Count me among the ranks of people who didn't know Anthony Bourdain was a fan of Japanese monster stories and pre-Comics Code horror comics, but was super intrigued when I found out he'd partnered with Joel Rose and some great artists to produce this collection. The premise is interesting: a group of world-renowned chefs are summoned to serve a party hosted by a rich but creepy Russian guy, who decides after dinner to make them play an ancient samurai game called 100 candles. In the game, each participant must tell a ghost story and then when finished, blow out a candle while looking into a mirror - if they can keep up their nerve. The goal is to see who can last the longest without becoming too scared to continue.

Unfortunately, there are some pretty obvious questions off the bat: Why can't the chefs just leave? Why would this guy think they all have awesome ghost stories in their back pockets? I just felt like as a framing MacGuffin it left a little something to be desired. The stories themselves are not just gory in the way of classic horror comics but also feature a lot of sexual violence, which sucked a lot of the fun out for me. That said, the highlight for me was the art by Irene Koh for the story "The Snow Witch."