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A Beginner’s Guide to Junji Ito
14 stories to go down the horror-manga auteur’s spiral.
Ito would revisit the visual archetype of the mysterious, deadly woman with dark hair a few times in his career (look for the gleefully deranged “Dissection Girl”), and there’s no shortage of tales about people being driven into a frenzy (check out the solid “Used Record”), but Tomie remains his most potent use of both. It once again features a vengeful, dark-haired girl (this one is a heartbroken teenager whose long tresses seem to take on a murderous mind of their own), but Ito is able to deliver a fairly slow-burn story that erupts into shocking moments of unhinged violence. It’s the tale of a family that lives in the increasingly greasy apartment above a barbeque restaurant, and their story not only includes a relentless vision of generational cycles of abuse but latches on to the teenage fear of exclusion and the very relatable alarm of dealing with your first pimples.
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