzusaka will have to face his demons — and the demons of the land — if he hopes to survive.

The manga opens to a horrific image–a man digging a grave for a badly beaten child tangled up in a blanket, right in front of a small shrine to a local deity.

Then we flash back to the days before all of this happened, and we see the child, Tasuku Suzusaka, alive and at school, wishing he was an adult already. He is quiet at school and considered a weirdo; he hides his terrible abuse from everyone; and his one solace out of the day is when he goes to the local konbini to pick up food, and the lady at checkout is always nice to him and thinking of him.

The rumor around school–and nobody knows how it started or why it came up suddenly–is that the older part of the area known as Chibon Kaburi, which has a violent history and is considered a forbidden place, has a legend. If you kill someone on the grounds of Chibon Kaburi’s guardian deity, the god will reawaken.

Flash back to the moment before Tasuku’s death–he finally stands up for himself against his violently abusive father, only to be beaten to death–and we find Tasuku’s father in front of the shrine to the deity, digging the hole for his son’s body.

Only…Tasuku awakens! His father freaks out and attempts to kill Tasuku again, and they fight…and Tasuku ends up stabbing his father in the throat with a thick piece of tree branch. His father bleeds out, and then there’s a horrible screech…

The killer demonic guardian has awakened. It eats the father’s body and turns on Tasuku, who manages to escape. He runs into town to find it overrun by strange beings/men who are killing everyone in a melee. He is rescued by a fellow classmate who can kick ass with taekwondo, and he finds an abandoned sword to carry around as a weapon. The two try to head towards the school, a designated shelter for the town, but keep walking in circles. The town is blocked off and no one can leave.

The straits get even more dire than that, and once Tasuku hears the fullness of the legend of Chobin Kaburi, he feels immediate guilt, as well as guilt over the people who died that he couldn’t protect.

And oh gosh, the deaths in this manga. Beheadings. Being sliced in half. Limbs flying everywhere. They’re either at the hands of the weird men from town, from the strange deity himself, or the new monsters that have appeared in the area.

The manga ends on a cliffhanger and I am so desperate to know what happens next.

This is a bizarre, fast-paced horror story tying mythology and uniquely creepy monsters and gods together. At this point in the game, I cannot even remotely predict what’s going to happen or how our characters are going to survive. I just feel intensely bad for Tasuku, whose life was already terrible before these nightmares were unleashed. I truly hope he survives and finds a life worth living for.

I’m torn between a 4.25 and a 4.5 with this one. Some of the violence seemed a little gratuitous, and I love me some horror with scary bits, so my reaction to all of the death and bodily destruction actually surprised me. Am I getting more sensitive? …I guess I’m going to stick with 4.25. Hooray for Goodreads and their new rating system!

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Chibon Kaburi: The Masked God was given to me as a digital ARC directly from the publisher, TOKYOPOP. I am happy to leave a review for this manga. It releases October 20, 2026, and you can find it from a variety of booksellers online and in store, or you can buy it (or preorder!) directly from the publisher.