The manga PTSD Radio is on “unofficial hiatus,” allegedly due to a series of mysterious, disturbing incidents that happened to the artist.
Initially reported by Anime Senpai, horror manga artist Maasaki Nakayama abruptly stopped publishing their PTSD Radio manga in 2018 after the aforementioned incidents occurred. While Nakayama made no formal announcement regarding the manga’s hiatus, many fans attribute it to the fact that the artist nearly lost their life while making it, contracting a mysterious illness that caused the same symptoms experienced by a character in PTSD Radio. Nakayama continues to release chapters of his other horror manga, Fuan no Tane, or Seeds of Anxiety.
First published on July 7, 2010, PTSD Radio is a series of different short manga tales that frequently depicts horrifying versions of everyday household objects. The titular radio, for example, appears in the manga as the bottom half of a human face. According to Nakayama, the strange events surrounding this series actually started at the building where Nakayama created it. They discovered a broken shrine at the rented workplace where Nakayama and his team worked on the series. Shortly afterward, the entire team started noticing strange things about the building, including unexplained scratching noises from the ceiling, lights switching on and off, and the appearance of strange shadows throughout the studio.
Real-Life Events Mimicked Scenes From the Manga
As these events unfolded, some of Nakayama’s team fell ill, but things came to a head after Nakayama suddenly developed a rare autoimmune disease called Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) which causes the immune system to destroy blood-clotting platelets, triggering heavy bleeding. While detailing his experience in his manga, Nakayama described his manifestation of the disease as “black, gelatinous blood blisters all over my lips, tongue and gums that wouldn’t stop bleeding” Hematomas, or clotted blood spots, also appeared on the artist’s body. After describing his symptoms to his doctor, the physician urged Nakayama to go to the hospital, stressing that his life was in immediate danger. Strangely, PTSD Radio depicted a similar scenario to Nakayama’s bleeding mouth. This scene shows a character vomiting blood, from which demons promptly emerge.
Although ITP nearly took his life, Nakayama experienced another bizarre medical episode in 2018, which he also chronicled in his manga. This time, the artist experienced a drastic drop in body temperature, in addition to the swelling of his entire face. After the abrupt appearance of this strange new condition, Nakayama stopped publishing new chapters of PTSD Radio while continuing work on his other series.
PTSD Radio is available in English from Kodansha US.
Source: Anime Senpai
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