That's a good one too.  Have you ever seen Gozu?  If not, get ye self to watching it, it's up there in the weird seats.  Yeah, ever since he did that kid movie The Great Yokai War, he's not been as crazy, doing more mainstream stuff, though admittedly I've not been able to watch a lot of stuff lately.  He's still got a great eye though as saw 13 Assassins and it was beautiful, just not weird.<br/><br/>I've not gotten to read the novel either.  I know that the manga is suppose to be a lot more extreme.  Like I was trying to see more about the Kakihara character and saw he's a lot more despicable in the book, he's almost the person you root for in the movie.  And feel free to spoil away... the last manga I read was the Pet Shop of Horrors because my SO insisted, she's more the anime and manga person.