The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

Paranoia Cage

What's It About? 

Mizuki, an adult manga artist (and a virgin), has begun to live on her own. She now spends her days with Saki, her assistant (and BL author), in an unending quest to create the ultimate adult manga. Even Mizuki's new editor can't stop himself from shrinking in the face of this font of infinite lewdness...

Paranoia Cage has story and art by Coolkyoushinja, with English translation by Ko Ransom, and VAST Visual released its first volume physically in February and released the first two volumes digitally on September 13.

CW: This manga heavily features rape fantasy as a topic.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Mizuki is an adult manga creator. She loves drawing genitals and ahegao (a specific form of o-face). That's…about it, really, when it comes to the plot of Paranoia Cage. How funny you find the idea of a highly enthusiastic adult manga creator who seems to draw the same kind of story over and over again is likely to determine your mileage for this title.

It's not without its moments, of course – it is by the creator of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, after all. The chapter where Mizuki and her assistant Saki are trying to come up with some proprietary sound effects is really funny, mostly because so many of the ones they attempt are awful beyond all belief, both in terms of ickiness and sense. Mizuki's habit of discussing her rape fantasy plots at full volume in public restaurants is also entertaining, mostly because of her total obliviousness to the fact that her work might not be for general consumption. Her new, virginal editor also has some good moments when he tries to shut her down, and he gets the flavor of her work figured out pretty darn quickly as well.

But mostly this is a lot of the same couple of gags repeated over and over. It's great that Mizuki likes what she likes so unabashedly, but it definitely starts to drag after a couple of chapters, and even Ko Ransom's very readable and occasionally funny translation can't make this amusing for a full 118 pages. Obviously humor is subjective and your mileage is likely to vary, but I think there are better manga about drawing manga out there.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

I never thought I could relate so strongly to a character that gets so much satisfaction from just drawing dicks and intercourse. You see the title Paranoia Cage and you think you're in for something almost psychological and suspenseful, but instead what we get is a relatively simple story about an eccentric woman just struggling to get by. I was admittedly caught off-guard by the simple art style where only two characters in the entire cast have any discernible facial features, but it grew on me over time. The manga definitely has a crude sense of humor given its subject matter and it can definitely dip into some childish punchlines, but there were just as many times I found myself drawn into its rather bizarre streams of consciousness.

There isn't really a story here as much as an assortment of random skits centered around a simple premise, but the volume gets a surprising amount of mileage out of it. Even when I wasn't laughing at the jokes, I actually found myself relating pretty hard to the main character, as all she wants to do is make a living doing what she loves, even if it seems weird or unorthodox to others. As someone who technically earns part of a living by writing about Japanese cartoons and comic books, it is comforting to see. Plus, while the humor doesn't always land, our main characters' general eccentricities always keep me on my toes, with some gags working better than I thought simply because of the attitude with which they are delivered. If you're an adult artist that has a crass sense of humor, Paranoia Cage can definitely put a smile on your face.

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Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

With a title like “Paranoia Cage,” I expected some kind of horror manga. Nope, it's just the Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid mangaka making an adult comedy. And curiously, this one actually ran in an adult manga anthology in Japan! Manga and anime that deal with inside baseball have always been immensely engaging, but there's not a lot of manga about the adult side of things (outside of Doujin Work, and nobody remembers that). Paranoia Cage covers a lot of the day-to-day foibles of making eromanga: trying to draw arousing bodies while considering the limitations of the printing process, factoring in page formatting for differing mediums, the basic nuts-and-bolts of socializing when your job is drawing porn... it's all really engaging stuff.

Coolkyousinnjya's art is the same super deformed style that somehow meshes with the few tantalizing shots of naked bodies, bared breasts and silhouettes of lewd activities on computer screens. The characters still don't look much like adults (the protagonist's editor looks like a grade schooler), but there's good face game at work—especially when Mizuki ropes people in to help her draw the perfect O-face.

How much you enjoy this is really gonna depend on how comfortable you are with adult manga being discussed by blob-people. It's a fun read, and it's surprising how distant it manages to keep itself from lewd material (up into you're flashed Mizuki's boobs). Mildly recommended, the adult humor along makes for quite a few reservations.