Junji Ito Manga Reviews – Page 3

There’s something mesmerizing about her. It’s like looking down from a high place… like vertigo…
Shuichi doesn’t like the vibes that Azami is giving off.

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.

A whirlwind whizzes past Azami and Kirie

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?

Azami was one of those pretty reserved girls

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. 🙂

I started to see past the script and its limitations, and I began imagining I was chatting with him for real.
Kaori watches the video that Takahashi made for her

Love as scripted — Synopsis

We join the story in the throws of an argument between a couple. Their names are Kaori and Takahashi. Kaori is very upset due to her boyfriend (Takahashi) telling her that he’s leaving her. In the heat of the row, Takahashi does something very unusual — he gives Kaori a video tape of himself to play whenever she misses him. The way that Ito draws him, makes me think that there is no evil intent in his actions; he seems sincere in his gift.

But Kaori, after having apparently been warned about him before, lashes out with a large kitchen knife. Then just as that knife is coming down towards him, we flashback to some time before they were together.

We go back to when Kaori was a new recruit in her theatre troupe and the screenwriter for that group was none other than Takahashi. When we see the beginnings of a romance start to blossom, she is warned off him by a friend in the group. But love is blind it seems, as she moves forward into her new relationship without regret.

We soon catch back up to the present day, where the results of her violent actions are revealed. But instead of worrying about needing to dispose of Takahashi’s body, she instead decides to play the video tape that he had gifted her. What this video contains is something very odd indeed, and may even be the reason why she could possibly fall in love with him all over again…

Video killed the…

This was an enjoyable read with little to no real body horror within, save for a single stabbing. Instead, Love As Scripted is more of a psychological look at love and what it possibly means to love someone.

Despite her actions, I found myself feeling sorry for Kaori — indeed all girls that Takahashi had presumably dumped in a similar way. I mean, technically there is no crime against dumping girls one after the other, but the way in which he does so can definitely be thought of as malicious.

And that is the key thing I wanted to explore here — the interpretation. Although I don’t condone how he seemed to mess these girls about, I couldn’t help but dig a little deeper into some of his possible motivations.

Man with a camera

Here we have a man who never really comes across as malicious in how he treats these ladies, at least not when he’s with them. Instead he seems to almost fall in love with each one in turn. Then the fact that he writes and records hours and hours of what is essentially a personal monologue, along with spaces for the video recipients to converse with the recording, makes me think that he is sincere with that gift. The way that Ito draws him also seems to support that theory.

Odd, yes. But sincere.

Maybe Takahashi suffers from a crippling inability to commit. Or perhaps he believes himself to be no good for these women? Maybe that’s why he goes to the trouble of making all of these recordings? Again, I’m not looking to condone any of his actions, I’m just trying to look at those actions from fresh angles.

But then he could always just be a complete bastard with zero regard for others’ feelings.

A predictable love

The real sadness in Love as Scripted, at least for me, was the conclusion of Kaori’s story. It’s a shame how her love, and anger, for Takahashi drove her to stab him. She pretty much seals her future with that fateful blow. It is also a shame how she realises just how much she loves him through the medium of the video that set the attack off.

Kaori isnt impressed with Takahashis video

But that video will never be self-aware. It will always be exactly the same tomorrow as it is today. It will never offer anything new by means of conversation and will never surprise her. But she seems content in this predictable love.

What I found perhaps most sad with her was that even when she realised what she had done, and is then offered a chance to save him, she just passes it up. She knows that her new Takahashi will never leave her; will never cheat on her; and will never upset her.

But ultimately it will never be able to love her either.

In conclusion

Although this is one of Junji Ito’s shorter stories, I found Love As Scripted to have lots of charm. Despite it being a sad, more psychological piece than others, I found myself enjoying what I was looking for between the pages.

Perhaps I am looking too deep into it. Maybe Junji Ito just thought of a weird idea for a relationship and just ran with it? Perhaps he had no real intentions of exploring deeper themes. But I like to believe that he knew full well all of the themes he was exploring.

I think that this story could be enjoyed thoroughly as an introduction to Junji Ito as well. And while it gives no indication as to depths he goes to with his more graphic depictions of horror, it does give you an introduction to his work and his excellent story telling.

What’s inside… the human ear? Don’t tell me… there’s a spiral.
Mrs Saito becomes increasingly tormented by the spiral.

Synopsis — The Spiral Obsession part 2

High over the sky of Kurouzu-cho sits a blanket of spiral-shaped smoke, with what seems to be the face of Shuichi’s father coming out of it. This strange vision seems to be the last straw for Mrs Saito’s sanity though. She quickly suffers a breakdown and is immediately sent to a nearby hospital to monitor her fast-declining mental condition.

Mrs Saito soon becomes afflicted with the same cursed obsession as her husband before her – the Spiral; Uzumaki. She starts noticing the spirals all around her, as well as the natural spirals of the human body. This only serves to drive her further over the edge and further out of help’s reach.

But where the father would be embracing these spirals, she is instead physically repulsed by them.

After some disturbing nightmares, and some ungodly acts she performs on herself, she becomes convinced that there are spirals hidden away within her body — places she can’t get to with ease. But just how far will she go to rid her world, and herself, of the spiral shape that seems to be haunting her?

Searching for spirals

I found it interesting to be able to follow this first story line of the spiral through to see how it actually affected those left behind. Normally we are served an eye-watering final reveal by Junji Ito, only to be left to imagine the following events in our own minds. Think about the majority of stories in the Tomie Collection. Although I love a good cliffhanger to think over, I also love staying with these characters. I love exploring what comes to those affected after those big reveals.

This is what Uzumaki allows us to do here.

Although the actions of his father were weird and somewhat shocking at times, there were no real gross-out images in that first chapter ‐ save perhaps for the final state of the father and, of course, that tongue. However, nothing could have prepared Shuichi, or me for that matter, for what would become of his mother.

Effects of the Spiral

What was especially interesting to me was how the spiral seems to trigger different emotions in different people. Where the father would embrace the spiral, even being somewhat excited by it, the mother is disgusted and horrified by it.

Perhaps for the father the spiral was a path of wonder to journey to its secret centre. Whereas maybe the mother saw nothing but the inevitable dizzying descent into death and madness. Different interpretations of the same pattern could be a metaphor for how we as people can interpret the same events in life in vastly different ways.

Shuichi’s family has been torn apart by the spiral obsession. This has been exhibited by both of his parents now and I hope things start getting better for him. It seems somewhat ironic that the only person who seemed to feel something was wrong in Kurouzu-cho, Shuichi, is also the one most directly affected by it so far.

In Summary

If the first part of the spiral obsession was the somewhat calm introduction to Uzumaki, then this second part is the foot-to-the-floor, visceral continuation.

No longer is Junji Ito sugar-coating the effects of the spiral. No amusing curling tongues or cute pieces of pottery. He’s now showing us violent, nightmare-inducing images of what this obsession can actually do to people. God help the rest of the citizens in Kurouzu-cho.

I can’t wait to see where he takes us next…

Buy Uzumaki from Amazon today.

You’ll see! You can express the spiral through your own body!!
Shuichi’s father’s obsession is getting out of hand.

Synopsis — The Spiral Obsession part 1

In this opening chapter of Uzumaki, we are introduced to the two central characters who we will follow throughout our spiral adventures. These two are Kirie Goshima, who is telling us the story, and her best friend Shuichi Saito.

Kurouzu-cho is a small coastal town that is home to both Kirie and Shuichi, as well as their respective families. Shuichi, however, does not go to school in the town — he goes to the nearby city of Midoriyama-shi instead. The reason for this is unknown, but his time spent outside of Kurouzu-cho has helped him realise something that all the other residents seem blind to…

…that something is very wrong with this place. Shuichi shows Kirie the strange spiral patterns in the water gutters around the town. They also cross paths with a few small whirlwinds that seem to pass by pretty often. But our real introduction to the horrors that the spiral is slowly bringing down upon them, is through the actions of Shuichi’s father.

A Father’s obsession

Shuichi’s father is the vessel for our first steps into this world of terror that Junji Ito is building up. Kirie first notices him in a small dark alleyway, his face up against a wall, transfixed by the pattern on a snail’s shell. This spiral obsession of his, however, is greater than just those found in nature.

Shuichi explains about the strangeness of his father’s new hobby, and his unhealthy interest in the spiral shape. He explains about the obsession that has stopped him from going to work or even coming close to leading a normal life. He even explains to Kirie of his father’s body slowly changing ‐ his eyes specifically being cursed by this evil pattern.

The spiral is slowly consuming him…

Tail end of the spiral

This is a perfect introduction to Uzumaki. We get up and running with an understanding of the central characters pretty quickly, considering this first chapter is only 45 pages long. I loved how Junji Ito hasn’t gone all out with the body horror here either. He eases us in gently for the most part, lullying us into that false sense of security no doubt. Yes, there are some moments of disgust, especially the big 2-page-spread reveal at the end. But he is surprisingly tame as he leads us on to his spiral path.

The characters in Uzumaki are your quintessential Ito characters. Kirie is the cute young woman who seems to have it all together; who is ultimately heading towards a scare that could either make or break her. And Shuichi is that troubled person with slightly darkened eyes who knows something is wrong. He’s a young man with a darkness weighing over him.

But what’s interesting here is, is that this darkness is weighing over all of the town’s people. It’s just that Shuichi seems to be the only one who notices it. I can’t wait to journey deeper into the cursed shape and find what lies at its heart.

Kirie finds Shuichi’s father in the alleyway

In conclusion

Uzumaki is one of the most well known, and highly regarded horror manga titles. Junji Ito really created something special with this 20-part story. His artwork within it is some of the best he’s even produced in my opinion, and the first part of The Spiral Obsession shows this off perfectly.

The opening colour panels are beautiful – especially the title page with Kirie looking out over the town from the hill above. The details later on really impressed me too. I loved the delicate details that Junji Ito put into producing what we discover inside the wooden tub at the end of this chapter. Despite the huge obsession that Shuichi’s father shows towards spirals, it is evident that Ito has at least that amount of obsession over his own perfection ‐ and it really pays off.

I would recommend every person and their dog to read this series. If you aren’t into horror then you probably aren’t going to find joy here. But if you are, or are just a little bit curious about what horror manga is all about, then this should be one of the very first places you go to.

If you like horror manga, or are even just vaguely aware of it, chances are that you have heard of this manga title. Uzumaki is pretty much the quintessential horror manga series and is one of the titles to cement Junji Ito’s title as the master of the genre.

What is Uzumaki about?

The word Uzumaki itself is Japanese for spiral. From wikipedia:

“In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point.”
Wikipedia definition of a Spiral

And it is exactly this shape that is the core focus for the entirety of Junji Ito’s masterpiece. It starts off small, with one particular man’s interest in small shells and patterns he finds in nature. But, in true Ito style, the story quickly escalates into a terrifying journey into the depths of all spirals.

Slowly, over the course of twenty chapters, Junji Ito explores the spiral pattern in many different areas of life. All within a small coastal village in Japan and its residents. From schools to hospitals; from the young to the old; and from love through to terror and disgust.

An exploration in twenty parts

Over the course of the next few months, I will be exploring each of the chapters of Uzumaki in turn. I will be attempting to dig through the horrifying visions to find the meaning within the pages. To really dig deep and explore my own thoughts and feelings about this awesome series.

Much like the Tomie Series I wrote about, I feel that this series would do better as a series of posts, instead of just one huge post covering it all. There are just too many great parts and interesting characters to risk washing over any of them.

I invite you to join me

I would love for you to join me each week to explore the Uzumaki series. And if you find this post after several months of me having published it, you should have a collection of posts to read – one for each chapter.

Maybe it’s not a siren at all… maybe it’s the cry of a demon.
The voices begin to scare the crew — Demon’s Voice

Demon’s Voice — synopsis

Somewhere out in the middle of the ocean, a group of fishermen are scouting the open seas for a decent catch. It’s been a while since they have had a really good catch, but they continue on nonetheless — determined.

One night, whilst sailing across the deadly waves, a shrill cry is heard by the crew – what sounds like the voice; the voice of a demon. Luckily for one crew member, Koji, he happens to be inside the cabin with sea sickness when the voices begin.

The very next day, seemingly out of nowhere, the crew obtain the catch of their lives. In the nets they see masses of tuna; the biggest catch they could have ever imagined. Koji, however, sees what is really in those nets: a huge pile of rotting corpses pulled up out of the sea bed.

The crew, it seems, have started hallucinating – all except for Koji. The obvious cause seems to be the strange sounds from the night before. With Koji being ill in bed, he had failed to hear them. But what will happen once he hears them too? Once all of the crew are affected by those wailing sounds, what else will they end up dredging up from the ocean’s bed?

Characters

Thoughts on Demon’s Voice

A real mystery this one – a warning to sailors.

This seems to be inspired by the legends of the Sirens of the rocks – at least to me. The beautiful women who would lure sailors to their doom by sitting naked and playing sweet music. But in true Junji Ito style, we switch the sweet music for piercing night howls and naked ladies for rotting, horrifying corpses.

I always find the stories that are set in a single location interesting. It’s good to see how a writer crafts an engaging tale when working within a self-imposed limit like that. And Ito is as equipped as any of the best in doing so. The claustrophobia of the boat can be felt throughout, as can the imposing nature of the sea around them.

The idea of a small group of people being out on the open seas together is already a thought that could bring fears of isolation and the worry of having nowhere to turn for privacy. But when you throw in the idea of pulling up a load of old decaying corpses from the ocean floor, suddenly the great big ocean doesn’t feel so big any more.

Summary

Demon’s Voice is another short one shot story from Ito. The story is pretty straight forward and succinct. And like a lot of his shorter tales, packs a lot into its few pages.

He creates a world that could easily be further explored: What happens to this, and presumably other, crews? Where is this voice coming from? Why is there a malevolent force at work that is preying on innocent sailors.

I was reminded of another manga i’d read recently called “Mountain of Gods Precipice of the Unknown”. That too deals with an unknown force that is targeting a specific group of people. And for reasons unknown.

All in all, Demon’s Voice is a nice little story about the sirens in the ocean. Sail on.

Synopsis: What is “The Bully” about?

In The Bully we follow Kuriko and the boys around her who end up suffering in one way or another. From the manga’s opening pages we are led to believe that she is a sweet woman who only wants to be honest with her husband-to-be.

We join Kuriko and her soon-to-be-Husband Yutaro at a local park, where they once played as children. She tells him how she wishes to confess details to him of her “dark past”, as she puts it. Kuriko tells him, and us through a flashback, of how she was once entrusted to look after a young boy, called Nao, when she was just a young girl herself.

But the trust put in her for that little boy’s welfare was misplaced, it seems. Kuriko goes on to reveal how, when Nao would start becoming too clingy with her, she would start bullying him. She started lightly with just screaming in his ear, but the story soon escalates her abuse into some pretty harsh scenes.

As the story of The Bully moves into it’s second half, it shows us how those earlier events have affected those people in the present day. We learn where those people are now in life and ultimately how Kuriko’s volatile nature affects each and every one of them.

Main Characters

A tough read at times

When we talk about horror with regards to Junji Ito, we often talk about the body horror aspects more often than not. We discuss slug-people, Spirals, and a certain girl who can not die. But in The Bully, Ito has crafted what I believe to be one of his most successfully-unnerving horror stories to date.

Although Kuriko is the main character here, I couldn’t help but empathise with Nao in those flashbacks. Where he was made to drink dirty water; where he was made to confront the scary dog “Devil”; and where he is beaten with a stick.

How Ito manages to bring to the page the horrors of being bullied is impressive. The innocent character of Nao was a perfect vessel in which we can put all of our hope and caring natures in to. Kuriko, on the other hand, was the perfect vessel for evil.

Although…

Kuriko is an interesting character

The fact that our introduction to Kuriko is at a point in life where she seems settled, and is opening up about her past, gave me a positive feeling about her. And just as negative first impressions can colour our image of people, I think positive ones can too.

Because of this, I found myself never really hating her, save for the dog scene and the beating. I found myself not liking her actions, but thinking about how we aren’t the same people as we were when we were younger. This doesn’t excuse those actions, but she is confessing through an apparent weight of guilt.

Of course in the story’s closing panels we do get to see her character transform into what she was perhaps destined to be. That closing panel of The Bully is one of the most frightening I have come across. Ito has always had a good eye for a great closing image that can haunt you, but this takes the prize.

History repeats itself?

When stories take on the heavy subject of abuse, there are often times when the one who was abused later becomes the abuser to another. The cycle of violence. But something that I found very intriguing in The Bully, was that Junji Ito seemed to turn those ideas on their heads.

Kuriko seemed to have a nice family upbringing from what I could see in the flashbacks and yet something in her snapped at a young age. Then after being bullied relentlessly by her, Nao seemed to actually grow up to become a well-adjusted adult. He had a solid job and actually reminisced about his younger days with a kind of fondness. Love is blind, it seems.

But the story’s big reveal doesn’t show this violent nature being passed on to her child, but instead — and ultimately more terrifying — it shows Kuriko relapsing and unleashing a scarier version of her buried self.

Not only do we know what she was capable of as a child, but we know she is now a fully grown woman with the added strength that brings. And we know she is mentally unstable — mistaking her young son for the once-young Nao. But what we don’t know, is what ends up happened to her new victim. With it ending with a walk to the park, perhaps the real horror will live on in our minds trying to imagine what will happen next.

In Summary

The Bully has been getting recommended to me for a while now, and I never got round to reading it until recently. Now I see what all the fuss is about. This story is one of Junji Ito’s crowning achievements in my opinion. The way that he has developed each of the characters and gone against what you would perhaps have guessed would happen with them, is a stroke of genius.

Ito never takes the easy way out; he always pushes up to the boundaries and often past them. Despite him being one of the most accessible horror manga artists of our time, he remains one of the most terrifying and creative too.

If you want to jump into the deep end of horror manga but without all of the blood and guts, then Junji Ito’s The Bully is literally the perfect example of a story to read. It is also a self-contained one shot, standing at just 30 pages. So you could read this in one short go.

What is Futon about?

This is a very short Horror Manga story. It shows a young couple who live in a small apartment together. The Husband, Tomio, refuses to come out from under his blanket on his futon. The Futon is his bed.

He warns his wife of what he calls the “Dark Nature Spirits” in the room. She believes none of it until she actually gets a similar experience for herself.

But are these visions simply a manifestation of some extreme anxiety that Tomio is experiencing? Or are they as literal as he makes them out to be?

Short and Sweet

The story is very much to the point, yet no less charming than Ito’s other tales. Futon doesn’t try to fill out unneeded pages just to increase the count. Junji Ito has created a short horror story and isn’t afraid to just let it be what it is.

I absolutely love the big ceiling reveal that shows the monsters that Tomio is convinced he is seeing. The detail in that double-page spread is so great and a testament to Ito’s gorgeous horror style.

I was fine too with the vague back story that Tomio gives to his wife about the apparent witch. Some eerie tales can stand up for their strangeness alone, without the need for a comprehensive explanation. I think Futon is one such story.

In Summary

Despite it’s super short length at just eight pages, this is one of the Stories by the legendary Horror Mangaka that I remember more often. That double page spread is one that lives in my memory as vivid as the page itself.

I just hope I never get to see such visions off the page.

What is Honoured Ancestors about?

We join a young couple as the boy, Makita, is walking his girlfriend Risa back to her house. Risa has recently lost her memory and nobody can work out how. She then begins to get increasing anxiety, along with nightmares of a giant caterpillar invading her bedroom at night.

Perhaps something in her lost memories can give a clue as to the origin of these disturbing visions?

Makita seems almost happy that Risa has lost her memory because, as he puts it, they can experience all of the “first times” they had together once again. One such “first time” that they relive is them both going round to Makita’s home, where he lives with his sick father. However, upon meeting the father, thoughts and feelings begin to stir within her.

It is in this house where the mystery of her lost memories will be unravelled. And there will be one such “first time” that she will wish would never happen again.

Head to head with the past

In the author’s notes for this story, Ito explains how he saw the big reveal of this story in his mind before any of characters or plot came to him. This is a very interesting way of working, starting with the imagery and working back from there, and I wonder how many other stories of his began this way.

Honoured Ancestors is one of those stories that has so much more going on underneath its surface than what we see. We are shown the current generation of the family, Makita, along with the end of his father’s life. But what about the many ancestors that came before? How did they all trick their partners into marriage and carrying on this family line in such a twisted way?

I really enjoy how many of Ito’s stories like this one trigger these thoughts in me. I love wondering about events that happened so completely out of the scope of the current story, yet would still have had an effect on the story’s world.

In Summary

I enjoy this story a lot. While not being a favourite of mine, it still holds a high place for me. I find myself imagining the lives of those ancestors and just how they came to begin the connection to their past in this way.

You should definitely pick up Junji Ito’s Shiver Collection and read this story – see what thoughts it sparks in your own imagination.

Ever since I was little, I’ve been afraid of having my picture taken. Or more precisely, of my body being fragmented by photos.
Amy is a fresh young model with a strange phobia — Fashion Model: Cursed Frame

In this bonus story from his Shiver collection, Junji Ito delivers an incredible depiction of a woman’s strange fear made flesh. And in the most iconic of ways too. One of the things about Junji Ito that is so great, is his big reveals that he often gives us. More often than not I don’t expect them. However, in hindsight they seem to be the only logical outcome.

Logical in Ito’s world at least.

What is Fashion Model Cursed Frame about?

In Fashion Model: Cursed Frame, we are reunited with a favourite amongst Ito’s Characters – Fuchi. Fuchi is the shark-toothed, seven-foot-tall fashion model with a taste for human flesh.

The modelling industry in Junji Ito’s world is very cut-throat indeed.

Amy is a new model on the scene, who agrees to work for a company on a single condition – that they only ever photograph her full body. Never head or body shots. The idea of having parts of her body missing from photographs completely freaks her out.

It is the kind of fear that feels right at home in Junji Ito’s world. And I could just tell it wasn’t going to end well for her.

But how will Amy cope in a profession where people don’t stick to their word. An industry that is often depicted as being ruthless and super-competitive. Not to mention the demonic Fuchi lurking about; on the prowl within those choppy waters of the fashion world.

In Summary

Cursed Frame is only seven pages long and comes as a bonus in the back of the Junji Ito Shiver Collection. But despite its short length, it packs so much into those pages in a concise, and suitably violent way.

I was really impressed at how he gave us a character with a very specific fear – and one I’d never heard of before either – and managed to bring her story full circle to face that fear head on. I thought Fuchi was an excellent conduit for the idea too – her presence alone brings a sense of dread and foreboding.

I really wish Fuchi was more of a long-standing character – she’s so much fun to watch.

You seek for knowledge and wisdom as I once did… it is only natural for a man to pursue knowledge. Until a few years ago, I burned with the same ambition as you.
Victor Frankenstein begins to tell his story — Frankenstein

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is perhaps one of the most well-known horror novels ever written, if only by name. In his horror manga of the same name, Junji Ito tackles the mammoth task of bringing this novel into his disturbingly visual world.

Frankenstein is such a huge part of popular culture, however, I have to be honest and say that I have never read Frankenstein the novel; Ito’s version is my first time experiencing the story itself. I knew the rough story – the Doctor creating the monster, but I needed to check the major plot points on the novel’s Wikipedia page after reading this manga, just to see how close it was.

I am happy to report that Junji Ito’s version of Frankenstein stays very true to Mary Shelley’s novel. Even the narrative structure of telling the story from the perspective of the ship’s captain is maintained. But I can’t give a full comparison as I am not familiar with the source material.

What is Frankenstein about?

During an expedition to the North Pole, in the pursuit of fame, the captain and his crew see the towering figure of a stranger in the distance. This is followed by them finding a man out in the freezing cold all alone and in need of shelter — a man by the name of Victor Frankenstein. Victor is in pursuit also, only his pursuit is of something far more tangiable than fame. His pursuit is of a creature he decsribes — the figure that the crew saw previously.

Suffering from exhaustion and cold, Victor tells the captain his story and how he came to be out here in the wilds of the North Pole. We learn of Victor’s childhood and family, and his growth into the scientist he became. He also recounts the terrible deeds he performed in the pursuit of greatness in his unique field of study.

He goes on to tell the Captain of his creation, the Frankenstein’s Monster, and how it came to escape and ultimately wreak havoc on his family. We bear witness to the awful deeds that the monster does, and Victor’s seemingly never-ending pursuit of it. Victor’s story ultimately brings us back to the current time on board the trapped ship and to the final moments of realisation of both the monster and the creator alike.

My thoughts

As I said before, this was the first time experiencing the full story of Frankenstein. I mean, I’ve always known about the characters and the creation of the monster through parodies and tv series tie-ins like Penny Dreadful and Carry On Screaming, but never the original story.

I am glad, in a way, that reading Junji Ito’s interpretation of it was my first taste. It meant that I got to experience all of the story’s twists, turns and moments of horror, only via the expert artistry of the horror mangaka himself. That’s not to discount Mary Shelley’s talents; I’m just saying that this was a very different way to be subjected to it for the first time.

I thought that the intricacies of the monster himself were put across very well too. It’s moments of horrific brutality; it’s moments of love towards the family whose home he hides in; and the moments of vulnerability where he pleads for his creator to build him a mate – a mate who won’t cower and scream at the mere sight of his face. Someone he can love — and receive love in return.

I can’t say that this is my favourite Junji Ito story, but nonetheless I thought he did a great job working within another writer’s world and the limitations that it can bring. His artwork is on point as always, with the depiction of both innocence and horror so expertly portayed, sometimes through the same character.

I’ve heard said before that if you are going to remake or cover someone else’s creation, whether a film, song or whatever, you should either strive to improve on the original or at least make it different. Whilst I can’t say whether or not he improved it, I do think he brought something completely different. Perhaps even bringing this classic horror story to the eyes of people who may never have ended up reading it — like me.

In Summary

Whilst I can’t recommend reading this version of Frankenstein before the original, nor should I, I do feel that it is definitely a Manga worth reading at some point. I’m not sure about any different experiences I may have had, had I have read the novel first. The big difference that does spring to mind is that all of the visuals would have been created in my imagination – making it even more scary perhaps?

But as a standalone horror manga, regardless of the source material, Junji Ito’s Frankenstein is a great read in my opinion and worthy of your time.

Nestled at the end of Junji Ito’s story `Gyo`, is a four page one-shot story about a man found trapped underneath the main supporting post of his family’s home. As the mother and children are busy entertaining visitors to their new home, screams are heard from beneath them. And there inside the house’s crawl space, tightly held beneath the Principal Post, is the father of the family.

The metaphor for this short story seemed so obvious to me, but I wanted to share my thoughts on it nonetheless.

For me, it seems that the father is literally holding the weight of the house on his back – supporting it for his wife and children. And instead of begging for help, he instead pleads for them not to move him – for doing so would risk bringing the whole building down. So for his family, he is willing to die in order to keep them warm and safe in their home.

I’m not sure if this was perhaps Junji Ito expressing feelings of his own regarding his family and his willingness to do whatever he can to help and support them. But I do like to think so.

This story does have a pretty ridiculous narrative when you think about it – the man being spontaneously trapped and the reason for it never being revealed – but I do think that this holds a nice message of family loyalty. Out of all of Ito’s one-shot stories I have read so far, The Sad Tale of the Principal Post is one of my favourites.