The Soichi stories are among my least favorite Junji Ito works. They’re fine, they certainly have his excellent art style, but the main character is just too weird to like. Soichi is a strange member of an overly-indulgent family, chewing on nails and trying literally to curse his siblings. That’s weird. Just generally unpleasant. We’re not really supposed to sympathize with Soichi, but even with him not being explicitly a good guy it’s unpleasant to spend time with Soichi as the main character. Part of […]

This is it, the big one, the one Ito to rule them all. Other megafans might argue Tomie should take the place as the top of Ito’s oeuvre (or Shoichi, bleh) but Uzumaki is the only one I’m sure to read every single year. It takes a simple but bizarre premise, “a town cursed by spirals,” and makes it… work. Not just work, it makes it excel. Cursed by spirals makes zero sense, until you see how Ito takes that, begins with a simple personal […]

I had a very bad day a couple weeks ago and my wife surprised me in response by pre-ordering the latest Junji Ito. I have a very good wife. Mimi’s Tales of Terror adapts an apparently famous Japanese collection of urban legends, Shin Mimibukuro (New Earmuffs), and gives it that trademark Ito horrifying art and pacing. In some ways it’s like watching a handful of Tales from the Crypt or Are You Afraid of the Dark episodes framed through a Japanese perspective. This is one […]

This is another Cannonball where I’m unfortunately not going to have a lot to say, mostly because the stories in this collection didn’t stick with me very intensely. Junji Ito remains the undisputed master of Japanese horror manga, but this would probably not be the story collection I would recommend to people who were new to or just becoming familiar with his work. For those, stick to Uzumaki, Tomie, Gyo, Shiver, or Fragments of Horror. The title story of Tombs details a brother and sister […]