Junji Ito

Fixed Face

Fixed face is a short manga about a young woman who, due to a cruel twist of fate, becomes trapped in a menacing-looking Dentist’s chair.

This is a facility made specifically to capture the features on the lower portion of the face.
The Doctor explains the chair that makes Yagawa feel so uneasy.

Synopsis — Fixed Face

Fixed face is one of Junji Ito’s shorter stories, but is no less terrifying in its smaller page count.

Yagawa is a young lady who has gone to a dental hospital for some unknown reason. We don’t know her treatment and, for the purposes of this story, it isn’t really important. On arriving, the doctor welcomes her to take the only seat — the dental chair — and to place her head between two ominous-looking clamps.

These clamps, the doctor says, are to fix the person’s head in place to allow them to capture exactly the features of the lower part of their face. The clamp is made up of a huge over-arching machine. That machine reaches round a person’s head with pointed metal pieces that are to be placed inside the person’s ears.

However, on fixing the lady in place, the doctor realises he needs to leave the room for a moment. Not long after leaving, he trips down the stairs on one of the hospital’s lower floors — killing himself.

The location of the dental room is an area of the hospital not often covered by many people. So the lady is left alone, head clamped in place, without a word from the doctor or any other soul.

She has no idea about the fate of her doctor. And has no way to get herself out of the place in which she is trapped. What will happen to the lady? Will she ever get out? And if so, at what cost will she manage to break free?

Fear of never being found

I remember hearing an urban legend when I was younger about a person buried alive and never being found. The thought of being trapped in a place where nobody knows where you are is scary in itself.

But Junji Ito has created a similar story here, no doubt inspired by his own time as a working dentist. When Yagawa is fixed in place into the dental chair and then left, she is left in a very vulnerable position. But when we see how the Doctor ends up dying, she has no idea — however, we as the readers do.

We have a power over her that somehow reinforces Yagawa’s increasing anxiety. As she freaks out in the chair, unable to free herself and with seemingly no one coming to her help, we are forced to just watch her struggle.

What I found interesting too, was that there are no malevolent forces in operation here. There are no evil spirits, forces of nature, or a bad doctor trying to trick her. It is a situation of pure bad luck — for both Yagawa and her doctor. A situation that Yagawa must then try to escape from.

It reminded me of Tomie: Babysitter and Amigara Fault

In Tomie: Babysitter, the main character, Erita, falls into a similar situation. After being locked in a family’s baby’s nursery as a precaution, she ultimately finds herself trapped. With the only people who know she’s there unable to let her out. Although it is for very different reasons that her captors are unable to free her, the result is still similar.

Perhaps this fear of been locked away, or being forgotten, is a legitimate fear of Junji Ito’s? And maybe it’s that fear that he lets feed into his work in these stories? Or maybe it is just that the fear of being forgotten is such a common human fear, that it naturally ended up finding its way into his work.

Another similarity I felt in this story was of The Enigma of Amigara Fault. When we see Yagawa struggling and convinced that the ear clamps are pinching further into her head, it reminded me of the closing panels of Amigara Fault. Where we would see the tunnels gradually squeezing and bending the people who entered out of shape.

That idea of being trapped and seemingly under the control of some outside force closing in on you is scary. And I think that similar theme was used well here in Fixed Face too — albeit without the human-shaped holes.

In Conclusion

I find Fixed Face to be a very effective little horror story that is light enough on its surface to make for an easy read. But I think there is a lot to admire in those moments where Yagawa is getting more and more frightened in her fixed position.

There are some great examples of Ito’s penmanship on display. This is especially apparent where we see the lady’s close up face broken out into a sweat and panic. The fear is palpable and really jumps out of the page. Even the sense of motion as Ito draws her swinging to get out of her trap is really well done. Her increasing stress and anxiety is put across in a way that made it feel as though the pace was truly picking up. Almost as though I could hear the woman’s ever-increasing heart beat growing louder and louder.

Despite the slightly-contrived way in which Ito sets up this situation — the man just having to leave the room and just so happens to trip and die — this is still up there as a favourite of mine. This is less of an evolving story per-se. It is more of a situation that this woman, and by extension us as readers, must endure.

Mosquitoes (Uzumaki part 10)

In mosquitoes, Kirie must survive an horrific night in the hospital when she comes face to face with blood-thirsty pregnant women.

They needed raw blood for their babies!
Kirie must survive a blood-soaked nightmare

It is Summer time in Kurouzu-cho and Kirie Goshima is in hospital. She is still being treated for the wounds that she incurred when she and her brother escaped from the Black Lighthouse in the previous chapter. But what is not helping her heal, is the number of mosquitoes that have increased in numbers recently.

In fact, during a quick walk around the outside of the hospital Kirie and her friend notice a huge, thick collection of mosquitoes all buzzing around in a tight circular motion. Her friend tells her about how this is called a “Mosquito Column”, and occurs when all of the males get together to try and attract a mate. But within seconds of them seeing the column, things go from curious to horrific very quickly.

Kirie and her friend discover the body of a pregnant woman in the hospital grounds, with a face contorted into a look of pain and a body mutilated and full of holes. Soon after, more and more pregnant women get admitted to the hospital, as a result of mosquito swarm attacks. One of which is Kirie’s cousin Keiko.

As the story moves forward, more strange and horrific things begin to occur within the walls of the hospital. But what will Kirie and her Keiko do when they find themselves at the centre of a hellish nightmare?

Vampyric tendencies

Vampires are a staple of horror and have been so for over a hundred years – arguably starting with the Bram Stoker novel Dracula. Many modern-day horror stories that tackle the idea of the vampire lean very heavily on the story of Dracula too. Especially with both his strengths and his weaknesses. But what I loved about Mosquitoes by Junji Ito, was how he has managed to create his own vampire-like story with absolutely no mention of vampires.

The blood sucking women throughout the second half of the story are not controlled by some greater being that has sired them. Except, of course, if you consider the spiral at the centre of all things in Kurouzu-cho to be the controller. Instead, these women have simply taken on the attributes of the mosquitoes.

And that is the stroke of genius that sits at the heart of this chapter: “What if people took on the same behaviours as mosquitoes?”. And in Junji Ito’s own unique way, he has explored that question with gusto. Here you have pregnant women drilling holes in people to drink their blood, in order to feed the unborn babies inside of them.

Gripping and Horrific

Mosquitoes packs so much into its thirty or so pages that I couldn’t help but feel wiped out by the end of it. This is possibly the most horrific night that Kirie has had so far in Uzumaki. Taking the deceptively simple premise of “what if people started becoming like mosquitoes” opened up a whole load of horror possibilities.

As mentioned above, the similarities with vampires was a comparison that I couldn’t help but make. But so too there are similarities with zombie films. There is one panel in particular where Kirie steps out to investigate a strange noise that she hears in the corridors. That investigation takes her straight towards a group of demonic-looking women all after one thing — blood.

Despite them being mindful of what they are doing and how they are doing it, the horde of evil ladies drew big parallels with scenes I’d seen from zombie films. Such as the group pursuing as one demonic pack; the people who come out to investigate and get caught and devoured. But perhaps my favourite part was when Kirie manages to escape the horde and lock herself back in her own room, only to be locked inside with something already lurking in there.

In Conclusion

Without a doubt, Mosquitoes is one of my top three favourite Uzumaki chapters. I’m not quite sure if it’s my absolute number one yet. But I think it’ll be a close one.

What’s great too, is that this story works great as it’s own standalone tale, separate from the surrounding story of the spiral nightmare. Junji Ito’s genius is on full show here with his gruesome depictions of blood-thirsty women being like mosquitoes. But instead of them just being pests as their tiny counterparts tend to be, these women are wild-eyed, demonic animals. And they will kill on site anyone who crosses their path.

Despite this being able to stand on it’s own story merits, it is actually followed on directly by the next chapter, “Umbilical Cord”. I can’t remember the story itself, having only just read the next chapter’s title. But seeing as it deals with the babies that came as a result of that evil night, it definitely feels like it will be just as crazier — perhaps more so.

If you’re looking for a reason to start reading Uzumaki, or even just Junji Ito in general, please do give this one a read. You could even go to your local bookshop that has it in stock, and jump straight to page 299. I guarantee you will at least enjoy the experience. But you’ll more likely than not end up buying the collection then and there.

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?

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

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?

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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

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)

The Snail (Uzumaki part 8)

In The Snail, we meet a school boy named Katayama. He only comes to school when it’s raining — and today it’s pouring down.

Get off my back! He’s just a slug now! He’s not human anymore!!
Tsumura justifies himself poking Katayama with a long stick

The Snail — Synopsis

Katayama is a bit of a joke amongst his classroom peers — one of which is Uzumaki main-stay, Kirie Goshima. One morning Kirie and her friend remark on how it is raining for the first time in a while, and that they predict that Katayama will come to school that day. Sure enough he walks in, late as always, and slowly takes his seat.

As each day passes, with the rain continuing, Katayama keeps arriving later. However, his appearance begins to change with each passing day. Firstly a spiral bulge becomes visible from underneath his wet school shirt. Until, by the end of the week, he has somehow managed to transform into a giant snail. Yep, the title of this chapter is very literal.

Just how will the other school students deal with this very odd turn of events? Will they attack or will they try to help? And what will happen once another one of those very students begins to display signs that they may be going down a similar path?

The Spiral Rises

There are two starting points for the spirals in Uzumaki, as I can see. The first is in spirals that already exist in the world. Like with small whirlpools in water, snail shells and in coiled springs. Then there have been the appearances of spirals that have seemingly come from nowhere. Like with Kirie’s hair problems and the girl with the scar.

In The Snail, we see the latter — a large spiral mark on Katayama’s back seems to point to the origin of his grotesque transformation. Once this mark is discovered, after Tsumura drags a naked and humiliated Katayama into the hallway, the transformation seems to speed up. Presumably, to get the reputation of being slow, it would have to have been a part of his personality for a while before this chapter begins. It’s almost as if the spiral speeds up the transformation process once it is discovered.

There was one thing I noticed that I found very interesting to note too. Once Katayama turned, and was given sanctuary in the shelter on school grounds, Tsumura starts poking him with a stick. Soon afterwards he himself begins to show signs of slowing down. Then later on, when another character destroys the snail eggs left behind in the woods, they too seem to be targeted.

I wonder whether the spiral is completely self aware and is actually beginning to target these people out of malice or revenge. If so, it would indeed give some new angles from which to view other chapters in the Uzumaki collection.

Katayama is bad at sports due to his slowness

Enter the grotesque

There haven’t been too many moments in Uzumaki so far, where I have had to squint from disgust. Save perhaps for when Shuichi’s mother stabbed herself in her ears and cut her own finger tips off. But with how Junji Ito manages to capture the depictions of human-sized snails, he almost got me wincing from the page.

Everything from the bumpy slimy textures of the bodies, to the bulging, elongated eye sockets. Even down to the way he shows Snail-Katayama peeling slowly off the school’s outer wall as he is forced off by students with brooms. These Kafka-esque depictions of spiral-controlled snails display a horror manga artist at the top of his game.

There was another thing that I found worked at both the grotesque and the dark comedy levels too. The moment when both Katayama and Tsumura, both fully-transformed, are kept together in the pen. They soon begin to mate, as snails do, which brought a whole new layer to the story. Not only are these both young men at heart, or at least they were, they were also the complete opposite of friends. The idea that you have a bully and his victim now mating as human-sized snails, brings a whole new level of horror, and dare I say comedy, that only someone like Junji Ito could conjure up.

In Conclusion

I feel like The Snail is more of a mid-level entry into the weirdness of Junji Ito’s worlds. You are safe from the violence and body horror found elsewhere, however, instead you are treated to spine-tingling depictions of gross transformations.

I think it works really well as a standalone story too. The fact that Katayama is slow by reputation, means that the story doesn’t need to rely on the surrounding spiral nightmares of the town of Kurouzu-cho. This could just as easily be a one-shot nightmare of Ito’s.

If you are feeling particularly brave you could go in with reading The Snail first. It will give you some great examples of Ito’s artwork and indeed his comedy-aware writing style. Or you could start at the beginning of the Uzumaki Collection and let this one sneak up on you slowly. Give it a read if you think you can stomach it.

Junji Ito cameo in Death Stranding?

Death Stranding is easily one of the most hotly anticipated games of recent years. From the creative genius Hideo Kojima, this epic, world-traversing PS4 game is sure to push boundaries and impress in many ways.

What I discovered today, is that there could very well be a cameo by none other that Junji Ito himself. Ito had previously been working with Kojima on the now-cancelled Silent Hills project. (I still shed a tear at the mere thought of what that could have become). But it seems that they have remained in touch.

Here are the images I have found after somebody shared them on Facebook. I have yet to confirm these as being true, but I pray to the gods of horror that they are.

Check out Death Stranding on the PlayStation Store!

The Bully

The Bully is one of those rare Junji Ito mangas that features no physical horror or gore. Instead, it’s horror is depicted through the bullying inflicted by the central character, Kuriko.

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.

Snow White adaptation by Junji Ito

Most people probably know the story of Snow White — the seven dwarfs; the poison apple; the prince. But I bet not many know of this version by acclaimed horror Mangaka Junji Ito.

A short version but not one to be missed.

Read on Manga Owl.

Honoured Ancestors

Honouring the memory of one’s ancestors is something that most people try to do – at least I like to think so. So it seems fitting that in Honoured Ancestors, Junji Ito should take this very human trait and turn the dial up to “weird” and give us a flesh and blood representation of ancestry.

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.

Frankenstein

Junji Ito takes on one of the most well-known horror stories of all time. He injects his signature style and atmosphere into the classic tale of man playing god.

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.

One of the most exciting pictures I’ve seen in a long while

This picture is one of the most exciting pictures I’ve seen in a while. On the surface it is just three people looking at something on a computer monitor. However, for those who know and enjoy two of these people’s work, it is something to shout home about.

The guy on the left is Junji Ito – horror manga legend and instrumental in bringing the genre to modern mainstream attention. I enjoy horror manga very much and Junji Ito is one of those authors whose work I actively search for. His art style is instantly recognisable and has created some of the most memorable and terror-inducing images and stories.

His most well known stories are probably Uzumaki, Tomie, and Gyo. Each masterpieces in their own right and serve to solidify Ito’s position at the very top of his game. His stories, especially those mentioned, work within the horror sub-genre of ‘Body Horror’.

Hideo Kojima

The guy on the right is Hideo Kojima. Kojima is a name well-known and highly respected within the gaming community, and indeed the wider community of action and story telling. He is the man responsible for the Metal Gear Solid series whose reputations really do precede them.

Each of the games of Kojima’s that I have played I have fallen in love with. The first two Metal Gear Solid games, the first on the Playstation and the second on the Playstation 2, were such important games to me growing up, with me being about fifteen years old and eighteen years old respectively when they were released.

These games were some of the most memorable gaming experiences that I have ever had and have definitely stayed with me to the present day.

Why this picture is exciting

To have both of these people present in the same photo, apparently reviewing something together in an office, s exciting. The had previously been working together on what was going to be a new Silent Hill game. The very thought of that even being a possibility is cause enough to lose your shit over. Junji Ito’s twisted and macabre creations within a world created and directed by Kojima…

…But it was never to be. Silent Hills, as it was called, was cancelled and they both went their separate ways. And that was that…

…Or was it?

Death Stranding is the game that Kojima and his team are currently working on, which is exciting in itself. However, when you take the recent image above and consider the very real possibility that the two masters themselves could in fact still be working together, whole new levels of awesome enter into the mix.

Original source of image here.

My collection of horror Manga may spiral out of control…

I stumbled upon this beauty in Waterstones today!

The artwork in Uzumaki is stunning. Jack in the box is one of my favourite chapters

There is something really haunting about The Enigma of Amigara Fault.

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