IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME – SPLATTER FILM

Hey!! What time is it?

It’s Junji Ito Time.

Hello my friends. It has been one year since I wrote my last entry of It’s Junji Ito Time, and, personally, I want to thank all of you who have read my entries, because they have proved to be extremely popular. And, to be honest, I absolutely enjoyed writing about Junji Ito. And since it is Halloween month, it is a good opportunity to go back to this wonderful feeling.

Now, let’s go with Splatter Film

STORY

Splatter Film is the seventh and final story of the one-shot series of Junji Ito, New Voice in the Dark, a sequel of the 2002 series of stories, Voices in the Dark.

Splatter film starts with two stoners, Ogi and Sugio. Turns out that Ogi has returned from a trip from South America, and he has recollected some «special» honey and place it in a jar. Ogi revealed that the Natives worshipped the tree that produced that honey, to the point that they will risk their lives to get it.

Shortly afterwards, Ogi offers Sugio a lick, but warns him «not to get caught eating it.», some kind of warning from the place he got the honey. Sugio has his lick, and he finds the honey the most delicious thing he has ever tasted, much to Ogi’s surprise and horror, because Sugio asks for another bite in a pretty obsessed way, however Ogi denies it.

Some time after, Sugio does not enjoy the food as much as the honey. Then he brings his friends into Ogi’s house to get a bit of the honey. However, despite not finding Ogi, Sugio and his friends taste the honey; they also find some stench, and after inspecting the house, they find some «weird decoration» inside the house.

The decoration is a twisted mixture between fluids, fabric and bones. And after a close inspection, Sugio and his friends recognise that it may be Ogi; so after some debate, they leave his house along with the jar.

Sugio and his friends divide the honey in equal parts, but suddenly, one of them, a boy called Yasmin, literally splatters after eating the honey. Only that this time, everyone is witness of what happened.

Despite these tow horrific events, Sugio and group continue to eat the honey, until another of them, a girl called Riruko, «splatters», leaving the others in evident horror; after the third splat, Sugio deduces that it is, without a doubt, the honey. Sugio suggests that this could be some kind of «wrath of God», so he suggests stop eating th honey, or «the God with splattter them», but Kameda, one of the boys, discard that as a superstition.

Some days after, only three of the kids survived, Yue, Sugio And Kameda, but they are unable to eat other food, and quickly develop withdrawn symptoms due to stopping eating the honey; because of this, all of them start losing weight. Sugio reveals that the bodies of Riruko, Yasmin and Ogi were in the news, labelling them as the «pancake murders». Immediately Yue and Sugio meet Kameda, who lost weight too and had two friends «splattered» after they found his stash. Three friends can’t take it anymore, in both not eating the honey and not knowing what «not getting caught» means, so they start eating the honey again, which causes Sugio to splatter in front of them.

After that, Yue loses her sanity, and throws into the river, believing that «the thing» will not get her there. Unfortunately she is wrong, because something comes from the sky and crashes her.

Shortly afterwards, Kameda travels to South America, to get more of the honey, and after following the map left by Ogi in his wallet, he discovers that it comes from a monstrous tree with branches long enough to reach anywhere in the world, like something of World Tree. Despite this, Kameda makes the huge mistake of eating honey from the tree, which resulted in his death, and ending the story.

SYMBOLISM

Ok. Here comes the hard part, because many of Junji Ito fans, myself included, theorised that the author was making a reference to the work of H.P. Lovecraft, and that the infamous tree is actually Shub-Niggurath, or a reference of her, as well as her terrible, destructive influence on humans. Nonetheless I want to add something up. I personally believe that Junji Ito was using body horror to making a social commentary about the dangers of drugs, as well as the dangers of «looking for new thrills» without reflecting on the consequences that they have on us, especially on the youth people, who are the most vulnerable toward this kind of toxic activities.

Furthermore, this reminds me more of the Hounds of Tindalos, from Frank Belknap Long, who, after summoning them, they will always haunt you, appearing on the corners of your home, and butchering you in the worst ways possible.

Tell me what you think on the comments.

CONCLUSION

Splatter Film is another great story from the genius that is Junji ito. Highly recommended if you love his stories.

And let me pass you the links of this story.

https://junjiitomanga.fandom.com/wiki/Splatter_Film

https://imgur.com/gallery/fFrO0

Have a good one, and enjoy the rest of the day.

IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME – SHIVERS/COLDNESS/THE CHILL

Hey! What time is it?

It’s Junji Ito Time.

SHIVERS/COLDNESS/THE CHILL

Shivers, a.k.a. The Chill, a.k.a. Coldness is the fourth chapter from the volume seven of the Horror World of Junji Ito, Slug Girl, along with The Thing that Drifted Ashore, and Slug Girl. No need to repeat that, but I do it anyways.

Furthermore, it is the episode 4A of Studio Deen’s Junji Ito Collection

And please forgive me about the three titles. The English name of this story varies from translator to translator, much to my frustration, so, at the end, I decided to put all of the three, as an evidence of that existence.

For the sake of this entry, I will simply call it Shivers.

STORY

Shivers starts in a simple neighbourhood, and we got our protagonist, Yuuji, who has a really beautiful neighbour, called Rina, three years younger than him. Rina rarely goes outside, but sometimes she gets the visit from a doctor. One morning, Rina goes outside, and giggles when we points to her garden, despite being overgrown. There, Yuuji notices that her skin is full of holes.

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That sight brings him a memory, where Yuuji was younger and his grandfather passed away; when we went to see him, he notices that his body was full of holes. But when he asked that to his family, they just said that «it was just one of his dreams.»

Shortly afterwards, Yuuji receives a visit from his friend, Hideo. Hideo’s mother was a nurse, and she was present during the birth of Rina. Yuuji explains that his mother and the doctors notice that Rina didn’t breathe when she was born, yet, she was alive; however, after two or three days, small holes started forming around her body, and that Rina started breathing through those holes, at least according to Hideo’s mother.

Hideo also states that his mom was joking. Immediately, Hideo starts checking on the books from Yuuji’s grandfather. On one of the entries, his grandfather reveals that a friend of his paid him a visit, Yonezu, an old comrade from the war, and that he was unwell and wrapped in a big coat. Yonezu showed some… relic. A statue of an insect made of light green jade. According to the diary, the statues was found by a fellow troop member, Yoshimura, on the mountains of Java, and that Yonezu bought, leaving the question – Why did we wanted to get rid of it?

The diary reveals that Yoshimura developed a serious chill and died. Curiously, Yuuji’ grandfather developed the same chill, and a doctor paid him a visit, and gave him an injection.

Soon afterwards, large swarms of insects start crawling toward the holes of his body, and his health was rapidly declining. He gives this a name – the curse of the jade, stating that everyone that owns it will be infected too, so he threw the statue again, falling into Rina’s garden. Hideo starts to feel a big chill and decides to go home.

Meanwhile, Yuuji starts looking for the jade, meeting almost face-to-face to the doctor that has been visiting Rina all these years, but, Rina screams when he sees the doctor and slams the door. That night, Yuuji has the feeling that the doctor who visits Rina is the same one who visited his grandfather before dying. He also wonders if he wants the jade for himself.

Shortly Yuuji decides to tell that to Rina’s parents, when he meets Hideo, who suggests him to keep quiet. Yet, Yuuji is determined to tell them the truth. When he leaves the house, though, he encounters Rina again, with her skin completely recovered, happy and enjoying the garden.

One night, Hideo sneaks into Yuuji’s window, but, as soon as we opens the curtains…

…he sees Hideo completely full of holes.

Hideo reveals that, the day they read the diary, he went looking for the jade, finding it exactly where Rina was pointing on the garden. Mesmerised at first, the holes started appearing, and he tried to throw the statue away… countless times, but he couldn’t. But suddenly, the doctor appears next to Hideo, and he starts screaming and flees, not before called the doctor – the messenger of the curse.

The next day, Yuuji finds Hideo’s body on the riverbank. But the jade is nowhere to be found.

SYMBOLISM

I must accept that, personally, I do not think Junji Ito has some criticism toward Japanese society in this case, but have more the purpose of telling a textbook horror story with supernatural elements. On the other hand, pretty much like The Woman Next Door, or The Neighbour’s Window, Shivers is mostly based on Japanese urban legends.

However, I have a personal theory of my own.

And that is that, the curse was provoked by an onryou, in other words, a vengeful ghost who causes damages to the living beings, and also created natural disasters, such as earthquakes and typhoon. Similar to Sadako and Kayako from Ringu and Ju-On respectively.

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And the fact that the night Hideo was found, a typhoon was taking place, probably adds evidence to my theory. Regarding the doctor, I will probably put him as a messenger… a messenger of the onryou rather than of the curse. In this case, the doctor reminds the victims of the jade that they stole it, and now he will claim them, their bodies and their souls.

Secondly. I must repeat that Rina was healthy, and Hideo was cursed. In other words, she got rid of the chill when Hideo got it, similar to The Ring (2002), where showing the tape to someone else might free you from the curse. And I saw MIGHT, because perhaps Rina will suffer the curse again.

With Junji Ito, you will never know.

CONCLUSION

Shivers was a really good horror story, probably not as profound as The Enigma of the Amigara Fault, or Army of One, but it is a nice manga that is worth the reading.

Hopefully The Junji Ito Collection will honour its essence.

Thanks my friends, for stepping by, and I hope you have enjoyed It’s Junji Ito Time.

The best is about to come… two more times before wrapping up this Halloween 2021.

References:

<https://junjiitomanga.fandom.com/wiki/Shivers&gt;

<https://mangadex.org/title/3f7b7736-84c5-4f38-bf73-7266021f355a/itou-junji-kyoufu-manga-collection&gt;

IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME – ARMY OF ONE

Hey. What time is it?

It’s Junji Ito Time

ARMY OF ONE

Army of One is the bonus story that concludes one of the most popular words of Junji Ito – Hellstar Remina, published in 2005, which also consists in seven chapters. Army Of One is similar to The Enigma of the Amigara Fault, in which both are one-shot that concludes more well-known and complex storylines (Gyo in the case of Amigara Fault).

Many Junji Ito Fans consider Army of One one of his best stories, including myself.

Yes. I just recently ended reading Army of One, and concluded that indeed it deserves an entry on my blog.

STORY

The story starts on an unnamed city from Japan. A young couple went missing, but recently a civilian who was taking his dog for a walk in the park suddenly finds both of them dead. Nonetheless, that is not the awful truth. The worst part is that they were sewn together with what is like a fishing wire. The discovery becomes known nationwide.

Meanwhile, we jump to the protagonist of our story, Michio, who has been a hikikimori for the last seven years. (For those who do not know, a hikikimori refers to a person in Japan who has voluntarily shut himself or herself from the outside world), and has recently turn twenty. Michio gets invited to a high school reunion by his classmate and former crush, Natsuko Horie. At first Michio refuses to attend, but Natsuko successfully persuades him to go.

During his shut-in time, Michio has been listening to a really weird song, that goes like this:

«NOBODY LIKES A LONELY ONLY, EVERYONE’S YOUR FRIEND, EVERYONE’S YOUR FRIEND WHEN YOU JOIN YOUR HEARTS AND SING… ARMY OF ONE, WE ARE THE ARMY OF ONE.»

During the meeting, Michio meets his former classmates – Noriyuki Sakai and Keisuke Sakagi, but turns that all of them, including Natsuko, have standard jobs with standard bosses, something does not seem to impress Michio at all. But soon the great news are revealed – Natsuko and Noriyuki will marry the next year. Upon hearing this, Michio leaves straight away. Keisuke invites him to a singles party, but Michio refuses to attend.

On his way home, Michio discovers six bodies of some people who recently got missing.

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Shortly, a plane passes by, spreading fliers of the so-called «Army of One», with the same song that appeared on the radio.

Michio investigates on the Internet, hearing rumours that blamed this called Army of One for the multiple «stitch-murders». Shortly afterwards, Natsuko calls Michio, and informs him that Keisuke was murdered and has his body sewn together… with the rest of the guests of the singles party he organised.

The news labels the Army of One as a criminal organisation, and firmly advise to avoid huge crowds. Upon hearing this, Michio calls Natsuko and suggests to postpone the class reunion, something that she immediately refuses, called what people sees in the news as a bluff, and encourages Michio to attend one more time. He tells her that he will think about.

Christmas Day arrives, and Michio wonders how is Natsuko doing. But then, the news reveal that hundreds of bodies were found in a plaza full of Christmas trees in the most horrific way possible. All sewn together and almost naked.

Krampus and Billy Chapman would be proud

The news began speculating about the Army of One, even claiming that they are some kind of alien force, especially because none of the bodies have shown signs of struggles or previous injury. The city councils, all over the city, cancel meetings and coming-of-age ceremonies everywhere. However, the one planned by Natsuko and Noriyuki continue as planned.

Michio sneaks in despite the huge security, just to check on Natsuko. A quarrel between Michio and police takes place, until Natsuko comes and reveals that they are friends. Police releases Michio and both go to the coming-of-age ceremony, just to find out that all the five hundred guests, including Noriyuki have disappeared without leaving a trace.

Natsuko goes hysterical, and days later, all the guests are found dead, sewn together, including Noriyuki.

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After that incident, people officially avoid crowds, shutting themselves at home. Meanwhile, Michio calls Natsuko to check on her. Natsuko is obviously depressed, she practically has lost any desire of living. Michio decides to check on her, and her mental stability. On his way to see Natsuko, Michio sees again the same planes dropping fliers of the Army of One, and then, there are some Japanese Self-Defense Forces airplanes, willing to take them down.

That image alone is enough to motivate Michio.

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Immediately Michio rushes off to Natsuko’s house to confess his feelings for her. And when he gets there, he finds a very disturbing image. Turns out that Natsuko murdered her parents and her dog and is sewing their bodies together, while singing the jingle of Army of One, much to his horror.

Finally, even JSDF planes are dropping fliers of the Army of One.

SYMBOLISM

First, I will discuss some of the themes that Junji Ito analyses on Army of One, and then I will give my own interpretation of what happened throughout the story, and who caused the «murders».

According to Junji Ito Fandom, Army of One makes a resemblance of the planes dropping fliers with the Allied airplanes, who threw propaganda to the bombed towns in Japan during World War II. Now, this is my interpretation, but Army of One might be some allegory to how impotent we, as humans, can feel toward the power of our own government, especially in a country where the mass media is state-controlled, such as North Korea, where people is constantly manipulated by the propaganda.

Too much manipulation would lead to fanaticism and ultimately to chaos.

And since Junji Ito is also known for this constant criticism toward modern Japanese society, that might be the case, especially since Hellstar Remina, he volume Army of One belongs to, was published in 2005, sixty years after Japanese surrender. I admit that I am going too far, but I wanted to mention this.

Furthermore, Junji Ito might be warning us about having an unbalance between We as individuals and We as a community. We need to keep in mind that most of the individuals that died in Army of One were in crowns, or in couples, even Natsuko, Noriyuki and Keisuke were always insisting about gathering together despite national warnings. We, as human beings, are social creatures, we need to be in contact with others, but too much dependence on that can be dangerous, because there are dangers that we cannot always foresee, so we need to look after ourselves as individuals too. But on the other hand, too much isolation is dangerous, leading us to decisions that will destroy our lives, or do things we will regret.

In this case, if Michio didn’t become a shut-in, we might spend more years, and create beautiful memories with Natsuko, and protect her. Now… he can only regret losing her forever. Everything is a big irony, because his isolation saved him… and filled his life with more regret and loneliness. Not solitude, loneliness.

A very appropriate allegory to what we as humans are suffering nowadays with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Again. Junji Ito criticises these two sides of the unbalance of Japanese society.

Now… Who has behind the stitch-murders?

From one perspective, Army of One is also a social commentary of how modern society can be vulnerable and impotent toward massive hysteria, along the elements that I previously mentioned. However, I have a theory of my own, and is that all the citizens were manipulated by a malevolent force with a strong influence on them, and making them kill each other, being sewn together as some kind of twist ritual of adoration.

Something similar to H.P. Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep.

In the Cthulhu Mythos, Nyarlathotep, unlike many Outer Gods, lives on Earth, assumes multiples appearances, can talk to humans, has thousands of followers and a very powerful madness induction, being very manipulative and incurring to propaganda to achieve his goals,, similar to the fliers of Army of One.

Or perhaps something like Stephen King’s Randall Flagg, who is very also powerful, very manipulative and very diabolical.

CONCLUSION

Army of One is absolutely one of the best stories of Junji Ito, being as entertaining as anything related to Tomie, Souchi and Uzumaki. Also one of my personal favourites, along with The Enigma of the Amigara Fault, The Woman Next Door, and Slug Girl.

These three are very scary. And have the best stories and narratives, along with Army of One.

Many will be disappointed that there is no present monster, but I don’t think it needs one. A great story is scary enough if it is well-written, and that is the case with Army of One.

Thanks my friends, for stepping by, and I hope you have enjoyed It’s Junji Ito Time.

The best is about to come.

References:

<https://junjiitomanga.fandom.com/wiki/Army_of_One&gt;

<https://imgur.com/gallery/MWDjT#&gt;