The Monsters We Love – Our Torsos Align by Ryo Sumiyoshi

Never let it be said that I’m not a fan of the strange and unusual. I love monsters, aliens, and all sorts of mythical creatures and my favorite thing is to see them interact with the “normal” world. That is why it was very, very easy to pick up Ryo Sumiyoshi’s latest manga Our Torsos Align.

This is not my first encounter with Ryo Sumiyoshi’s work. My first was actually his dark, horror BL titled MADK. It is a dark story of a human who chooses to sell his soul to a demon and his climb toward being the most powerful demon in the world. After reading it, I fell madly in love with the artist’s style and most importantly his unique way of designing monsters.

So when I discovered he would be releasing an anthology, of course, it was going to be an instant buy for me. I finally got my hands on the physical copy and immediately fell in love with the art as I flipped through it.

Our Toros Align contains 6 stand-alone stories about love from beautiful innocent romance to parental love. There even is an example of obsessive love in the story Inhuman Flower — which turned out to be my favorite. What can I say? I have a type. To summarize, they deal very much with the idea of loneliness in many different forms — even in the face of death. As I absorbed each story I felt a connection with each and I was warmed by them. Yes, even the mean-spirited Inhuman Flower actually inspired emotion in me as its twist truly threw me for a loop. The fact that I couldn’t tell which was the most was quite incredible.

I can’t recommend them enough and I don’t particularly want to spoil them for you, but they bring a certain purity and understanding to the ideals of love in both its dark and light spectrums. Ryo Sumiyoshi has elevated himself to one of my favorite mangaka as he feeds a part of my love for monsters that I haven’t realized was starving. From his beautiful designs of these divine and monstrous creatures to the simplicity and innocence in which they interact act with each other. All of it ties together into a collage of gorgeous rarely explored views.

I for one can’t wait to see what else he comes out with and am excitedly anticipating volume 3 of MADK.

Depending on how much time I have, I may do a review of the current volumes of MADK considering I want to always promote this mangaka and his work as he is someone I am deeply invested in.

I hope you pick this one up as it’s a fine introduction to Ryo Sumiyoshi’s art and storytelling. Thank you for indulging me this time.

-Stay Well-Read-

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