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Its no surprise I'm a fan of Junji Ito's work. I love me some horror manga, and to me, Ito-san's the best in the business. I've reviewed a few things here on the site before, like his short story for the Siren guidebook, and the unforgettable Uzumaki, and I gotta say, Ito-san's work always manages to get a good creep into me where most horror manga don't always. There's a huge energy and pacing to an Ito story that sometimes can leave you flipping pages as fast as you can, holding your breath until the end.
I tend to binge read my manga, so it came as a surprise to me, when handed my hardbound copy of his newest horror collection Fragments of Horror, that according to his afterword, Ito-san had been in an 8 year hiatus from horror manga. As far as I knew, he was filling his time writing, but it wasn't always horror. He was working on his Cat Diary series, which was quite possibly my favorite manga of ALL TIME, but other than that, he wasn't doing horror manga, and so this collection is the first in a long long time (also in the afterword, he mentions during this time not only did one of the beloved cats from that manga pass, so did one of his beloved editors also did within a short time span).
Fragments of Horror is, to me, a rather great return to horror. The hardcover release has a truly inspired wraparound dust jacket featuring most of the stories presented in the book (it lacks to my knowledge Whispering Woman but more on that later). What's actually pretty cool that doesn't scan well is the dust jacket has a pattern in high gloss that can only be seen when turning the book at an angle under light. The patter itself is actually the same pattern as the actual hardbound cover (see below), which is printed on a matte black with a metallic silver ink. The dust jacket has a spot on homage to
Edvard Munch's The Scream (also called by the artist The Scream of Nature), with Tomio taking center stage on the bridge amid the spot on color copy and positioning. I think the cover is probably one of the best designs I've seen in years.
It seems like maybe a coincidence that the number in the anthology is 8, though I wouldn't put it past him to have planned it. As he said in the afterword, he had been working on a multitude of things before this was published (first in japan in april of 2014), and among the other collection I last read, things like a Pokemon cross promotion was one, and the rumored art designs for the now cancelled Silent Hills game. One can wonder if he's gotten, as some might call it, "ring rust" from being out of the ring for so long.
Some of the stories, like the first, are super short. Others are rather longer, about the same length, but they all have a very defined pace that Ito-san is known for, with his sharp and clean line work. Only 2 stories don't really have title pages, coincidentally both stories involving the man Tomio (coincidentally, a name close to Ito-san's seminal work Tomie).
FutonThe first story in the series is I believe the first story he worked on in the anthology, and was commented in the afterword as being very weak; his editor said he looked at it and wondered if his "horror instincts" haven't fully returned. Its the shortest story in the entire book at 8 pages, and I do kind of agree. Its super short, but gets to the point and has a horrifying payoff, half explanatory and half abrupt, like most good horror manga should end.
Tomio and his new wife Madoka are living together, but Tomio won't come out of his futon for fear of dark nature spirits. He takes somewhat responsibility for the arrival of the spirits when, after Madoka wakes to see them as well, he confesses he cheated on her with a woman who claimed to be a witch. Madoka flees in terror, but of course comes back to him some time later. What she finds is an explanation for the madness, yet….
What's fascinating with this is that this story is truly a fragment, but has a clear beginning middle and end that come together cleanly, and opens the door for more scarier things in the book.
Wooden Spirit
Megumi and her father share a historical house that's been honored by being a historical landmark. Its the pride and joy of Megumi's father. One day, a young woman named Manami Kino comes by to look at the house, and quickly falls in love. Literally.
With the house.
While Megumi is suspicious of her, Manami quickly makes herself a part of the family, caring for them, and eventually marrying Megumi's father. Yet things are not quite what they seem. Its not until the young girl realizes that Manami truly HAS fallen in love with the house…and the house with her.
There are little clues to explain the power Manami has over the house (or houses in general), but it is clear that her presence changes the house physically. The name of the story, as well as her last name--Kino-- are also clues (the name Kino is related to wood when spelled with certain kanji), and implies that maybe Manami isn't entirely human…though Megumi's father accurately describes her as "…a pervert…she lusted after buildings, and they lusted after her…" This story begins an upward (or downward) climb in tot he horrors left in the book, and the next story takes it up another notch.
Tomio--Red Turtleneck
The second Tomio story begins with a cold open, which is the only story in the book to do so. Both Tomio stories don't have a true title card page, as this one is more of a full bleed (heh) page with the title instead. Tomio walks through town in a panicked fit, holding his hands to his head until he comes to Madoka's apartment, where you find they've been estranged for some time because of his constant cheating. This time, he runs off with a fortune teller whom wines, dines, then sexes Tomio before asking for her reward: his severed head. When her first attempt to behead him fails and he flees, her second attempt works much better: while in a white turtleneck she lent him, her hair beheads him and he must keep his hands on his head or it will fall off.
Never mind the anatomical impossibilities! This is a Junji Ito manga! What follows is a terrifying vie for Tomio's life and head between the fortune teller and Madoka, culminating in a crazy showdown.
I'm not one for body horror. I know, its weird, but that's the kind of power Ito-san has. While his most grotesque works often ARE body horror themes, I tend to stick with them because the stories are just that powerful, and this chapter is no different. You think having your head severed is terrifying; try thinking about what happens when some CRAZY BITCH SHOVES A COCKROACH IN YOUR SEVERED NECK.
Yeah. Fucking Junji Ito ROCKS.
Gentle Goodbye
This story has to be my all-time favorite Ito story and I've read a considerable amount of them. This one is admittedly the least horrific story in the anthology, but its not the sole reason its my favorite.
Riko marries into the immensely powerful and old Tokura family, against the family's wishes. Her husband Makoto appears to be very loving, though the family is rather cold to his new wife, excepting his younger sister Tomoka. Rika also has a terrible anxiety: she fears the death of her beloved father so much that she'll wake crying about the nightmares.
Eventually, Riko discovers her family has a secret power: when a member of the family dies, the entire family wills a sort of "afterimage" of their beloved family member that lasts roughly 20 years. Makoto explains its their way of having a gentle goodbye…and Riko wonders if the same can be done for her own father when he dies.
But things aren't always what they seem in the story. What makes "Gentle Goodbye" so powerful is the twist at the end, and the entire concept of what a gentle goodbye truly means. Is the family's afterimage conjuring entirely selfless, or is it selfishness? Is the "convenience" of having a loved one who died still around truly comforting? Or is it actually lengthening the mourning process, making it that much harder to say goodbye to the people you love the most? What would you do if you had the ability to do it?
Dissection-chan
Jumping back into the horror saddle is this chapter, where a dissection student gets a blast from the past from a strange incident during his first dissection class: a woman pretending to be dead demands to be dissected while she is still alive. Tatsuro Kamada recognizes her as a childhood friend, Ruriko Tamiya. As children, Ruriko strong-arms Tatsuro into stealing surgical equipment from his father's clinic so she can dissect live animals. When word gets out about Dissection-chan and her connection to her, Tatsuro flees and never sees her again, even after she falls ill with stomach aches. Years later, she's still trying to get people to cut her open instead, until she tracks down her old friend.
After he finally escapes her, Tatsuro, years later as a senior doctor, again is back in the dissection class, this time teaching it, and this time Ruriko is back on the slab, only this time she's finally dead.
However when they cut her open, they find out that perhaps her obsession with being dissected wasn't just in her head….it was in her stomach and body as well. What makes "Dissection-chan" creepy is the insanity of Ruriko's obsession, and how Ito-san doesn't hold back from the body horror angle one bit. One has to wonder…does obsession sometimes turn in onto itself and can it affect your very health? This chapter certainly seems to confirm that; whether or not her obsession lead to her disfigurement, or vice versa is irrelevant once you see what's really inside.
Blackbird
A man named Kume finds a hiker named Shiro in the woods, who'd been lost for a month. Except for fused broken legs and other minor injuries, he's managed to stay alive without being able to move all that time. Shiro convinces Kume to spend the night next to him in the hospital to show him how he survived. A mysterious, full lipped woman in black visits him and regurgitates meat into his mouth, even after he's been rescued. Kume and Shiro don't know what to make of it, and once he's healed, both men attempt to go back to normal lives. Except this woman--who sometimes takes on the visage of a giant bird--keeps coming back, trying to keep her charge alive by giving him food.
Later its discovered that the meat and blood she used to sustain him is human, and Kume eventually finds that Shiro goes missing, only to be found some time later on a mountain top, a half eaten corpse.
But the true horror is that the meat he'd been given all that time…was his own flesh and blood. And now Kume realizes, after an identical accident, this woman-bird creature has set her sights on keeping him alive too. "Blackbird" is a scary story, compounded by the only vaguest of explanations as to what's truly going on. Shiro had been sustained by his own flesh and blood…that we later find has been taken by force by the woman after he has rejected her; the only explanation we are given is that the woman-bird must have the ability to travel different times to give her charges the sustenance they need from their own bodies. In any case, however she does it isn't the scary part, its the fact that she forces self-cannibalization in order to save her own "chicks".
Magami Nanakuse
Titular character Magami Nanakuse is an author of highly addicting books about people's tics or repetitive habits and Kaoru Koketsu is one of her big fans. Devoring her books, Kaoru sometimes finds herself imitating characters in the book. Wanting to be a writer, she writes to her idol, only to be contacted by later. But as Kaoru finds, in this remote village that's said to be a kusechi, or a place where disasters happen, that nothing is what it seems to be. Her idol is a cross-dressing man with outrageous movement tics and habits, who sadistically berates her fan into wetting herself and then imprisons her after drinking her into a stupor with collected alcohols. Kaoru, in Nanakuse's dungeon, finds that the place forces the body into repetitive tics, but her mentor is looking for that "ultimate tic". While the poor girl rots in her prison, the author has a congregation of people from the village, where all the dinner guests repeat all of her movement tics like miming monkeys.
Kaoru, in an attempt to withstand the power of the kusechi, ends up becoming (like all the others imprisoned) the subject of Nanakuse's next book, whether she likes it or not. While its again not clear what forces are at work in this village, its clear enough that Nanakuse isn't truly the instigator of it all, but merely an exploiter of these places for her/his amusement and writing inspiration. Nanakuse is a shitty personality but fascinating in context of the story, though the real horror is the exploitation of her/his fans more than the grotesque tics that claim them, including Kaoru.
Whispering Woman
In the last story--which is my second favorite, on close heels to "Gentle Goodbye"--Mayumi is a girl with a debilitating and strange handicap: she has completely lost the ability to make her own decisions. Barraging her assistants with questions on every little aspect of life, from creating to eating, to sitting or not, to using the bathroom or not, causes them to quit under pressure. Her father Shigeki finally finds a woman named Mitsu who seems to be able to handle the immense job of leading Mayumi through day to day life. Mitsu starts out with telling her answers to every question, but after time begins giving her more and more detailed instructions, drawing closer and closer to her charge's ear, whispering everything Mayumi needs to know. When its clear the job and her personal life--a private detective hired by Mayumi's father finds that Mitsu's live-in deadbeat boyfriend Aga steals her money and beats her--is driving Mitsu to the brink of death, Shigeki has to decide: the life of his daughter, or the life of her attendant.
Mayumi is the ultimate damsel in distress. The poor girl is so helpless she can't even make the decisions to sit down or stand. When Mitsu steps in, one has to wonder why she puts up with it all, and you begin to wonder if Mitsu may have an ulterior motive. Does she like controlling Mauymi's life, taking control when in her own life she has none? Or is Mitsu grooming Mayumi to be able to make decisions later in life without her? And are those decisions in the end good for Mayumi…or Mitsu? I think its one of my favorites because you can't know what Mitsu's motives are until the end, even after her own death, her own influence on her charge is powerful. But is it merely Mayumi's mind coping with the loss of her decision maker? Or has Mitsu really come back from the grave to continue leading her charge down a terrifying path?
In my opinion, Ito-san hasn't really lost his touch. Even the weakest chapter, the first one, still has the ability to keep one moving, even if its only through the sheer batshit insanity of the 2 page full-bleed of the dark nature spirits (which is the same image that graces both the hardcover and the glossy pattern on the dust jacket). He hasn't lost his touch with his pen, where his intricate line work gives live to the gorgeously grotesque landscape of body horror and terror that he's known for. Each story climbs to new heights of scary as you go, with even a small breather in "Gentle Goodbye", showing a tender side of Ito-san's writing you rarely see. What is present is his relentless pursuit of the evil and fear that he's been known for since his work in Tomie and Gyo. The hopeless feeling that sometimes, horror wins, and good loses, or even good people can sometimes fall victim to the strange and scary worlds they fall into. Wicked sometimes wins, especially in "Magami Nanakuse", or "Dissection-chan". That's what makes Ito-san's work so fascinating, and powerful, and while disgusting and terrifying, that much more alluring and habit-forming. If you have a chance to pick this up, do it. You won't be disappointed. If you've never read a Junji Ito collection or story, this is a great place to start.
And seriously. This guy did Pokemon illustrations and a cat manga. You can't lose.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
--Dio (10/18/15)
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