That’s right people, I’m touching another manga written by the master of messed up horror manga Junji Ito. This time, it’s his short story collection Fragments of Horror. For those wondering why didn’t I do this for Halloween, I kinda forgot I had this thing and read it after Halloween.
I suck, I know.
Anyway, this short story collection is as messed up as you’d expect from it.
The first story, Futon, is about a woman who is worried about her husband who refuses to get out of his futon because he claims he sees monsters. The woman does not believe him but does once she starts seeing them. It’s a nice and scary story with a great idea, but the payoff isn’t all that.
Wooden Spirit is about a girl and her dad who own a large house that has just been labeled by the Japanese government as a historical landmark. One day a woman drops by and asks for a tour. She falls in love with the house and marries the father. However, there is a lot more to this woman than she gives off. This one is excellent from beginning to end. The ending is pretty messed up.
Tomio – Red Turtleneck is pretty meh. A guy cheats on a fortuneteller, but the fortune teller only wants his head. She cuts it off, but he tries throughout the story to keep it on. Not that interesting, even though the idea is scary enough.
Gentile Goodbye is about a girl who’s constantly having nightmares about her dad dying. She marries a guy from a pretty wealthy family that at first seems normal, but as time goes by she finds out that some of the family members are really ghosts. This is another one that’s not really scary, but it does have a pretty touching ending.
Now the really messed up stuff happens in Dissection-Chan. One day a woman sneaks herself into a medical school as a cadaver to be dissected. Turns out she’s been doing this all over the place. One of the students recognizes her as his childhood friend “Dissection-Chan,” called that because she loves dissecting things and wants to be dissected herself. This one is messed up because this woman is really hell bent on getting dissected that she DOES IT TO HERSELF! Holy crap, man!
Blackbird is about a guy who was found with both legs broken in the woods. Turns out he was in the woods for a month when he found. He says he rationed his food to survive, but in reality a strange woman came to him every day and fed him food from her mouth like a bird. This one was pretty creepy all because of that woman. Even the ending will leave you scarred for days.
Magami Nanakuse is about a girl who’s a fan of a novelist named Magami Nanakuse. One day she meets her at her home and finds out she;s a lot scarier than she should be. This is the worst of all of them. Not scary, uninteresting, boring. Skip.
Finally, there’s Whispering Woman. A man is at his wit’s end because he has a daughter that needs someone to make every decision for her (as in should she sit down or stand up.) He hires a woman to help her and she’s pretty good at it. However, this woman is slowly degenerating to the point of death. This is a decent story, not all that scary. The ending is the best part of the whole story.
In all, Fragments of Horror is a pretty good short story collection manga for fans of horror manga.
Categories: Comics
Tags: Fragments of Horror Review, horror manga, Junji Ito, manga
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