[10] Katsuichi Nagai, the founder of Garo, decided to blank the final panel of "A Tale of Absolute and Utter Nonsense"—showing the back of Emperor Hirohito tipping his hat—out of fear of attacks from right-wing groups due to perceived lèse-majesté.

[16] Greg Hunter of The Comics Journal ascribed a visual airiness to the manga which meshes well with the stories, noting a tension between Tsuge's apolitical beliefs and the subject matter, concluding by saying: "it is no exaggeration to say that the book is a triumph—a moving collection of art made in depressed circumstances, and with irony and ambiguity intact.

"[17] Hillary Brown of Paste felt that the art was primitive and that the manga did not try to get inside the heads of its characters, likening it to Roger Corman's films by saying that it is "driven by social issues and a sense of unease, long on cheap style and energy, full of titillation and with little in the way of gray.

"[2] Publishers Weekly described the manga as dark, "but never maudlin, and thoughtful without falling into pretension", but called its tendency to ramble its biggest flaw, concluding that it is "an honest, uncomfortable look into postwar malaise".

"[1] Sean Rogers of The Globe and Mail described it as "one of the year's major comics publications, historically important and aesthetically raw," adding that Tsuge depicts postwar Japan "with a crudity that hovers between realism and disgust.