海獣の子供 [Kaijū no Kodomo / Children of the Sea] #4

Volume 4 of Daisuke Igarashi's haunting Children of the Sea delivers one of the series' most visually arresting covers: a young boy surrounded by a writhing mass of pale, skeletal sea creatures — crabs, serpentine forms, and deep-sea crustaceans tumbling through a dark, starlit void. The image perfectly captures the series' core tension between childhood wonder and something vast and unknowable lurking beneath the ocean's surface. Igarashi's delicate, almost watercolor-like linework makes the strange and unsettling feel quietly, beautifully alive.