In Q4 2005, in the midst of a nonproductive period, he was exploring new ideas for "stories about monsters with no positive outcome".
In a subsequent interview with CNews2, Tanabe said how he was impressed by characters who "lose all hope and appetite for life.
[2] In 2007, he drew the romantic drama Kasane (累) in the magazine Comic Beam, published in the same year by Enterbrain, as well as The Outsider (アウトサイダー), loosely adapted from H. P. Lovecraft's short story.
[3] In 2015, he drew Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space (異世界の色彩) in Comic Beam, which was published by Enterbrain.
In 2016, Enterbrain published further Lovecraft's adaptations of The Haunter of the Dark (闇に這う者) and At the Mountains of Madness (狂気の山脈にて).