31 favorite monsters: the Bugboy

I used to be called "bug boy" all the time in grade school, so I can relate to Hideshi Hino's creation of the same name. Despised even by his parents, the sad and misunderstood Sanpei prefers the company of insects over humans, but when he gets stung by a bizarre and unidentified caterpillar, he undergoes a long and agonizing transformation:



After months of rotting in his own skin and praying for death, Sanpei hardens into a humanoid chrysalis and emerges as a happy, healthy, bug-eyed maggot creature, flees his family and moves to the city sewers, where he eventually discovers that he has a lethal sting and goes mad with newfound power:



Sadly, Sanpei's fulfilling new life as a feared monster takes a turn for the worst by the end of the Manga, but that's to be expected from a Hino story; the man's entire career is built on grotesque manga with grotesque endings, and it's his child characters who suffer the worst - an artist after my own heart.