As I write this, during the aftermath of the massive sale we had this weekend, I realize that I haven’t really had time to process anything big in the pop culture universe that Star Clipper is apart of. What, with all the preparation for the Japanese Festival and the awesome sale, I just haven’t had the time. But as I sit here, typing…stalling… It finally hits me for what I want to talk about. And what I want to talk about is Junji Ito!

Now, some of you, who frequent our manga section, might recognize that name from the books that have weird covers on them. You might also have noticed that it’s hard for us to keep his work in stock. The man’s work goes out of print like clockwork. But that didn’t stop me from picking up some of his anthology sets. In particular, I picked up the Museum of Horror Volumes 1 & 2. These are the entirety of Ito’s “Tomie” stories. You’ve heard of Tomie right? It’s the one about the girl who drives dudes crazy, then they hack her to pieces, only for her to come back from death… Again and again and again… You’d think that the stories would get old after the first few, but no. They don’t. And as you work your way from the older stories to the newer ones, the imagery just gets creepier and creepier. At one point in one of the stories, there was a clusterfudge of a situation in this old guy’s house. You see, the original owner had been locked away in a cage or something, while this other dude pretended to be the old guy. The “fake” old guy was running experiments on young women with Tomie’s cells, which mostly resulted in the girls turning into another Tomie. However, the “real” old guy’s daughter was experimented on and I guess she died… Kinda… The girl became an onryo (like the ghosts in The Ring or The Grudge) but her body became a massive mess of various Tomie bodies merged together and I guess, a giant worm. So… yeah, the house had an angry ghost, a mindless beast, a couple of hostages, an insane guy, and Tomie. It was awesome.

I think it’s safe to say, that I am now officially a fan of Junji Ito. However, it would appear that I’ve waited way too long to become his fan. Like I mentioned before, a lot of his work tends to go out of print. I recall a buddy of mine, Raymond, was telling me to read Uzumaki for like… I don’t know, ten years… I just couldn’t imagine what was so scary about spirals. But, after reading the Tomie stories, I’m sure the guy figured out how to make them scary. But I also long to read Gyo. I saw a toy that was based off of what was probably a major spoiler in the book, but it looked so freakin’ cool. So, I’m on a quest now. I WILL hunt down Ito’s translated work, and I WILL read it. I’m also waiting on a box set of movies based off of his work as well. Apparently, playing the role of Tomie is a coveted role for Japanese actresses, so… There’s gotta be something about his work that’s appealing for everyone, right? That’s it for now, see ya next time.

-Fleet

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