Pumpkin Night

***Pumpkin Night*** is a manga primarily published on pumpkin-night.com, written by Masaya Hokasono and illustrated by Seima "Gussan" Taniguchi. It is also on Manga Line officially since August 2019, before it was on Web Comic Gamma (Takeshobo) when it debuted on October 20th, 2016.

The manga follows a deranged girl who adopts the name “Pumpkin Night” when she escapes from a mental hospital by killing all the nurses and patients. She goes out in the world, seeking bloody vengeance against a group of teenagers who played a prank on her and ruined her life back in middle school.

On June 2nd, 2020, a prequel series was released, called ***Pumpkin Night Gaiden: Naoko***, focusing on the titular gal's time at the mental hospital including her escape. It was cancelled for unknown reasons after chapter 6, no word on when it will resume.

## Plot

### Chapters

#### 1

A person wearing a pumpkin mask holds a knife and a cleaver in a hospital room, surrounded by the massacred bodies of the staff. At her home, Asumi Nakatami is looking through her Twitter feed, when she is followed by an account named Pumpkin Night, with the profile picture wearing the same pumpkin mask as during the hospital murders. The stranger DM's Asumi, telling her that she's going to die. Asumi's doorbell rings and after looking through the window, finds a pizza delivery man. Upon opening the front door, she discovers that a large part of the delivery man's head is missing, before being chased into her room by the stranger. Asumi calls Kazuya Makino, who tells her that Naoko Kirino, a girl that they bulied in junior high, has killed all the orderlies at her mental asylum and escaped. Asumi is stabbed in the back by Pumpkin Mask, who Asumi calls Naoko, before Naoko rips out her eyes. Asumi wanders blindly into the street and is killed by a passing truck. Naoko calls Kazuya and tells him that he's next. At Asumi's funeral, Kazuya meets with Naruto, Chiaki Saki and Arata Fukutani, the other people responsible for Naoko's institutionalization.

#### 2

Saki wonders whether Naoko is really the killer, but Kazuya tells her that the voice sounded like a child. Naruto suggests killing Naoko and framing her death as a suicide, leading to dean head Hiro-Kawa overhearing them, although they play it off. All of them realize that Pumpkin Night has followed them on social media. Saki runs away in fear, leading to everyone searching for her, until she is found by Hiro-Kawa, who tells her that he needs to know what she knows about Asumi's death. As Saki watches, Naoko appears behind Hiro-Kawa and impales him through the head.

#### 3

Naoko attacks Saki and uses her barbed scooper to rip off her nose. Naruto attempts to look for her, but is stopped by Nomizu, who tells him that she knows about his secrets. which is overheard by Kazuya. The building evacuates due to a fire alarm, and in the process, Naoko escapes undetected along with Saki. During the closed casket funeral for Asumi, Kazuya realizes that a still-alive Saki is trapped inside the coffin, which is heading towards the incinerator.

#### 4

As Hiro-Kawa's mutilated body is dropped from a roof, Naruto, Kazuya and Arata call a taxi cab to the crematorium. Naoko appears on a motor bike and causes the cab to crash, causing a piece of a road sign to kill the driver. Saki awakens inside the coffin alongside Asumi's body.

#### 5

The coffin containing Saki is placed into the fire and she is incinerated. Two traffic officers confront Naoko, but when one tries to take off her mask, Naoko kills them both. The people at the funeral realize Saki is in the coffin and discover that she's still alive. Kazuya tells Arata and Naruto that they need to tell the police, and they agree. While surgery is being done on Saki, she spots Naoko in the vents.

#### 5.5

A man named Taniguchi is being bullied by a group of other people while they are eating together. Taniguchi uses the bathroom and returns wearing a pumpkin mask, before impaling his tormentor from behind.

#### 6

Naoko drops down and murders the doctors, before electrocuting Saki using wires. The gang runs into the room and discovers a badly disfigured Saki, only for the camera to pan down and reveal that it is Naoko in reality.

#### 7

Naruto theorizes that Naoko wants to keep them alive in order to torture them. Morticians discover an extra body that died by electrocution. At night, Naoko reaches towards a sleeping Kazuya.

#### 8

Naoko begins to strangle Kazuya but stops when he talks in his dream. Kazuya dreams of a memory he had, when he convinced Naoko to take the mantle of Halloween Queen at junior high. Naoko realizes that Kazuya actually cares for her and kisses him, before leaving. It then cuts to Naoko's face melting at the dance, as she blames Kazuya. Kazuya wakes up and later as he is walking down the hall of the hospital, he is confronted by Naoko in her pumpkin mask.

#### 9

Kazuya follows Naoko and discovers that a cop is wearing the mask, hoping to lead Kazuya to Detective Matsui. Matsui shows Kazuya pictures of the corpses, and he recognizes one of them as Saki. Meanwhile, Saki's parents visit her in the hospital room. Kazuya and Matsui realize that Naoko switched places with Saki, while Naoko stabs a syringe through Saki's mother's tongue.

#### 10

Saki's mother berates Naoko, causing Naoko to stab her in the eyes. Kazuya tells Matsui how during the Halloween dance, Naoko put on the pumpkin mask after being crowned Halloween Queen. Due to firecrackers being put inside the mask, Naoko's hairspray caught on fire and burned her face. Saki's father attempts to hit Naoko with a folding chair, but misses and the chair crushes his wife's head, before Naoko slits his throat. As the hospital evacuates due to a fire, Kazuya spots Naoko in the crows.

#### 11

Naoko tells Kazuya that the pumpkin mask is what caught on fire, not the firecrackers, but the adults turned a blind eye towards it. Matsui finds the bodies of Saki's parents and catches up to Kazuya, but he allows Naoko to escape.

#### 12

Kazuya tells the rest of the gang about what happened. Matsui theorizes that Naoko's burning was a deliberate act. Naruto is confronted by Nomizu, who tells him that she saw him tinkering with the pumpkin mask, and now still has it. Nomizu attempts to have sex with Naruto, but is impaled through the breast by Naoko with a hook.

#### 12.5

The injured man runs from Taniguchi, only to be confronted by two more masked people.

#### 13

Naruto has his hand split in half by Naoko, who then bludgeons him with a brick. Naruto and Nomizu awaken tied to a trap that causes wire to strangle them, while Naoko live-streams on YouTube.

#### 14

Kazuya confronts Arata about tampering with the mask, who says that it was fun. Naoko forces Naruto to confess to putting sulfuric acid inside the mask on live-stream.

#### 15

Naoko stabs Nomizu through the side of the head and ties a wire around Naruto's neck, saying that the wire will decapitate him when the door opens. Naruto discovers that she and Kazuya were in a relationship, and gets close enough to wrap the wire around her hand, cutting it off when the door is opened.

#### 16

Naruto and Arata brutally beat Naoko, but they are stopped by Kazuya. Kazuya admits his love to Naoko, before they are both bludgeoned by Naruto and Arata with baseball bats.

#### 17

Matsui discovers that a higher-up has cancelled his investigation. Naruto's father, Mayor Tatsuo Kuroki, drives him, Arata, and the bound bodies of Kazuya and Naoko to a construction site, where Tatsuo tells them that they are going to die.

#### 18

Arata and Naruto throw Nomizu's corpse into the shaft. Tatsuo says that the cement will be poured tomorrow, and everything will be erased. Naoko vows vengeance on them, but Tatsuo uses a forklift and throws them down the shaft. As Arata enters the car, he spots the figure of Pumpkin Night on the roof.

#### 19

Pumpkin Night disappears, leading everyone to believe that it was an illusion. Kazuya discovers that he survived after landing on Nomizu's body, and that Naoko has been impaled by multiple metal bars. Naoko dies of her injuries, and Matsui's partner is revealed to be the new Pumpkin Night.

#### 19.5

The man is confronted by a horde of pumpkin mask-wearing people, all of whom are fans of a violent comic. Taniguchi then uses a hammer to break his jaw.

## Trivia

* English scans for the manga are notorious for altering the dialogue to include UK slang along with joke and meme lines, unfortunately until officially translated chapters of the manga are uploaded the English scans are the only way to experience the story if one can ignore the alterations done to the dialogue.
	+ Additionally chapters that have been translated unofficially often tend to be uploaded irregularly, with multiple chapters being uploaded on the same day, to a few months passing before a new chapter is uploaded, with only one other website along with Pumpkin Night.com being up to date with scanned chapters as of 2022. Another manga by the same creator of Pumpkin Night, Freak Island, suffers from the same uploading issues and UK dialogue translated scans, however it's uploading schedule fairs far worse on the same site, ranging from months to almost a year passing before a new chapter is uploaded onto the site.