The Amigara Fault" is a perfect example of "less is more," as no rhyme or reason is ascribed to the millenia-old holes or how they could be silhouettes of humans living in current time. Readers don't need that information to understand the inherent compulsion that begins affecting the people near the fault. It's a simple question, really. If you found some kind of hole or shape and knew you could fit in it, would you climb inside? Let's say it is only the size of your hand, would you reach in? Perhaps that desire to know and explore doesn't affect everyone, but it can nevertheless be simultaneously strong and terrifying . Junji Ito is, perhaps, a creator who needs no introduction. He is long beloved of many manga fans, recently rising in popularity with a much wider audience, his horror comics touching upon universal fears and fancies. Publisher VIZ Media has committed to bringing more and more of his work to North America, the most recent installment being the short story collection Venus in the Blind Spot . Overall, this collection is super strong and full of intense and gripping stories. There were a couple that stood out and really stole the show. I think many readers will enjoy this horror short story collection. Keepsake- 4.5 stars This story is so gross because it’s about a child who is born from a dead woman and if you get grossed out by SPOILER necrophilia SPOILER then skip this one. I loved the story and how it unfolded. It felt dramatic in the most twisted way.

I feel like this was missing a critical piece but of something. Yet I can’t quite figure out what that might be... Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner of the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga. An Unearthly Love (Edogawa Ranpo): This one is a disturbing re-telling. What happens when a man’s one true love… is a doll? Hi, this is my first time reading Junji Ito and experiencing his horror manga and I am a fan. Like why did I think his stuff would be so disgusting and traumatizing that I couldn’t read it. Well, I won’t lie the opening story in the horror manga collection will leave some readers traumatized. Think Sally from the Hotel season of American Horror Story when she sews her two lovers to her body because she loves them so much and they die. Yea, the first story is like that but more intense, so if you think that will make you throw up then maybe skip this collection or Junji Ito altogether. I, however, totally am hyped by this new discovery and I’m obsessed. I loved it. The experience was visceral and now I will break down my thoughts on all of the stories. Based off another original story by Edogawa Ranpo (aka the seminal Japanese mystery writer who took pen-name inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe), this tells of a woman who marries an emaciated-looking man known to “hate women.” While it doesn’t appear that he hates her, he certainly is strange—sneaking off in the middle of the night to visit a woman who the narrator is convinced is his lover.A fantastic collection of translated 'illustrated' short stories. What do you call a graphic novel when it's not novel size? I honestly don't know. Billions Alone creeped the hell out of me. A story about seriously screwed up murders being committed if you gather in groups. Seriously relevant with the world in which we are currently living in. victims are chosen who do not partake in a lifestyle that can only be described in self isolating. Raw and poignant.

This collection of stories felt like opening up pandora’s box. Its an art form. Ridiculously suspenseful. Its opened me up to reading more Manga. ABOUT JUNJI ITO As with every Ito story, all is not as it seems! However, the twist to this one was surprisingly feeble. Colour me unimpressed. :( This one took me by surprise because it wasn’t so much a horror story as it was an autobiographical snippet about Ito’s experiences growing up with the work of Kazuo Umezu, a popular Japanese horror manga author, musician, and actor. When Ito grows up, he gets a chance to work with his idol. You might not comprehend it right away, but if you think about it, you might be able to figure out what Ito is trying to say. Interesting. After reading this, I'm relieved that I can enjoy my own company and don't require outside entertainment on a regular basis.Venus In The Blind Spot: The titular tale. What would you do if you couldn’t see the person you love up close but only from a distance? Could it be the work of aliens or something more human…? Venus in the Blind Spot- 5 stars This story was perfect. It has the allure of being a creepy a UFO story, but it is much more sinister than a simple UFO. This is a story that I barely want to explain because even talking too much about it would give away its brilliance. How Love Came to Professor Kirida' is the third and final adaptation in the book, based on a story by Robert Hichens. Like 'The Human Chair', it has a framing device in which a young woman comes across a historical account. This concerns the dour, misanthropic Engai Kirida and a priest, Father Murchison, who visits him. Given that the original is a Victorian ghost story written by a British author, it's unsurprising that the plot turns out to be a rather traditional tale of haunting, but it's portrayed in bombastic/hilarious/terrifying style that I'm sure has to be a vast improvement on the original. Translation & Adaptation: Jocelyne Allen and Yuji Oniki (“The Enigma of Amigara Fault” and “The Sad Tale of the Principal Post”)

The most common obsessions are with beauty, long hair, and beautiful girls, especially in his Tomie and Flesh-Colored Horror comic collections. For example: A girl's hair rebels against being cut off and runs off with her head; Girls deliberately catch a disease that makes them beautiful but then murder each other; a woman treats her skin with lotion so she can take it off and look at her muscles, but the skin dissolves and she tries to steal her sister's skin, etc. i☆Ris the Movie - Full Energy!! - Anime Film Teaser Visual Revealed at i☆Ris Live Stage in Anime NYC & i☆Ris First Performance in New York Successfully CompletedSubsequent chapters are less effective, with the weakest being "How Love Came to Professor Kirida," a story about the obsessive love of women that transcend death to terrorize the men that rebuffed them. Similarly, "Keepsake" also features a man haunted beyond the grave after an eerie child is found born from the corpse of his dead wife. "Master Umezz and Me" is a humorous autobiographical chapter about Junji Ito and his childhood and later work intersecting with his favorite horror manga creator, Kazuo Umezz ( Kazuo Umezu), the creator of The Drifting Classroom and Cat Eyed Boy. The opening chapter "Billions Alone" feels exceptionally relevant given the current times but would function exponentially better as a short series ala Uzumaki than as a single chapter. I’m not sure I altogether followed the storyline with this one. Maybe it would’ve been more enjoyable if I’d read the source work? Overall, this was a solid collection with several standout stories. This is well worth adding to anyone's collection.

His second adaptation of Ranpo's oeuvre is less effective, focusing on the new wife in the Kadono clan, Kyoko. Through an arranged marriage, Kyoko is married to the slight and handsome Kadono. He by all appearances (and words) loves her dearly, yet for unknown reasons sneaks into a storeroom every night. His health appears to be waning and Kyoko, suspecting an affair, follows him on one of his outings where she learns that the object of his affections is an immaculate doll. Rampo had at least three stories centering on the concept of doll love, including "Unearthly Love" that is included in Ito's collection. The story itself feels less like horror and more like a strange tragedy (with some excellent face renditions here by Ito). "Perversion" was a regular subject of Rampo's stories and while "The Human Chair" centers on a feeling of violation, "Unearthly Love" focuses on a sense of betrayal as Kyoko learns that her husband's amourous confessions are only to satiate her while he has trysts with the female doll. She has in fact discovered that she is Kadono's "beard" and the similarities and framing of her discovering her husband with a doll versus a male lover were likely intentional on Rampo's part, as homoeroticism was another common theme in his stories although the author regarded it positively. Ultimately, the story is not so much frightening as it is tragic, especially when taking its ending into consideration. Master Umezz and Me' is something completely different: an autobiographical story about the young Junji Ito's adoration of horror manga, and particularly his lifelong admiration for the artist Kazuo Umezz. It feels a bit out of place in the middle of the book and would perhaps have worked better at the end. Due to the ways in which expressions are drawn, it's not without its unnerving moments. I like it when these collections feature the same characters in different stories - Ito does this often - but I wanted more with the female author and felt like her story just ... ended. The other stories are mostly ok but either not long enough or not particularly memorable. The titular story for me was one of the weakest ones, but The Sad Tale of the Principal Post was especially dumb and pointless. stars: Billions Alone (rating went up), The Human Chair (rating went up), The Enigma of Amigara Fault

Discussions

I've read a lot of Junji Ito's work at this point, and it's generally a bit hit or miss for me, but thankfully, this was a huge hit. I absolutely loved this collection and can easily say it's one of my favorites of his works. It spans a grouping of short stories, some written by other authors, and altogether, while they certainly don't fit a theme or anything, they work well together and were almost all extremely well-done. There was one story I wasn't a big fan of near the end, and then I think it's worth mentioning that the collection involves 'The Enigma of Amigara Fault', which may disappoint some long-time lovers of his work as it's featured in at least one of his other collections (thankfully, it happens to be one of my all-time faves, so I was delighted to read it again). So here’s the thing with Ito: like HP Lovecraft, Ito is great at producing haunting images of primal horror but, also like Lovecraft, he’s very clumsy, almost amateurish, in incorporating these images into traditional stories. What you’re left with is some genuinely disturbing visions of horror scattered amidst numerous quite dull, predictable and almost laughably goofy stories.