Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Hell Screen by Mihiro

This manga adaptation of a classic Japanese horror story is shockingly nuanced, as writer and illustrator Mihiro reworks the tale for a modern audience, translated then into English by Itoh Makiko.

A bit about the original author himself before we continue. Akutagawa Ryunosuke is widely considered the father of the Japanese short story, with Japan’s foremost literary prize named after him. In 1927, at the age of thirty-five, he committed suicide. While living, one of his greatest concerns was madness, and how it could manifest in artistic obsession: the underlying theme of this adaptation of Hell Screen, which is itself an adaptation of an earlier folk tale.

The Grand Lord of Horikawa is said to be so powerful and divinely endowed that, at his birth, his mother was visited by the god Daiitoku-Myoo, who revealed to her that her child would be his reincarnation as the Destroyer of the King of Hell. Anecdotes from the Grand Lord’s life would seem to support this, as he takes credit for chasing off evil spirits and for a rather twisted sort of generosity.

While Horikawa itself is besieged by disease and disaster, the inhabitants of the Grand Lord of Horikawa’s estate live in safety and ease. This includes sweet Yuzuki, who is a lady’s maid there. Yuzuki is the daughter of the famed artist Yoshihide, whose talent is channeled into creating works of realistic depravity. While he paints predominantly religious scenes, he chooses to focus on the baser emotions of fear, cruelty and anger, especially in the commissions he makes for the Grand Lord and the local temple. He is, himself, an arrogant man who values his own artistry above everything else… except, that is, for his daughter Yuzuki.

When Yuzuki comes to the attention of the Grand Lord, a concerned Yoshihide begs repeatedly that she be released from the lord’s service. The Grand Lord refuses, and a chagrined Yoshihide throws himself even further into his work. He’s already well-known for spending hours in charnel houses, studying the dead for his depictions of hell. But he begins to torture his assistants as well, in an attempt to capture realistic expressions of pain and terror. When the Grand Lord commissions what could very well be the pinnacle of Yoshihide’s career — a folding screen illustrating the many tortures of Buddhist hell — it sets artist and patron on a collision course that can only end in death and despair.

Told by a willfully naive narrator who was once a servant at the Grand Lord’s estate too, this is a thoughtful meditation on power and evil despite the clearly biased point of view, enhanced by Mihiro’s own creative fillip at the end. The art is extraordinary: I full-on started crying at the last panels of Yuzuki and the monkey. I also super enjoyed the way Mihiro broke up the story to fit the manga.

But I also, in the course of writing this review, looked for a copy of the original story and found this translation by Kojima Takashi. And my take on the original is ultimately very different from the one presented here. In my interpretation of the deliberately evasive source text, Yoshihide made his horrifying final request knowing full well what the Grand Lord would do. While, in the manga, the Grand Lord’s choice is framed more as a punishment for Yoshihide’s arrogance, in the short story it seems pretty clear that this was the only avenue Yoshihide and Yuzuki had left. The manga definitely hit me harder in the feels, but the short story was a more intelligent, and frightening, depiction of the lengths people must go to in order to escape despotism. It’s also, perhaps weirdly, strongly feminist in its scathing depiction of how patriarchy causes some people to turn a blind eye to, or even reframe and excuse, matters of sexual harassment and assault.

I think that if you’ve never read this story before, you’ll definitely enjoy Mihiro’s adaptation. But I do strongly urge you to also look up the original afterwards, so you can make your own comparisons. Overall, I’m grateful that this manga exists, not only as a fine work of art on its own, but also as a compelling introduction of Akutagawa-san’s work to a wider audience.

Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Hell Screen by Mihiro was published March 25 2025 by Tuttle and is available from all good booksellers, including