Heartbreak Angels

Here's a collection of off-color gags that's at once charming, disgusting and laugh-out-loud funny. Originally appearing in the pages of Pulp magazine and released now collected, the manga work is a series of 4koma, with an occasional series blown up over two full pages for striking visual effect. The lineup of endearing, albeit repulsive, characters includes a very young sex-crazed couple whose encounters parody presumptions of sexual innocence with punch lines about kinky fantasies and scatology. There's a mangaka(Kikuni himself?) whose sexual response is ritualistically heightened by humiliating comments about his minuscule penis. Then there's a daft father and son duo so poor that the boy is reduced to using soy sauce as pigment for an art class assignment. Kikuni's cute drawings work along with his twisted stories and characters to boost the works's shock value and to keep the humor fresh.