The combination of Kago’s precise, expressive, and kinetic line work with his wacky storytelling is at turns engrossing and repulsive. Mature fans of unconventional manga will appreciate the surreal spiral of body horror, tragicomedy, and dark humor.—Publishers Weekly

Brain Damage is a work of horror as art; the quartet of tales within plumb the depths of psychological and visceral terror with deftness and a touch of humor as only Kago can. —Booklist

Kago works in crisp, black-and-white line drawings, always contained within sharply delineated, exacting panels, never breaking through boundaries, as if exerting the last single measure of control over the graphic gore and horror mangling and destroying his characters. Backgrounds, scenery, clothing, expressions are often enhanced in meticulous detail--even more intricately precise when depicting gaping wounds (dislodged eyeballs, spilt innards) and missing appendages (headless corpses)--heightening the already visually shocking realism throughout.—Shelf Awareness Starred Review

As much as I admire Kago's oddness as a writer, his artistic pen is even sharper. [His characters] retain a realistic edge that intensifies their horror-tinged universe.—PopMatters

If you’re an Ito fan, you’ll be right at home here… “Labyrinth Quartet,” presents four identical young women who find themselves imprisoned in an abandoned building, leading them to investigate why they’ve been styled to look like each other while they search for escape. The sicko who kidnapped them has a very specific application in mind for them, taking the concept of four-panel comics to a truly novel new plateau.—Cinema Sentries

Kago is truly one of a kind and this collection is no exception. You get everything you'd expect from his work. Strange, surreal, and beautifully horrific storytelling that's totally unlike anything else out there.—Anime Collective

The stories within Brain Damage feel like what would happen if Monty Python decided to dabble heavily in horror alongside their usual comedic stylings. Horror stories often tend to rely on tropes, with the best stories in the genre subverting them in unexpected ways which Shintaro Kago has done masterfully here. Even following the carefully-placed breadcrumbs, Kago still managed to surprise me.—Yatta Tachi

Brain Damage, with its bizarre punchline twist endings continues to resonate despite the fact that author Shintaro Kago explicitly states in the notes that he was mainly coming up with bizarre scenarios to lead to those punchlines than writing linear stories. Somehow, that just works to make them seem that much scarier. —Book and Film Globe

Kago does an amazing thing where he puts a black humor twist to everything. So you might see some visceral horror, some really hard subject matter. But at the end of the day it will make you laugh.—Back Corner Comics

Alternately horrific and hilarious, corny and horny, it's less audacious than what longtime fans might be used to, but it's stronger for the fact that its story structures are in the vein of familiar horror classics that it should provide a good entry point to his weirder back catalogue.—The Comics Journal

This is horror that dissects as much as it disgusts, and if you can endure its more extreme moments, it’s an unforgettable return from one of manga’s most provocatively inventive voices.—Broken Frontier

As to be expected from Kago, the artwork here is impeccable from a technical perspective, offering a sense of movement and speed that the best manga can achieve, replete with gore-strewn jump scares appropriate to the horror genre.—LA Review of Books