Rami Ungar The Writer

In his latest collection, Junji Ito contains four short horror manga for us to enjoy. Surprisingly, none of them are named “The Liminal Zone,” which is unusual for his collections.

That’s it. That’s the summary of the book.

So, as you all know, Ito-sensei’s work can be really hit-or-miss with me. Some of it, like Remina or Uzumaki, are masterpieces and I feel should be read by horror lovers everywhere. Others, like Smashed or Fragment of Horror, didn’t make that big an impact on me (though I think one of the short stories in the latter inspired one of the stories that’ll be in Hannah). This collection, for the most part, was a miss.

The first story, Weeping Woman Way, is about a couple who come across a professional mourner, affecting the woman in the couple. It is kind of eerie, but it kind of fell flat with me. Too much exposition and not enough focus on the horror, which I feel is a trend with the lesser of Ito’s stories.

The second, Madonna, was my favorite. Taking Catholic veneration of Jesus’s mother Mary to new extremes, the story takes place at an all-girls school where the principal’s wife dresses up as the Virgin Mary. As new student Maria Amano notices weird things occurring at the school, and the attentions of the principal and his wife become more than creepy, she finds herself wrapped up in a terrifying plot centered around the belief that the Virgin Mary will reincarnate one day.

As a cult story, I rather liked it and how it took Mary worship in a rather disturbing direction. I also like how Ito-sensei explored feminist themes in the story, like how many of the female characters equate acting passive and devoted to their god–the principal–to acting like Mary. Even the main character acts very passively and only takes action when her own life is threatened.

The one flaw with the story was that I would have liked a slightly different ending, but overall it’s easily the best story in the collection. I would love to see how a live-action horror adaptation would handle the story. It would likely be an improvement over that other horror movie about twisted Marian veneration that came out last year.

The third story, The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara, is Ito’s take on the famous “Suicide Forest” of Aokigahara, and I did not think it was possible to find a story on that subject I would hate more than 2016’s The Forest (see my review here). A terminally ill man and his girlfriend head to the forest to commit suicide and find a mysterious phenomenon involving ghosts and a mysterious cave. I really have no idea what was up with this story. It just seemed like Ito was throwing darts at a board and trying to see what plot points he could hit.

Though I do appreciate that it made fun of that idiot YouTuber who actually posted footage of a dead body on his channel by having another YouTuber experience something sanity ending.

The final story, Slumber, wasn’t half-bad. A guy believes that he’s been going out and killing people after he goes to sleep. It’s a decent psychological thriller with a nice twist. Plus, the art is especially gruesome.

All in all, this is one of Ito-sensei’s lesser collections, though there is material to enjoy. On a scale of 1 to 5, I’m going to give The Liminal Zone a 2.5 out of 5. If there was more or better material inside, the grade would have been better, but it is what it is. Read for Madonna and Slumber, but skip over the other two.

That’s all for now, my Followers of Fear. I’ll have some more posts out next week, believe me. So until next time, good night and pleasant nightmares!