The first Junji Ito collection I read was the only collection my library had, at the time: Fragments of Horror. It definitely had enough of the style to turn me into a fan, but it also had some absolutely bizarre stuff that didn’t translate across cultures well, such as the story about a reclusive writer with a lot of “habits” that turned out to be bizarre social quirks, which to my ignorant eye may have been of more significance in the social conservatism of Japan.
In the afterword for Fragments of Horror, Ito insists that he has no stories left to tell and he barely struggled through the collection I held in my hands. I was surprised, because as an Ito neophyte I was delighted by the work I held. I’d been thoroughly grossed out, terrified, and intrigued from cover to cover. What more could I ask for!?
Being his own harshest critic is a trend of Ito’s. He manages to brutalize his own opinion of himself every time you read him, from outright saying he’s got nothing left to insisting that genre-defining masterclasses like Tomie and Uzumaki are but humble offerings. That same Ito is present here in The Liminal Zone, a collection of truly modern Ito stories, written during COVID (for context on how this makes the work modern, his career began in the 80s) with, once again, an afterword insisting that he’s tired with no stories left to tell.
Given that I’ve been gobbling up every Junji Ito work I can find the moment it’s translated, I’m thrilled that he has the readership necessary to have new work translated more or less as soon as it’s available. This writer who was only available in the original language for the agonizing first few years I knew he existed is now on English-speaking shelves with ready readership, and is even on his second English-language anime adaptation. While Ito may be tired, I selfishly hope he continues to struggle through that tiredness, because I’m not done with him and I need more.
The Liminal Zone is a Junji Ito work for any fans of his other short story collections. There’s nothing here that breaks incredible new ground, but there is definitely enough intriguing content here to make new fans from readers who enjoy horror already. As highlights, I would call to the story of a creepy Christian cult built around a monstrous Mother Mary figure, as well as The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara, which shows a new direction for Ito’s classic horrific style that manages to stay disturbing in spite of how different it is from his previous works in the direction that it disturbs.
