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the story itself was plotted haphazardly and over the top, but ito's art style was amazing and there was def some pretty gnarly body horror
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Yes. That is actually the actual story of this actual book. SO many questions. How did tech from WW2 survive in working order at the bottom of the sea for so long? Who fused them to fish? Why have the legged fish chosen to invade now? What's their goal – why inv
Japanese scientists in WW2 plugged up some animals' mouths and anuses and attached them to mechanical legs which operated on the creatures' built-up gases. Years later, fish have become fused with this tech and have invaded the mainland.Yes. That is actually the actual story of this actual book. SO many questions. How did tech from WW2 survive in working order at the bottom of the sea for so long? Who fused them to fish? Why have the legged fish chosen to invade now? What's their goal – why invade land, why target humans? If the hosts are dead, who's steering them? How does this outdated tech know how to do sophisticated things like hide behind/steer around obstacles?
SO few answers! And that's because Junji Ito is the manga equivalent of Ed Wood. To say that this dude can't write is a massive understatement – he's beyond incompetent. Basically he just wanted to draw fish with mechanical legs terrorising humans and damn making any kind of sense – it's that contrived!
But, like Ed Wood, the B-movie-type schlock Ito produces is entertaining in its sheer lunacy. Don't let anyone tell you this is a horror comic because it's not – if it exists, the genre would be comedy pseudo-horror. But, for me anyway, it was just plain comedy – I was howling with laughter through most of this absurd madness! It just got dumber and dumber and dumber as it went on. Suddenly sharks were getting butt-plugged, then whales, then humans, all of them propelled by farts; there were living fart spirits – who could take this seriously as genuine horror when it's so, so, so silly?! Oh and the bonkers fart circus who perform their weird gassy show purely for the benefit of our protagonist – I dare you to keep a straight face during that scene!
That said, I think Ito is aware of how retarded his story is. About the only question he anticipates, or at least acknowledges, is how could literally billions of these mechanical legs have been built and who would have made them? He throws in one ridiculous panel towards the end, mumbling something about evolution and bacteria… Yeah, he knows this is trash!
Despite his significant failings as a writer, he does have a strong understanding of sequential storytelling so Gyo, like all of his comics, is a quick and easy read. And his art style is accomplished, visually arresting and somewhat creepy, though he can't make someone fart/belch "menacingly" – it always looks utterly mental!
Also included is an excellent short story called The Enigma of Amigara Fault where human-sized holes appear on the side of a mountain, drawing people to the site who believe the silhouettes are themselves and the holes are calling them in. A very imaginative and actually disturbing story.
It makes sense that HP Lovecraft is a major influence of Ito's as he too was a horror writer who told stories of remarkable vision but wrote them amateurishly. As shaky as the writing and story construction is in Gyo, it's balanced out with eye-catching art and smooth visual storytelling. Mostly though, Gyo is an absolute hoot and worth it for the laughs alone!
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Soon it's not just little fishies, it's sharks
I like that he says "Don't worry, it'll go away". That's exactly what I would say to my girlfriend if I saw a shark walking past the window.
That reminds me – this same guy has a poor sense of urgency. He frequently comes across people who've been impaled by fish legs and who are convulsing or actually dead and he bawls at them
ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?
They're in no position to be able to say "No, actually, I have a fish leg right through me and I am dying in agony, that's why I am twitching uncontrollably" or "No, actually, I died some time ago."
One thing I liked is the sound effects – the one above is used throughout –
GASHUNK!! GASHUNK!!
So, things go from bad to worse and soon the guy's girlfriend has contracted a germ from the walking fish and this affects her really badly :
STAGE ONE
STAGE TWO
What with the dreadful death stench, the walking fish and the perpetual GASHUNK GASHUNK I guess our guy can be forgiven for shouting
ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?
to his girlfriend. But seriously. You can see she's not all right. I mean anyone can see that.
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and deep sea denizens that sprout legs and come ashore in a frenzied feeding rampage."
Me
It's both B-movie madness and an ichthyologist's wet dream when walking fish roam the streets looking for hapless humans.
And, no - they're not into "catch and release."
Candygram!
This is probably the most disgusting graphic novel I've ever read. It was gross, repulsive, and I tore thro
" . . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself . . . "Franklin D. Roosevelt
"We have nothing to fear but fear itself, and deep sea denizens that sprout legs and come ashore in a frenzied feeding rampage."
Me
It's both B-movie madness and an ichthyologist's wet dream when walking fish roam the streets looking for hapless humans.
And, no - they're not into "catch and release."
Candygram!
This is probably the most disgusting graphic novel I've ever read. It was gross, repulsive, and I tore through over 350 pages in no time.
Land sharks! Aren't they the worst?
Undoubtedly the smelliest comic ever published, especially for any readers with a touch of synaesthesia. But don't let that scare you off. Light some scented candles or smoke some pot, you'll be fine.
So... a young couple are attacked by a dead fish skittering around on an automated spider-like prosthesis. The stench is almost as horrifying as the sight of it, symptomatic of a deadly and highly communicable
[There may be some vague spoilage, but it's still perfectly edible. Edifying. Whatever.]Undoubtedly the smelliest comic ever published, especially for any readers with a touch of synaesthesia. But don't let that scare you off. Light some scented candles or smoke some pot, you'll be fine.
So... a young couple are attacked by a dead fish skittering around on an automated spider-like prosthesis. The stench is almost as horrifying as the sight of it, symptomatic of a deadly and highly communicable virus. Even worse, it's not a freak occurrence... well, it IS a truly freakish occurrence, but it's not isolated. More of the plague-fish are crawling from the ocean, everything from Halibut to Manta-Rays, from Squids to Great White Sharks, moving with a frightening speed, rotting and bloated and spreading the intolerable death-stench with them inland. The virus soon becomes an epidemic, moving from the fish to humans with great efficiency... and so do the mysterious, apparently self-replicating machines.
There's plenty of wutdafuq weirdness here, because Ito's a black-belt in wutdafuq; Uzumaki fans will recognize immediately wutdafuq I'm babbling about, and probably won't find it surprising that the profound oddness goes far beyond the zombie-fish-robots. As grotesque as it can be, Ito never tests his reader's patience, maintaining a ballistic pace that partly explains the universal popularity of such defiantly unconventional subject matter. Ito's got some serious narrative talents, and his story-telling is always remarkably accessible, even though it's coming at you from some very odd angles. I won't risk busting my taped-together brain trying to explain and ruin it for newbs, even though ruination is a hobby of mine...
Junji Ito's greatest work thus far is usually considered Uzumaki, and I won't disagree with that assessment. But I've got a soft spot for this wondrous little scribbled-scrapbook of craziness. Ito has a habit of jamming his narrative steering wheel into the most misshapen, strangely constructed stories you're likely to find, and somehow coaxing an amazingly fast and smooth ride out of them. His razor-sharp line-work - a stylistic confection in which the main ingredient is indubitably Katsuhiro Otomo, spiced & gently poisoned by horror maestros Kazuo 'The Drifting Classroom' Umezu, Hideshi 'Hellbaby' Hino, & Suehiro 'Ultra-Gash Inferno' Maruo - makes all the rotting and bloating and stinking so much worse (by which I mean better). That hellish death-stench somehow defies the single-sense limitations of the comics medium, to survive & transcend translations. This two-volume work wraps up with a surprisingly brisk <500 page-count; so even if manga has scared you off in the past with its brevity-spurning tendencies - even the flimsiest of stories make themselves comfortable by decompressing across 20-fucking-volumes, & gorging on precious shelf-space - for horror fans, 'GYO' is thoroughly recommended. Sushi fans, not so much.
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"don't worry… it'll go away."
if you've ever read anything by ito, you know that the above quote is a boldfaced lie.
there is something bleak and unending underlying most of his stories; cycles that are meant to repeat again and again until the end of time. there is no respite; there is no escape. think of the violence-inspiring woes of the immortal tomie or the repetitive, destructive nature of the spiral in ito's most well-known series, uzumaki.
the same goes for gyo, appropriately s
"don't worry… it'll go away."
if you've ever read anything by ito, you know that the above quote is a boldfaced lie.
there is something bleak and unending underlying most of his stories; cycles that are meant to repeat again and again until the end of time. there is no respite; there is no escape. think of the violence-inspiring woes of the immortal tomie or the repetitive, destructive nature of the spiral in ito's most well-known series, uzumaki.
the same goes for gyo, appropriately subtitled: the death-stench creeps.
slightly dysfunctional young couple tadashi and kaori are on a beach vacation in okinawa. kaori, someone who's easily overwhelmed by any type of peculiar smell, soon starts complaining about a certain stench hanging around their holiday home. and it's not going away no matter how often she showers.
tadashi thinks it's nothing major… until fish on legs start rising from the sea.
yes, you read that right. dead fish on a set of razor-sharp metal legs, forming a scuttering biomechanical terror that spreads the most horrendous smell you'd ever have imagined.
though it appears to be a freak incident at first, a remnant of a biological weapon of mass destruction from the world war two era, the fish soon start gashunking their way into more places than just okinawa beach -- and the world falls into a hellscape of a dystopia with the bacteria from the fish causing horrendous infections and general calamity.
i will always admire ito's ability to turn the most outlandish ideas into plausible terror.
no matter how weird the premise, no matter how laughable the thing that's supposed to give you nightmares, no matter how giggle-inducing the sound effects -- somehow you always end up immersed and genuinely considering the fallout of our world getting overrun by smelly sentient bacteria looking to enslave the human race.
he always includes just enough substance to have you dig for themes and even come up with some if you're able to tear your eyes away from his art.
however, i found gyo lacking the gravitas of uzumaki. character work has never been ito's strongest suit, but main chars kaori and tadashi truly are complete blank slates here. their only defining character traits are (1) hates weird smells and (2) feels guilty over downplaying his girlfriend's hate of weird smells after Shit Goes Down.
their conflicts consist mostly of nagging each other and petty jealousy, which makes it difficult to empathize with them as fully-rounded characters rather than fodder for whatever horror ito has in mind. the same goes for the other characters, who never really grow beyond their trope (mad scientist, assistant, creepy circus baron, etc).
the plot is also kind of all over the place, lacking steady development and occasionally having absolutely bonkers detours -- such as the circus chapter, which seemed to make no sense whatsoever.
that created a reading experience during which i felt as if ito was merely looking for excuses to portray the Absolute Worst he had to offer. and i know; saying that makes me sound like a hypocrite, because his horrifically grotesque art is one of the main reasons why everybody (including me!) reads his work.
it just felt… a tad overboard in gyo, if that makes sense.
so would i recommend this? yes and no.
don't go into it expecting the length, story, and theme of uzumaki. read it because you're simply looking to get horrified by fish-on-legs and some genuinely vulgar and disgusting body horror; nothing more, nothing less.
or you could read it because it includes the enigma of amigara fault, which is one of ito's best short stories of all time :)
✎ 3.0 stars.
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What is Ito's manga m.o.? I think it's about obsession, repetition, intensification to the point of spiraling out of control. He has an image in his little nightmare fantasy head, starts small and then lets it build until you are. . . afraid. And you probably will be. Or at the very least disturbed. That's why you write and read horror, after all. To get that feeling.
In Uzumaki a town is taken over by spirals. Spirals, you say? What is scary about that? Look at an ear, that's a spiral, nothing scary about that. Clouds spiral sometimes. Dust in the wind can spiral. Cat fur can kind of spiral. Your hair can kind of spiral. Gradually, all you and the townspeople see are spirals and you and they are driven mad by spirals. Yes, that happens, it does, in Ito's masterpiece. And with spirals! Uzumaki! It is kind of a trick to make an abstract image scare the living bejeebus out of you. But an amazing artistic accomplishment, because you thought it could only happen with words ala Stephen King novels or Hitchcock movies, with music and images and dialogue. But this is manga, comics horror. Mostly images And it works.
In Museum of Terror there is a femme fatale, Tomie, who draws boys in to become so attracted to her they are driven crazy enough to . . . murder her. And she comes back to life, every time, draws boys in again, and this goes on for something like 800 pages of every conceivable gruesome death. Not spirals, this time, but obsession, nevertheless, about a girl, leading to madness.
In Gyo, one fish crawls up on the Okinawa shore. . . but it has legs, weird, and then more and more, 400 pages of obsessive nightmare fish, sharks with legs, crawling up and killing people and smashing things. Meticulously crafted nightmare images of fish with legs, which sounds sort of comic, like it can't work. But it does. It does. Two young people and the young man's father, a scientist, are the principal characters, and no, they are not all right.
And as Eisnein said, this one is the smelliest comic in the history of comics, because with the fish comes this stench of, what. . . corpses? Impending death. Everyone can smell it, all the time, eventually. Enough to make you mad! A manga horror masterpiece, that I admit kind of got to me, 400 pages of increasingly intense crazy Lovecraftian creatures and all the. . . stench. But you horror aficionados will have a greater stomach than me, I bet. It is pretty amazing, almost laughable how he pulls it off with. . . fish with legs!! Like out of one of his nightmares, and now it is yours. And the nightmare lasts and lasts! Too long, you ask? Maybe, but it is hard to argue against the sustaining of a vision to this extent. It's kind of obsessive!
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At the end of this are two shorts. The second, "The Enigma of Amigara Fault," was outstanding: a creepy, existentialism-soaked story of inevitability and cosmic dread that really got me thinking and really did cause me fear, unlike the rest of the book. Had all the main body been as startlingly good as "The Enigma of Amigara Fault," I would be giving this book my highest rating.
Alas . . .
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Junji Ito is a MASTER of B-level gross-out horror. Of course, this is manga, and extremely simple in characterization, but that DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL.
We go from a fish -- with legs -- and a horrible stink freaking out a young couple... all the way to THE END OF THE WORLD.
Yep. Two volumes. Gross-out-horror. Over-the-top. FREAKISHLY delightful.
You remember those classic B-Movie horrors from the fifties? Do you wish you could forget them? Or how about if you could kick all the cens
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!Junji Ito is a MASTER of B-level gross-out horror. Of course, this is manga, and extremely simple in characterization, but that DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL.
We go from a fish -- with legs -- and a horrible stink freaking out a young couple... all the way to THE END OF THE WORLD.
Yep. Two volumes. Gross-out-horror. Over-the-top. FREAKISHLY delightful.
You remember those classic B-Movie horrors from the fifties? Do you wish you could forget them? Or how about if you could kick all the censors out the door and take any particular nasty idea and run with it, leaving no perversity unexplored, until all you have is a farting, walking mass of the undead controlled by *spoiler* *spoiler* *spoiler*.
MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA
A perfect halloween gross-out read.
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Original review: There are quite a few misses in Gyo plot-wise but it manages to deliver a genuine horror experience in the graphic novel medium. Junjo Ito, in his eerie drawing style captivated me in many of Gyo's pages. I have to stop reading the speech bubbles and just look at the grotesque magnificence of his illustrations.
In Gyo, parasitic WWII-era sp
2018 short edit: I appreciated Gyo even more, Junji Ito really has the talent to create horror out of obsession. I'm giving this another star.Original review: There are quite a few misses in Gyo plot-wise but it manages to deliver a genuine horror experience in the graphic novel medium. Junjo Ito, in his eerie drawing style captivated me in many of Gyo's pages. I have to stop reading the speech bubbles and just look at the grotesque magnificence of his illustrations.
In Gyo, parasitic WWII-era spider-like mechanisms have invaded inhabitants of the sea. Things go out of hand once these critters crawled inland and started to infest humans. By the way, they feed on human barfs and farts (yes, you read them right).
The main element of Gyo is the rotten death stench that has engulfed, first just a city and the whole of Japan. Crazy, but you know, Japan. I live near a seaside city and I know the stench of fish and the putrid smell of rotten ones. Gyo gives me exactly that olfactory feeling of smelling such as I read through it. Props to Junji Ito for that.
Perhaps my biggest complain is that Gyo ended abruptly as if the author just gave up. The resolution happened so fast from a hopeless aftermath to a sort of happy ending.
There are bonus chapters in the end and I must say that the faultline chapter really, really gives me the creeps.
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Not long after I read Uzumaki, one of my guys on twitter made me a good deal on a stack of Junji Ito hardcovers. Best $40 bucks I've spent in a while.
Much like Uzumaki, this is a visual body horror story. One legged fish isn't a huge deal, no matter how big of a deal Kaori makes of the smell. H
While on vacation in Okinawa, Tadashi and Kaori encounter a bizarre fish with legs accompanied by a horrific stench. Soon, the legged fish are everywhere but where did they come from and what do they want?Not long after I read Uzumaki, one of my guys on twitter made me a good deal on a stack of Junji Ito hardcovers. Best $40 bucks I've spent in a while.
Much like Uzumaki, this is a visual body horror story. One legged fish isn't a huge deal, no matter how big of a deal Kaori makes of the smell. However, a legged shark chasing Tadashi and legged fish overrunning the land, now you're getting somewhere. I haven't mentioned why I called this a body horror story yet. I'll let whomever choses to read that experience it for themselves.
Also much like Uzumaki, this is some crazy, crazy shit. It's generally unsettling even before humans get infected. I wolfed it down in two long sittings. There is a lot of grotesque imagery that is burned into my retinas.
Junji Ito's art perfectly fits the disturbing tone of the story. I didn't exactly gag during some of the more grotesque parts but there was a strong urge. Does this deserve a five? Fuck, I don't know at this point. I liked it as much as Uzumaki so there's that.
Gyo: The Death-Stench Creeps. Five stars. Go buy the son of a bitch.
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Well that was disturbing. I'm never eating fish again.
And that's all I have to say.
3.5 starsWell that was disturbing. I'm never eating fish again.
And that's all I have to say.
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Junji ito's imagery is always something to behold...
Always so SO delightfully disgusting, and incredibly disturbing.
Yet somehow I can never tear my eyes away from it.
-As for the story; it follows our protagonist and his neurotic girlfriend, on their trip, while staying at a house by the beach.
But things soon take a turn for the strange... when a fish with legs, is found outside the home.
The story only gets stranger from there,
And I actually really enjoyed the INSANE concept of "fish" c
Junji ito's imagery is always something to behold...
Always so SO delightfully disgusting, and incredibly disturbing.
Yet somehow I can never tear my eyes away from it.
-As for the story; it follows our protagonist and his neurotic girlfriend, on their trip, while staying at a house by the beach.
But things soon take a turn for the strange... when a fish with legs, is found outside the home.
The story only gets stranger from there,
And I actually really enjoyed the INSANE concept of "fish" coming up above water to terrorize people.
Only, it turns out to be so much more; and I completely went along for the ride!
In short: I loved the art, the outlandish (and seemingly ridiculous story) ... And the ending- that while ambiguous, still managed to be pretty satisfying. (In my opinion).
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The story was wacky but also very imaginative. As someone with
The rancid stench of death hangs over the island of Okinawa. Something fishy (literally) is causing the unbearable stench to spread at an alarming rate, and that's when a legion of rotting fish with robotic legs emerge from the ocean and devour everything in sight. It's a very scary concept, what if sharks, whales, squids and other unsightly sea creatures suddenly gained the ability to walk on land and feast on whatever they pleased?The story was wacky but also very imaginative. As someone with a deep fear of the ocean, the thought of it sends shivers down my spine. Junji Ito's art never fails to be disturbing and impressive. In terms of horror and story structure, I honestly think this is one of his weaker works. Uzumaki is a masterpiece of horror and many of his short story collections are phenomenal, this one feels somewhat shallow in comparison do to the lack of build-up, unmemorable characters and sloppy pacing. Nonetheless, the imagery of massive sea creatures emerging from the ocean and wreaking havoc on land was definitely something from my worst nightmares.
***
If you're looking for some dark ambient music for reading horror, dark fantasy and other books like this one, then be sure to check out my YouTube Channel called Nightmarish Compositions: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPPs...
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Like the majority of Ito's manga, if it had been literally anyone else writing this, a premise with that brand of deep insanity might not have worked, but the reliance on top-notch, realistic artwork and weird biologic experiments, along with some clever dialogue makes for a real I'm proud of this omnibus. I think everything Junji Ito comes up with is a masterpiece, even when it's about fish with legs hunting people down to transform them into rabid zombified gas monsters - the plotline of Gyo.
Like the majority of Ito's manga, if it had been literally anyone else writing this, a premise with that brand of deep insanity might not have worked, but the reliance on top-notch, realistic artwork and weird biologic experiments, along with some clever dialogue makes for a real experience.
The cover boasts that it has a "death stench", which I will likely never see another book do, ever.
Thoroughly enjoyable if you aren't squeamish, because a photo of this book could be the definition for the word "disgusting". Especially if you have the sort of synesthetic imagination that allows you to picture descriptions of scents or tastes. It's gruesome, it's unnerving, it's even campy fun in parts. (Shark chase scene, anyone?)
Junji Ito's taste for gross, unexpected topics is more infamous with the short story "Glyceride", which rears its greasy head in Shiver, Yami no Koe, and a couple of other Ito compilations, but Gyo comes close to matching it. Don't let this turn you off of it, though. This omnibus has so much value, being one of the most active artworks I've ever seen.
Gyo, being only two books, is much more linear and focused than Ito's other long series, like Uzumaki and Tomie both of which meander into some truly bizarre territory towards their finales and totally breaking away from the main narrative at several points. I'm prone to bragging on Junji Ito books. Being one of the most powerful inspirations for me, how could I not? I do think, however that shorter plotlines are definitely Ito's strength.
The premise is a little humorous if you were reading without the, um... illustrious scenery. Fish and dead things on creepy machines hunting people down. Not as creepy when read that way!
But give it a solid chance. I loved it, as outlandish, gruesome and foul as it is. Engaging and horrific by itself, not to mention the included "Enigma of Amigara Fault", which is arguably much scarier.
Mixing together creature horror with body horror, this manga hit on so many of my bookish buzzwords. Junji Ito is quickly becoming a favourite author of mine. He has the ability to take a simple concept and make it feel fresh and absolutely disturbing. As always, his artwork is bizarre, gruesome and utterly gut wrenching. Admittedly, the concept behind this manga was very far fetched, but once I suspended my disbelief, I was sucked into the gripping narrative and couldn't put it down. I 4.0 Stars
Mixing together creature horror with body horror, this manga hit on so many of my bookish buzzwords. Junji Ito is quickly becoming a favourite author of mine. He has the ability to take a simple concept and make it feel fresh and absolutely disturbing. As always, his artwork is bizarre, gruesome and utterly gut wrenching. Admittedly, the concept behind this manga was very far fetched, but once I suspended my disbelief, I was sucked into the gripping narrative and couldn't put it down. I highly recommend this one to fans of horror graphic work.
(The bonus short stories at the end of the book were also amazing.)
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I was very excited/scared to read this as I am terrified of the ocean and anything in it, and it definitely excels in the creepy fish department. Anytime that awful shark-thing was on page I was just ready to die.
However, I'm a bit let down. The story is so haphazard and makes literally no sense — but whatever, it's fun and the art is amazing (as usual). It's better than the earlier stories from Tomie but not as good as the horrifying Uzumaki .
The characters were flat and the end
3/5 starsI was very excited/scared to read this as I am terrified of the ocean and anything in it, and it definitely excels in the creepy fish department. Anytime that awful shark-thing was on page I was just ready to die.
However, I'm a bit let down. The story is so haphazard and makes literally no sense — but whatever, it's fun and the art is amazing (as usual). It's better than the earlier stories from Tomie but not as good as the horrifying Uzumaki .
The characters were flat and the ending was rushed beyond belief. That being said, I LOVED the last few panels of this story: they were beautiful, haunting and sad (and gross, but this whole book is gross so it works).
Overall, a solid story with some flaws but a good read nonetheless.
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That's it, that's the review. This was SOOOO fun! The artwork is terrific (duuuh, it's Junji Ito, of course it is), the story is as weird as it gets and I recommend this ridiculously good manga to everyone everywhere.
That's it, that's the review. ...more
GYO - 3.5/5stars super weird, super gruesome, but not scary
(bonus story) The Enigma at Arigata Fault - 5/5stars remains one of the scariest, most unsettling things I've ever read
4/5starsGYO - 3.5/5stars super weird, super gruesome, but not scary
(bonus story) The Enigma at Arigata Fault - 5/5stars remains one of the scariest, most unsettling things I've ever read
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Bonus Stories:
The Sad Tale of the Principal Post
The Enigma of Amigara Fault
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.
Ito's universe is also very cruel and capricious; his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.
His longest work, the three-volume Uzumaki, is about a town's obsession with spirals: people become variously fascinated with, terrified of, and consumed by the countless occurrences of the spiral in nature. Apart from the ghastly, convincingly-drawn deaths, the book projects an effective atmosphere of creeping fear as the town's inhabitants become less and less human, and more and more bizarre things begin to happen.
Before Uzumaki, Ito was best known for Tomie, a comic series about a beautiful, teasing and eternally youthful high school girl who inspires her stricken admirers to murder each other in fits of jealous rage. Eventually, unable to cope with her coy flirtation and their desire to possess Tomie completely, they are inevitably compelled to kill her — only to discover that, regardless of the method they chose to dispose of her body, her body will always regenerate.
In 1998, during the horror boom that followed the success of Ringu, Tomie was adapted into a movie. Since Tomie, many of his works have been adapted for TV and the cinema.
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Gyo 2-in-1 Deluxe Edition Gyo Vol 2
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