Month: January 2020

Fun Summer Vacation

Fun Summer Vacation tells the story of a family with an evil younger son. That son is none other than Junji Ito favourite, Souichi.

On nights like this, I go out onto the streets, and suck blood out from women’s jugular veins.

Souichi displaying some of his madness to Michina

Fun Summer Vacation — Synopsis

Yuusuke and Michina have travelled on the train to see some relatives of theirs. These relatives are six people who live in the same home. The Mother; Father; Grandfather; two sons and the daughter. Most of the family are very warm and welcoming to the visiting brother and sister. However, they soon get to meet their reclusive, and ever-so-slightly evil, younger son — Souichi.

The very first thing that we see of Souichi, is him spitting a small metal nail at the visitors. This is as they try to take him some food up to his room. You see, by this time they had yet to meet him and so they are trying to say hello to him. Souichi’s first response is to be hostile towards them.

As their family holiday passes each day, Souichi displays more strange behaviours — sinister laughs; curses on the family; attacks with deadly nails. With his hostility specifically targeted towards his visiting cousins. But how far will Souichi go to make his presence known to them, despite being so introverted?

Michina
Yuusuke
Kouichi
Sayuri
Souichi
Characters from Fun Summer Vacation

Introduction to Souichi

When I had previously thought about Souichi, I had only remembered him from the manga “Souichi’s Selfish Curse”. I think that is the most popular Souichi story, possibly due to it being an early episode in the Junji Ito Anime Collection. But I was surprised, and happy, to learn that there are in fact a whole bunch of manga stories involving the evil-doing, twisted young boy.

What is perhaps interesting too, is that he isn’t really the central character of this particular manga — Fun Summer Vacation. He is just the strange young son who seems to haunt his family from the shadows. Driven by some strange internal need to punish and hurt those around him.

He is seen skulking about in his room, sucking on old nails and trying to curse people with his doll replicas of them. He isn’t the most likeable of Junji Ito’s characters but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have a small piece of my heart set aside for this boy-terror.

Does he just need some love?

His actions towards Michina, although twisted and selfish, opened up a crack in his evil facade for me. I couldn’t help but feel that he was trying to curse her simply to get her to stay back at the family home with him. That way they could remain together, while the others went out to the swimming pool again. Maybe he was lonely after all and felt that he could only really connect with her. Perhaps he was even in love with Michina in some twisted sort of way?

Despite his appearance of hostility, maybe Souichi is just a little boy lost? His mother seems to enable some of his behaviour by taking his meals to his room, and allowing him to stay locked away. His father doesn’t really seem to do much by the way of discipline either. And his older brother seems to just wish that Souichi was something that he isn’t. Perhaps if the parents had set similar boundaries and punishments as they presumably had for the eldest two siblings, maybe he wouldn’t be acting out in this way?

Or maybe Souichi is just a little evil-incarnate brat who simply loves to see people in pain. Whatever it is that drives him, I can’t help but feel that there is more below his diabolical surface than meets the eye.

Souichi comes to Michina when they are alone in the home
The family play cards whilst Souichi hides in the shadows
Yuusuke and Michina find Souichi talking to his dolls

In Conclusion

I really want to say that I loved this story, but in all honesty it isn’t too high on my list of favourites. Now don’t get me wrong, this is still a good manga to read – especially as it is the first appearance (I believe) of the now-famous character of Souichi. However, I can’t recommend it over more memorable stories such as Flesh Colored Horror or Army of One.

But despite the story not being one that particular drew me in too much, Souichi is definitely a favourite character of mine. Even if I’ve only seen him in three stories (including this one) at the time of writing this post. I trust Junji Ito enough to believe that he can take Souichi into some pretty dark and even comedic places before reaching the end of the crazy boy’s story.

I’m looking forward to further exploring the world of Souichi, his curses, and just how those around him manage to survive.

The Black Lighthouse (Uzumaki part 9)

The Black Lighthouse sits on the coast of Kurouzu-cho. Although thought to be abandoned, it suddenly begins emitting a strange swirling light every night at sundown. People decide to investigate…

As I walked further… spiral patterns appeared on the walls and ceiling. They glowed eerily in the dark.

Kirie describes her journey up the steps of The Black Lighthouse

The Black Lighthouse — synopsis

After sitting abandoned for quite some time, the lighthouse on the coast of Kurouzu-cho suddenly springs to life. At dusk, it begins shining out a powerful swirling beam all around through the night. This beam begins to mesmerise the townspeople more and more as the time goes on.

People can be seen in the streets running in circles as if possessed by the same spiral evil that now haunts the lighthouse. After some of these strange happenings some of the men in the town decide to head inside the lighthouse to get to the bottom of the mystery.

After the men have gone missing inside for some time, Kirie spots her younger brother with his friends heading towards what is known as The Black Lighthouse. Although she warns him, her brother runs inside with his three friends. Of course, she has no option but to run after them, which she does with gusto.

The further that Kirie climbs up the lighthouse steps, the stranger the place becomes. Patterns on the walls that give off a weird glow, lighting her way; the feeling of lost time and disorientation; and an horrific discovery that she finds towards the top.

As dusk approaches and Kirie still searches for her brother and his friends, what awaits them all in the Black Lighthouse’s top floor? And just what gruesome discoveries will they all find?

Kirie Goshima
Mitsuo

The Spiral Light

This is perhaps the furthest reach that the spiral has had over the town up until now. From its smaller beginnings of affecting individual people and their family’s lives, to the larger moments within Kurouzu-cho school — The Snail and Medusa, specifically. But never before has the spiral been so bold as to cast itself over the entire town at once.

The light stretches out over the town leaving no-one and nothing outside of its gaze. Even the light rays themselves seem to be beamed out in a spiral fashion. I also found that it reminded me of the Great Eye from Lord of the Rings. I wonder if that was an inspiration for Junji Ito in this chapter? In fact, when Kirie arrives at the tower’s top floor, she is greeted by the melted lens of the lighthouse’s light source — melted into a spiral-shaped eye!

And just as the Great Eye had it’s vision set across all of Middle-Earth, so too does the spiral have its gaze across all that it sees. Even a small boat nearing the town’s coastline is pulled in and run aground. There is quite literally nowhere to hide from this town’s curse of Uzumaki.

People of Kurozu cho staring at the light

Claustrophobia

Despite the fact that the nature of this aspect of Uzumaki covers the widest amount of space, it also causes some interesting claustrophobic affects on the characters.

Although the power of the black lighthouse stretches out across the entire town and out to sea, the wider investigation of its power is done within its very narrow stairwell that seems to make those who ascend lose their sense of time. We see first-hand with Kirie the almost-dizzying effect this spiral staircase has on her, and the spiral patterns that emerge on the walls as she climbs higher. Uzumaki is literally closing in on her.

The real pay off in this chapter though, comes when Kirie discovers the burnt bodies of the men that went in some time before her. Beside which she finds two of her brother’s friends sat shaking in fear.

Spirals and charred remains

I advise you to really take the time to look over the depiction of those men’s remains too, as morbid as that sounds. Junji Ito’s detail of how he shows those men’s remains are impressive images to behold. He has painstakingly drawn in levels of details that lesser artists would have perhaps left out. Every crease and piece of charred flesh is accounted for.

And when I was taking the time to really focus in on those panels inside the stairwell, I then started to really notice the spiral patterns on the walls. Made up of hundreds of tiny little dots throughout every hallway depicted. A real inspiration and an insight into his patience and his craft.

The Black Lighthouse on the rocks
People start to behave very strangely
Kirie investigates the Black Lighthouse

In Conclusion

The Black Lighthouse is not my favourite of the Uzumaki collection, but it does however contain some of my favourite images from it. Namely the ones mentioned above with the fire-eaten remains of the men who went to investigate the lighthouse. As well as the spiral eye in the lighthouse’s lens remains.

I also felt this had a very interesting part towards the end, when Kirie comes face to face with the town’s curse. Although not the centre of the spiral madness (that comes later on in the collection), with the lighthouse’s lens melted into a strange swirling eye, Kirie is able to look straight into it. Perhaps somehow into the heart of the spiral itself?

I probably wouldn’t advise this being read out of the context of the collection, simply because I didn’t really feel it was able to stand apart from the greater cursed narrative that runs through it. As a part of the greater series arc it works really well and shows how the spiral is making itself more and more noticeable. However, it doesn’t stand as well on its own feet as perhaps chapters like Jack In The Box and The Scar do.

testing

Anything but a Ghost

Anything but a Ghost tells the story of a woman who is discovered by the side of a mountain road covered in blood. But when that woman revisits the one who found her, she reveals that not everything is as it seems with her.

She died giving birth to me. When I came out, she was already a ghost. But she still cared about me. Even after that, she would come to breastfeed me.

Misaki tells Shigeru about her twisted past.

Anything but a Ghost — synopsis

Whilst driving through a mountain area, Shigeru finds a woman stood at the roadside with her back to the road. On leaving his car and walking up to her, he sees that she seems completely stunned whilst being covered in blood. Without hesitation, he drives her to the nearest hospital to get her checked out. As it turns out, the blood is not hers and she isn’t even injured in the slightest.

After some time has past, Shigeru and his wife are going about their lives — they even have a child on the way. Then out of nowhere there is a knock at the door. On opening it, Shigeru sees a beautiful young woman standing there, but fails to recognise her straight away. She introduces herself as the woman he helped by the roadside that day, and tells him her name is Misaki.

But it seems that she is to have a negative impact on his life. Her and Shigeru begin seeing each other in secret and soon reveals a strange, twisted secret about herself — one that he simply doesn’t believe. However, as the closing pages of this manga reveal themselves, not only does her secret show itself to be true, but things also get a whole lot stranger and a lot more darker.

Shigeru
Yuina
Misaki
Characters from Anything but a Ghost

A twist on the ghost story

Anything but a Ghost is a ghost story where the ghosts are not the ones to be feared. Misaki is a young woman who seems to be somewhere between that of a ghost and that of a human. And even though she is drawn as a very innocent and delicate looking woman, she always has an air of creepiness to her. This is helped largely due to how she is introduced to us. We know something is not quite right — we just don’t know what it is at this point.

When she mentions that she can see Shigeru’s ghosts following him, I immediately thought of them as malevolent things. I was sure these ghosts she talked about would be grotesque monsters that live in the next plain of existence, just waiting to come through. But the truth is far more sinister than that.

I always enjoy how Junji Ito seems to be able to take our preconceived ideas of what typical sorts of horror stories are, and turns them on their head.

Misaki shows her true self

Strange food cravings

In horror fiction, I think we are used to seeing monsters that prey upon the weak before eating them. Whether that be vampires, werewolves, other-worldly beasts or even cannibals. But this is the first time, as is a lot of the times reading Junji Ito’s work, that I have seen the idea of eating one’s victims in quite this way.

The very idea of having a person who feeds on ghosts is an incredibly inventive one and, dare I say it, genius in it’s own way. But it doesn’t just end there. I absolutely loved how, when Misaki would bite down into her ethereal feast, somehow blood would spill out and cover her face. It’s almost like she is able to pull the ghosts of those who have passed, into our world, if only for a moment — for one last taste of pain and suffering. As if death wasn’t enough.

And without giving too much away, the visions that Junji Ito was able to put into my mind, purely by suggestion, were pretty horrific. When she bites into what she eats towards the end, I could see every single blood-curdling inch of it, yet Ito drew none of it. He is truly a master of not only his own imagination, but of toying with his readers’ imaginations too.

Shigeru finds the blood covered woman beside the road
Shigeru starts seeing Misaki in secret
What is Misaki eating?

In Conclusion

This is an excellent stand-alone story from Junji Ito that is as unsettling as it is inventive. What was perhaps most noteworthy for me, was how it is completely grotesque — especially with what she eats towards the end — but without you actually seeing the action itself. Kind of like how Quentin Tarantino was able to gross out early 90’s audiences with his famous ear-cutting scene in Reservoir Dogs. Despite never even seeing the cut.

You never actually see her biting into any pound of flesh. But the result is no less effective. If anything it’s perhaps more so.

I would highly recommend this as a first read from Junji Ito’s catalogue of work. It is readable out in public without attracting people’s concerned stares, with no real displays of gore and flesh. However, it will perhaps leave you feeling like you have seen as much.

Anything But A Ghost is anything but a standard ghost story.

You can read Anything but a Ghost here. (Please support Junji Ito by buying his manga in your own language where available)