Hello Devilfish!

The anarchist as social monster, scoffing at bourgeois values, is supersized into a 90-ft. “gigantor” blue stingray in this rapid-fire stomp through pop culture and Japanese monster movies. The titular creature, actually named Hello Devilfish! and also known as the “Marquis de Cod,” sprays napalm breath along with caustic commentary on the hapless residents of Tokyo while fleeing the unwanted affections of Squidra, a 100-ft. cuttlefish aiming to usurp his turf and his love. Seeking to destroy “Big Lit,” Hello Devilfish! proclaims his anti-book manifesto. Then an industrial accident shrinks him down into mere human form. Mistaken for a member of Blue Man Group, he wanders the Tokyo nightlife, sampling fast-food sea-slug sandwiches and cosplay bars, always dodging Squidra’s grasping tentacles. Dakron (Mantids) tosses out a stream of cultural criticisms warped as puns (“You gotta fight for your Reich to party”), even as he admits there’s no point in trying to upset our all-absorbing entertainment-industrial complex (“Nazi jokes are so 20th century”). Resistance may be futile, but this book at least makes it fun. (Oct.)