Month: September 2019

The Firing Effect — Synopsis

Kirie’s father, the pottery maker, has been producing some very strange pieces recently. What were once clean, solid pieces of hand-crafted clay, come out of his kiln all twisted and spiralled out of shape. They also bare strange markings — not only the hypnotic pattern of the spiral, but the faces of the recently deceased too.

After some investigation it is discovered that the father has recently been getting his clay from the neighbouring pond of water — Dragonfly Pond. This is the very same pond that seems to have been absorbing the smoke and the ashes of the dead on the day of their cremation. It looks like the spiral has found its next victim.

Throughout The Firing Effect, Kirie’s father seems almost obsessed with his kiln and will not leave the cooking clay alone. He even panics when others try to go near it. Kirie decides to do some digging one evening to try and get to the bottom her father’s strange movements. However, nothing could have prepared her for what she finds inside her father’s kiln.

Like a phoenix from the flames

Just when we thought we’d heard the last of Shuichi’s parents, it seems they were never too far away after all. In any usual place the cremation of the deceased is a sure-fire way of disposing of the body. Whether they are human, vampire, zombie, whatever. Complete incineration normally does the trick. But this is Junji Ito we’re talking about.

With Dragonfly Pond seemingly sucking in the dust and smoke of the town’s cremations into its centre, it seems that the spiral is never really done with its victims. This made me think — perhaps Kurouzu-cho is a form of purgatory for the people who live there.

When we finally get a glimpse inside the kiln we see, and later hear, Shuichi’s parents screaming in pain for help. They seem to be reliving their cremations only being fully aware of the heat and the pain it is causing. However, we had already seen their faces imprinted on pottery earlier in the chapter.

Maybe their souls are forever trapped in Dragonfly Pond. Are they destined to forever be burned again and again? Or are these just phantoms of the spiral simply using the images of the dead to torment those still living in mourning?

More drama for Shuichi

Although he hasn’t been a central character for the last couple of chapters, Shuichi’s presence is always felt. This is no doubt due to his seemingly mystical connection to the spiral. That shape seems to follow him everywhere and just wont leave him in peace. He also seems to be the one most in tune to its effects.

When it is later revealed that the father’s clay is being dredged out of Dragonfly Pond, Shuichi instinctively responds by stating that the pond is infested with spirals. He seems to have a sixth sense when it comes to this evil pattern, as demonstrated in the opening chapter. If this is some kind of purgatory for the folks in Kurouzu-cho, perhaps Shuichi is the one at its centre? Perhaps he is the key to unravelling this mystery?

It felt good to see him being able to fight back against this deadly shape as well. Although destroying the kiln is a small action on the grand scheme of things, a little destruction may be just what he needed. Perhaps that was what Shuichi needed in order to lay his demons to rest — both figuratively and literally. Hopefully his parents can now be free from their eternal flames and escape this cursed town. But something tells me this wont be the case.

In Conclusion

I started to feel Kurouzu-cho was a kind of twisted second home for me after reading this chapter. The characters were now firmly etched in my mind and I even felt like I knew them somewhat. I am really enjoying digging deeper into this town and getting to know these people as the time goes by.

One thing that stood out to me in The Firing Effect was the complete lack of violence. Despite the disturbing images that certain characters see inside the kiln, they are only really shown to us as ghostly apparitions and shadows.

As I have mentioned before, it is good to have these relatively calmer chapters as a kind of breathing space for us readers. If it was crazy body horror all the time, I think I would just get desensitised to the shock and maybe even a little bored.

What I am finding though, is I’m anticipating a crazy chapter very soon. Something to knock me out of my chair as the opening chapters did. I feel something dark and grotesque is coming soon, and I hope I’m not kept waiting too long. 🙂

The Scar — Synopsis

Azami Kurotani is a girl who attends Kurouzu high school with her friend, Kirie. You will remember Kirie from the opening chapters of The Spiral Obsession.

Azami has a very strange power over the boys in the school — they all seem to fall in love with her. She even has the reputation for making these boys fall for her before dropping them like dead weights. Does this sound like another Junji Ito character we all know and love? Yes — she reminded me of Tomie.

However, whereas Tomie’s power came from something dark within her, Azami’s seems to originate from the crescent-moon-shaped scar on her forehead. Of course, kids being kids, there are all sorts of rumours going around about Azami and her strange power, but the truth may just end up being the most terrifying thing imaginable.

After meeting Kirie’s boyfriend Shuichi, (remember that he goes to a school out of town?), Azami becomes obsessed with him. This is down to the fact that Shuichi is instantly repulsed by her and, more specifically, the scar on her forehead. Only by the time she has met him, that scar is no longer moon-shaped, it has begun circling in on itself to reveal a very recognisable and terrifying shape.

Azami can’t believe that Shuichi hasn’t fallen in love with her, and she wont let it go either. It isn’t until the story’s closing pages that her obsession takes her over completely…

The girl that was a spiral

The first two chapters of Uzumaki dealt with the spirals around the people that were haunted by them — even the spirals within their bodies. But this is the first time that a spiral has begun to actually take over a person, as it seems to be with Azami. But what is so special about her? And why did the spiral seem to choose her?

What is left unanswered is perhaps most interesting here. Only after her accident as a young girl did the boys start noticing her — after she obtained that scar. But she had presumably lived with that scar for many years since — it was only when she’d met Shuichi, and he had noticed that scar, that it started to become a full spiral. Maybe the spiral was lying dormant inside her all of this time, waiting for Shuichi to meet her? Or maybe it had always been growing from a slight cut, to a moon shape and continuing on into the spiral? Perhaps the timing with meeting Shuichi was just bad luck for him.

Ito’s closing panels in The Scar are images I will never forget too. Although not particularly gruesome in how they are depicted, they do demonstrate the great imagination of my favourite horror Mangaka. I can imagine ways that he could have added a lot more gore into those scenes. But I feel it was nice to focus on the strangeness of the devouring spiral, rather than showing loads of blood and flesh along with it.

Obsession

I think I enjoy Junji Ito’s stories of obsession the most over his other types. Uzumaki is itself a story of obsession, but I really enjoyed this particular obsession between the boys and Azami; and then between Azami and Shuichi.

There were many times I was reminded of Tomie and the memories of her attitudes towards those that desired her. Tomie has a power over men and was never afraid to use that power to get exactly what she wanted — she was pretty much evil through and through. And it was a nice touch of Ito’s to include a character like her within Uzumaki — whether that was the intention or not.

However, with Azami, I got the impression that she wasn’t an evil person. I felt that she was just another victim of the spirals that are haunting Kurouzu-cho. And interestingly, the catalyst for her extreme ending seems to me to be her meeting with Shuichi.

This is now three central people to become cursed by the spiral that have a connection to Shuichi. His Father; his Mother; and now Azami. Maybe he has a connection to the spiral that we are yet to discover?

In Summary

The Scar is probably one of my favourite chapters from the Uzumaki series. Although I don’t remember reading a bad chapter (I have read it once before a couple of years ago) this is one that always sticks in my mind. Along with the Jack In The Box chapter. (More on that one in the coming posts).

This one is pretty light on the gore too. There are no scissors in ears or the cutting off of one’s own fingerprints in this chapter. Junji Ito always has a good sense of what is needed within a given story. What I mean by that is, there is never gore for gore’s sake. He isn’t trying to include more and more shocking or violent events with each new chapter. He seems happy to only include those images that will serve his story. And I’m very happy with that.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe we have seen the most violent after-effects of the spirals just yet. But I also believe that along the way we will have these relatively softer chapters that will let us catch our breath a little. If you can consider being devoured by a spiral soft. 🙂