JAINITUOS ANIME REVIEWS – SUMMER TIME RENDERING – MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS (ONE OF THE BEST ANIME OF SUMMER)

Summer Time Rendering

Studio: OLM

Genre: Supernatural, Mystery, Suspense

Hello my friends.

Welcome to another entry of my blog.

For now, stay with these words.

In 2021, it was Invincible.

What do I mean with this sentence? You will find out soon. For now, I want to say that I have time off, so I can watch some anime that I found fascinating, and that it is become trending these days, just like Spy X Family and Shikimori-san Is not just a Cutie. And what better than something that can exceed your expectations?

Especially after some unexpected story elements. What is true is that this anime in particular is going to stay with me for the rest of the year, if not the rest of my life. Having said that, I am happy to present to you…

Summer Time Rendering.

But first, I must ask you guys the same questions:

Are you feeling ok? Feeling healthy?

If the answer is yes, then I am very happy.

Now, let’s value the previous summer with Summer Time Rendering.

PREMISE

Based on the manga written and illustrated by Yasuki Tanaka, and published by Shueisha, Summer Time Rendering (サマータイムレンダ or Samā Taimu Renda), tells the story of Shinpei Ajiro, who was raised by chef Alain Kofune, as well as the daughters of the latter, Ushio and Mio. Shinpei was living in Tokyo for two years previous of the story, but when he received the news of Ushio drowning near the beach, he returns to his hometown to attend the funeral, but after a very heavy nightmare, and an unfortunate meeting with a woman with glass and big bust, he discovers that Ushio didn’t actually drown, she was strangled to death according to the autopsy, which found some marks on her neck. From that moment, Shinpei must discover the truth of Ushio’s death and the horrifying mysteries surrounding the island.

Summer Time Rendering was published from October 23, 2017 to February 1, 2021 (much to my surprise), in a total of 13 volumes. And for those who do not know, OLM is the same studio that animated…

Komi-san Can’t communicate

And… Thank you heavens… Summer Time Rendering has 25 episodes, which means we have a lot to introduce as much story, characters and their development as possible.

There is a very curious fact about the mangaka, Yasuki Tanaka, and that is one of his previous assistants was Kohei Horikoshi, a name that needs no presentation.

Right?

Summer Time Rendering was released on April 15th, 2022, and it is been released on Disney+. Yep? What did you expect? You thought I would say Crunchyroll. Right? Moreover, some of the voice talent includes Natsuki Hanae (Tanjiro Kamado, Vanitas), and Yoko Hikasa (Rias Gremory, Emi Yusa)

Finally, one of the best elements of Summer Time Rendering so far is its opening – Hoshi ga Oyogu» (星が泳ぐ, «The Stars Swim») performed by Macaroni Enpitsu. It combines a very subtle, but powerful mixture between summer and mystery that perfectly embodies the tone of the story.

Here are the TV and the real version for you to enjoy.

STORY

Summer time and… guns?

That’s right!!!!

I have to admit that I was saving Summer Time Rendering for later, because I was watching Spy x Family, Skeleton Knight, Shikimori-san, Dawn of the Witch and Miru Tights, but when, for some random reason, I meet a clip from YouTube that really shocked me up.

I was overwhelmed, just like when I saw Omni-Man killing the Guardians.

When I saw the first key visual and some promotional material from Summer Time Rendering, I thought it was a comedy, or at least a slice-of-life centred on the summer, similar to Anohana. But… No. And over time, I saw the concepts of the disturbing moments and of the antagonists of this anime, and the more I saw, the more curious I became about Summer Time Rendering. Honestly. I could barely think in anything else (But that didn’t affected my job performance, luckily.) So I decided to go little by little, first watching the opening, and start going to Star+ to watch whatever material was available for me. And trust me. I really liked the story.

It was a nice departure from anime like Yuru Camp and Anohana, giving a pretty nice mixture of drama, horror, mystery, supernatural and… time travel. It was like Boku Dake Ga Inai Machi, one of the my favourite anime of all time

Or Erased.

From the moment one, Summer Time Rendering established the type of tone that the series wants, it has that atmosphere of the summer that really bliss you a lot, but also that sense of grief and loss when a close relative passes away, recreating that feeling we all empathise with, that realistic feeling, and then…

Remember what I said about Invincible in 2021? Well, that Amazon Prime Video series shocked because I was not expecting something as gory and crude, not even matching The Boys, making me realise that Invincible is not to be ignored. Ah yes! What Invincible did with in 2021 Summer Time Rendering did it to me in 2022. And of course, there is still at least 177 days left, but it is going to be hard for any other anime to shock me like that this year.

Unless it is Chainsaw Man.

And that is something that indeed I must praise form Summer Time Rendering. It knows how to handle the violence that its plot requires. The anime is not shy in the violence, and I love that because it develops the realism; it is actually pretty good that Summer Time Rendering is not afraid of being crude when it is to be crude, because after watching a lot of Disney, Sony and MCU crap that softens and censors violence more than necessary, the change done by Summer Time Rendering is more than welcome.

But it never overstays it. The blood and violence is an element at the service of the suspense and the horror, giving enough time to both to be introduced and developed with the story, and showing how much the characters are affected b y them in the best, most organic way possible.

Another great element of Summer Time Rendering is the animation. The colours match the brightness of the day and the calm and darkness of the night, and when necessary, enhances the horror.

Finally, the pacing and the rhythm are simply correct, because it brings the story right to us, with the perfect amount of time to assimilate it, and the perfect writing to be solid. Yes. Summer Time Rendering is well-written, and after you get the first three episodes, you really want to know more of it.

But… be prepared for episode 12, because if for you the first episodes were too much, episode 12 will test your stomach power

CHARACTERS

The characters are also very well-established. At first glance, you might think that some of them are cliched, for instance, the typical kind-hearted teenager (Shinpei), the cutesy imouto (Mio), the sneaky best friend (So), the mysterious woman with a lot of experience (Hizuru), and the tsundere female lead (Ushio), but then you see their true personalities, being unfolded with the path of the story, and proving they are as likely by their own merit, especially Shinpei, Mio and Ushio.

I want to make honourable mention to Mio, because she helped me to value the characters a bit more. One of the criticisms that I read from Summer Time Rendering was the big amount of fanservice, and yes… it has fanservice, mostly from Mio, but to my surprise, not just the fanservice is minimal; turns out that Mio is a more likeable character than I thought, being the best emotional support to Shinpei, aling with So and Ushio.

Finally, we got Hizuru.

It was also because of her that my interest of Summer Time Rendering hooked me up. First I saw her as a really attractive strong woman, but then I found it that she is more badass than I thought. I don’t want to spoil you anything, but trust me, watch the episodes and you will love Hizuru, as well as the rest of the characters of this fantastic anime.

CONCLUSION

Without a doubt, Summer Time Rendering is one hell of an experience. I hope that it maintains its quality and storytelling, because if it does, it will indeed become of the best anime of 2022. Meanwhile, I must brace myself for some intense emotion and a lot of bloody moments for the second part of this great series.

And many some cameos from Komi-san.

And trust me… you will enjoy it.

Thanks for stepping by my friends, and thanks for those who read my entry. Soon I will come back with some sweet stuff.

Bye.

…..

Wait!! What happened to me? Was I drawn in the wall?

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 – SLUG GIRL

Hey! What time is it?

It’s Junji Ito Time.

SLUG GIRL

As I previously mentioned on my entry of The Thing that Drifted Ashore, Slug Girl was published in 1997 as well, and it is the introductory short story of Slug Girl, volume seven of the Horror World of Junji Ito. It was also adapted in the Junji Ito Collection, episode Three, part 2, released on January 19, 2018. According to Junji Ito Fandom, it was never released in English. But I am not sure about that. If anyone can clarify that, I will deeply appreciate it.

However, I must warn you… That picture from above is a perfect foresight for what is about to come.

STORY

Our story begins with Rie and her best friend and cousin, Yuuko. Yuuko was once a very talkative girl, but recently she has become unusually quiet. Not just that, Yuuko has also become pretty bad at pronunciations. Rie talks to Yuuko but she clarifies that she is not feeling well. Sometime later, Yuuko’s condition becomes so bad that she is unable to attend school.

And here, I must say that…

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…The Junji Ito Collection really caught the depressing tone on that simple still.

The point is that Rie decides to visit Yuuko at her house, but when she reaches the doorbell, no one answers the door. so Rie goes and tries to enter on the backyard; once she arrives there, she finds Yuuko’s parents squishing many slugs, and throwing them salt.

Immediately, Yuuko’s mother escorts Rie to her room, where both find Yuuko resting in her bed with a facemask on. Rie wonders whether Yuuko caught a cold, while her mother only mentions that the doctor found Yuuko’s mental health weak. Rie tries to see beneath the mask, but Yuuko refuses to let her, only to furiously tell both to leave her alone.

Once more…

…looks to me that the Junji Ito Collection is making a fantastic job in catching the dark atmosphere with the animation.

After leaving the house, Rie remembers, through the terrified eyes of Yuuko, some other time in which the latter was that scared, and that was on elementary school; one day, her backyard was completely full of slugs, the very thing that Yuuko hates the most, and some of their classmates tried to scare her with those slugs. Since that day, Yuuko never returned to the backyard.

The next day, Rie goes for another visit to Yuuko, when suddenly her mother hysterically leaves the house and asks for a doctor. Rie catches her and asks what happened. Yuuko’s mother answers that something is wrong with Yuuko’s tongue. Immediately, Yuuko appears before both of them, with something slowly appearing from her mouth.

Then, it is revealed that Yuuko’s tongue transformed into a big, disgusting, slimy slug with a sort of conscience.

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And I specifically mention «with a conscience», because, as the story points out, the slug is not listening to any instruction of Yuuko.

Let me, once more, share with you some GIFS from the Junji Ito Collection.

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Rie was so terrified that she never returns to Yuuko’s house. The rest she hears it from her aunt and uncle.

They revealed that Yuuko tried to cut the slug with a pair of scissors, but it grew back, again and again; afterwards, her parents tried to force salt into Yuuko’s mouth, only for her to spit it out. Soon, because the slug is devouring everything that Yuuko eats and drinks, she becomes sicker and skinnier. So, desperate, her parents come up with a drastic plastic.

And that is filling up the bathtub with salt to kill to slug.

They do that and force Yuuko to get it. Sinking slowly, slowly into the bottom. The problem is that Yuuko never actually comes out from the bathtub, staying there for quite long.

They immediately attempt to drag her out of the bathtub, but all what they find is her pijamas and her underwear. Nonetheless, they are able to reach Yuuko’s head, with her body reduced almost to nothing due to the salt. However, the slug is still alive, and it begins crawling outside the house.

The slug reaches the backyard, where it still remains there until the end, with Yuuko’s head at its shell, always sharing a sad gaze toward those who look after her.

And there the story concludes.

This last image apparently became a meme, because so many authors recreate Yuuko’s head on the slime in the best way. Here is a small gallery of what I found.

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Credit to the respective authors.

SYMBOLISM

I didn’t mention this before, with Slug Girl introduces us to a recurring theme from Junji Ito, one that is also deeply present in The Enigma of the Amigara Fault – Body Horror. However, unlike what happens in the latter, the transformation of Yuuko is more subtle, because along with her tongue becoming that disgusting slug, we are witness of how Yuuko’s mental health changes for the worse, first from talkative to quiet, then from quiet to aggressive, and finally, from aggressive to acquiescent; because for me, Yuuko is practically begging us to kill her through that «sad gaze».

And that is very common with many people with mental health issues.

But before I discuss that, I want to mention that this story reminds me to another great, influential short story with a similar theme – The Metamorphosis, from Franz Kafka. In the story, Gregor Samsa transforms into a disgusting insect, at the beginning he is optimistic that his condition is only temporary, but it is clear that this is not the case. And little by little, his father and mother decide to ignore and neglect Gregor. And despite Grete looks after him, at least at the beginning, she gets tired of him, and all the Samsa family decides to «dispose» Gregor and throw the corpse.

Only… because is different.

With Slug Girl something similar happens. Yuuko becomes «different», and then Rie just turns her back on Yuuko, without even bothering on understanding how is Yuuko actually feeling. And later, Yuuko’s parents try to help her, but both cause more damage than help, to the point of being irreversible (Since we are talking about Junji Ito, it won’t surprise me that this is the case). In the end, everyone in Yuuko’s family lets her down, but through different actions, Rie because of mere repulsion, and Yuuko’s parents because of reckless ignorance. It is different that with Gregor Samsa and his family, but both stories go around the same theme – Incomprehension.

I repeat, while Samsa’s family willingly chooses to neglects Gregor, Yuuko’s family are forced to hurt her.

Now, I need to go back to mental illnesses, another element from Slug Girl. Because those who suffer them never actually understand what is going on, and since they are unable to share their thoughts to their relatives and friends, they feel isolated, depressed and paranoid. There is no one to fully trust, and somehow they know that those around them will judge and attack them, which is why these individuals are aggressive and defensive. And even in our times, these problems are more common than we can think.

Due to my anxiety issues, I got my arguments with family and friends. But not to the point of violence, luckily.

To sum up, Slug Girl deals with a more subtle fear to the unknown, in this case, deformities in our minds and bodies, some elements so disgusting that make people walk away, instead of trying to investigate about what is really going on.

And to finish now, I want to point out another element that caught my attention and that is… How nature, far from beautiful, it can be also really terrifying. And in the case of Slug Girl, it is more about our fears.

In my case… I DESPISE TICKS.

Sorry for the unnevering image

I fear ticks more than I fear spiders. And I get paranoid of what they can do.

And when I read Slug Girl, I constantly remember how nature can surprise us in the worst ways possible. Hopefully you won’t suffer with that… or with them.

CONCLUSION

Of all the stories from Junji Ito that I have read so far, Slug Girl is the most disgusting and gruesome, even more than The Thing that Drifted Ashore (but surpassing by Glyceride), but it is also one of the most tragic, because Yuuko looked like a genuinely nice girl, and I don’t think she did something to deserve that hideous destiny. I want to think that she eventually passed away.

But that is up to everyone’s interpretation.

Check the analysis of the YouTube RagnarRox about Slug Girl. It is really good. Here I leave the link.

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/Slug_Girl_(story)&gt;

<https://imgur.com/gallery/HLC93ZP&gt;

IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME – THE THING THAT DRIFTED ASHORE

Hey!!! What time is it?

It’s Junji Ito Time.

THE THING THAT DRIFTED ASHORE

The Thing that Drifted Ashore, just like The Window Next Door, belongs to the The Horror World of Junji Ito, more precisely, Volume 7, Slug Girl. So yes, it belong to other of my favourite stories of Junji Ito, the eponymous Slug Girl.

Both published in 1997.

STORY

Our story begins somewhere on the Pacific Ocean. A gigantic, grotesque, serpent-like creature has drifted and died. The corpse looks to be very unnatural, the heads looks to be full of tumors, furthermore, the creature is over 30 meters long, and, due to its body, it appears to belong to the prehistorical period. It does not happen too long before the corpse attracts the attention of both scientists and bystanders.

Our protagonist and narrator is a young boy who always hated the fishes and the ocean. The story reveals that the boy’s fear of ocean life comes from a quick visit to a local aquarium. The boy gets extremely terrified by the creepy appearances of the fish, calling them «creatures forgotten by the entire universe.»

Because of this, our protagonist is constantly suffering from nightmares, around being surrounded by these creatures.

The creature is beginning to rot, but the scientists do not want that, for they called this «the discovery of the century», and start working in a way to study the creature as much as they can. Meanwhile, it begins to get very hot, almost a heatwave. And just like the boy and the scientists continue looking at the creature, the former meets a young woman, called Mie, who gets dizzy due to the heat and the stench of the corpse.

The boy takes Mie to the shadow.

While Mie slowly recovers, she reveals that she also hates the ocean, just like the boy, but she felt curious about the creature. Immediately, the boy asks her the reason of the hatred of the ocean. Then, Mie reveals that she lost a very beloved person, seven years before the events of the story. A ferry shipwrecked in the coast of Izu and many people disappeared. Her friend was one of them.

The boy asked Mie who he was, then she reveals that it was her fiance, Tadashi.

She already gave up hope of him being alive. Nonetheless, she dreams of becoming him, at the middle of the ocean, in an embryo-like position, surrounded by grotesque fishes that will might eat her, but that there is an invisible wall protecting her, so there is nothing to worry about.

More and more people gets closer to the creature. The scientists are starting to get desperate and request the assistance of the police to keep the distance. However, one of the bystanders takes a look into what appears to be the stomach of the creature, just to make a very terrifying discovery.

Inside the stomach, there are lots of people. Worse still, they are not digested despite being there for years.

Everybody deduces that the sea monster devours people. Shortly, after the discovery, they proceed to cut the stomach and release the people trapped.

But the awful truth does not stop there. Turns out that all of them are alive, and that one of the many survivors… is Tadashi. Mie has no doubt, because she recognises him. In other words, all of the rescued people are the same that disappeared on that ferry accident seven years ago.

The bystanders asked for ambulances, and when the survivors react, they start to scream in an ear-piercing, terrifying way. Even Tadashi acts like crazy in front of Mie.

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The boy deduces that they acted like parasites inside the monster. In other words, they survived by absorbing the nutrients of the creature. Scientists wonder if that is possible for a human being, but all are declared mentally ill afterwards.

The story finishes with the boy wondering what kinds of horrors they witness inside the stomach of the creature.

SYMBOLISM

As a whole, The Thing That Drifted Ashore doesn’t seem to have any social commentary toward Japanese society, and it is more like a conventional horror story, influenced by two different elements from my viewpoint.

The first is the fact that the oceans, our planet’s oceans, still have a lot of mysteries, especially in the abyssal areas, where the light cannot penetrate. Remember that scene from Finding Nemo where Marlin and Dory fight against the angler fish?

Or these from the deeps of the sea?

BTW. This photo is real

The angler fish and the macropinna microstoma are just two simple examples. But overall, the deeps of the ocean have many secrets, some of them fascinating, but for the most part, very terrifying. The ocean comprises between 70% and 75% of our planet, and scientists mentioned that we barely know 5% of what lies beneath the water.

So there you go… Nightmare fuel.

The second element is the presence of Lovecraftian horror. It is no secret that Junji Ito was influenced by American writer H.P. Lovecraft, and that the latter was a lot of terrifying monstrosities, including Cthulhu, who resides in R’lyeh.

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Most likely, the survivors of that sea monster witness something belonging to the Old Ones… or the Great Old Ones.

CONCLUSION

Another great horror story from Junji Ito, similar to The Window Next Door, but with a more imposing ending, because despite not having a social commentary about our society, The Thing That Drifted Ashore definitely includes not just a really strong Lovecraftian feeling, but also a reminder that our planet, as beautiful as it is, is as terrifying as Universe itself… Perhaps worse.

Anyway, I hope to enjoy it.

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/The_Thing_That_Drifted_Ashore&gt;

<https://imgur.com/gallery/bPe6HVv&gt;

IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME – THE HANGING BALLOONS

Hey! What time it is?

It’s Junji Ito time.

THE HANGING BALLOONS

The Hanging Balloons is part of the anthology series, called Horror World of Junji Ito, published since 2001. The series consists of sixteen volumes, and includes stories like Tomie, The Circus is Here and Frankenstein. In this case, The Hanging Balloons is the sixth chapter of volume 4 of the series, called The Face Burglar.

The Hanging Balloons is often hailed as one of the best works of Junji Ito, and personally… I can’t agree enough.

STORY

The story starts in media res, with a young high school girl called Kazuko, who is been trapped inside her house after a long time. She is starving to death, and cannot risk herself to go out, because one mysterious creature with her voice is constantly calling her.

We then jump back in time, to one month. Kazuko’s best friend, Terumi Fujino, a popular girl and celebrity, commits suicide by hanging herself with a telephone wire for no apparent reason. Immediately, everyone blames on Shiroishi, Terumi’s boyfriend, due to constant arguments for her celebrity career, all of this pressure and harassment take a toll on Shiroishi, who starts to blame himself for the death of Terumi.

Shortly afterwards, a number of copycats start appearing in the news, many of the fans of Terumi start taking their own lives by hanging themselves. But then, things take a turn for the worse, when many individuals, most of them fans of Terumi, claim that they saw a strange balloon-like creature floating in the sky, with the form of her head. The creature disappeared afterwards. The news causes a great commotion all over Japan in the way of a «ghost-mania» according to the media.

Meanwhile, Kazuko meets Shiroishi, who tells her that the head lures every night, and watches closely and with deep, hollow and penetrating eyes. Obviously, Kazuko is skeptical.

Later that night, Kazuko sneaks into the streets and sees the head for herself. And while she is running, she also finds Shiroishi on the top of a tree, asking for forgiveness from Terumi and hangs himself in front of the ghost. Kazuko unsuccessfully tries to dissuade and help him, but, much to her horror, she finds another enormous balloon-like creature, this time with the form of Shiroishi.

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Immediately, Kazuko goes and reports the incident to the police, but Shiroishi’s body is nowhere to be found.

Days later, Kazuko tells her friends, Taeko, Miyuki and Chiharu, about the «suicide» of Shiroishi. However, before they reach school, all of them spot four mysterious objects floating and heading towards all of them. After some time, they find out the objects are balloon creatures that look like them, with metal wires at the bottom. Taeko and Miyuki are immediately caught and killed by the wires, but Kazuko and Chiharu hide in an alleyway, and one man shoots the balloon of Chiharu.

You might be thinking that they are safe now. Right? ABSOLUTELY WRONG!!!!

Because the balloon of Chiharu rottens… ALONG WITH CHIHARU HERSELF.

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Kazuko has no other option than run and hide. Her father is caught by the balloons on his way to work, and soon Japan gets invaded with balloons with hanging corpses. Yosuke, Kazuko’s little brother, goes outside to search for food, taking an umbrella to defend himself and promising his sister and his mother to return. Times passes on, but Yosuke is not back, and when his mother is about to look for him, her hanging balloon gets her and kills her.

Now we get back to the moment the story started, and Kazuko is eventually able to hear Yosuke’s voice. Believing that he survived, she opens the door, but it is revealed that he is dead, and that the one that spoke was his balloon.

We can assume that Kazuko is killed by her balloon afterwards.

SYMBOLISM

Without a doubt, The Hanging Balloons is one of the scariest stories of Junji Ito. Personally I think that, if he could do what It, It: Chapter Two, and the miniseries of the 1990s failed to achieve, I mean… make the balloons scary… then he is a genius.

According to many readers, what Junji Ito tried to do here was to create a personification of death. The balloons are dead itself, either you die for a «natural» death, or you just kill yourself, but at the end… every living being dies. (I can’t believe I am saying that in a smooth way).

But I will interpret the story in two ways… The first one is that there is a curse in Japan on Terumi Fujino, so powerful that it destroyed countless lives around her, similar to the movie franchise The Grudge, or Ju-On, in which a death took place around so much pain and anger that ir created a vindictive, malevolent entity.

My second interpretation is that Junji Ito was criticising the excessive devotion, sometimes toxic, that we got to a celebrity, to the point that we could even take our own lives for him/her.

At least in my personal opinion.

CONCLUSION

Just like with The Enigma of Amigara Fault and The Woman Next Door, The Hanging Balloons is a really fantastic story, and of all the three reviewed as of today, this is the most gruesome. The death of Chiharu was pretty graphic, and it is one of the most shocking of all the stories from Junji Ito I have read.

Along with the main protagonist from Slug Girl, but I will talk about that on its time.

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/The_Hanging_Balloons&gt;

IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME – THE WOMAN NEXT DOOR

«Hey! What time is it?»

IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME

The Woman Next Door.

This story is the first one of the Mimi’s Ghost Stories (Mimi no Kaidan, ミミの怪談), published in 2003, a series of short manga volume that centers about Mimi, a young, beautiful college student who is always attacked by some kind of natural force, no matter how much she runs, every nightmarish monster is after her.

Other stories from Mimi no Kaidan include Sound of Grass, Graveman, and The Seashore, which I hope I can red anytime soon.

What is interesting is that Jun ji Ito did NOT write these stories, he simply collect them from Japanese urban legends and modified them to be inside his lore.

STORY

Mimi is living in the first floor of a really old apartment building, from 1966. The walls of the building are very thin, so Mimi is able to hear everything their neighbours do, including listening very… really loud music. Mimi is trying to study, but she can’t due to the loud music played by her neighbour, and despite expressing her complains toward the landlady, here is no traces of lower the volume.

Finally Mimi snapped and gets up to the second floor to confront her neighbour. The person who opens is a young man, who, after being confronted by Mimi, denies that his music is pretty loud, but he will turn it off if his neighbour complains too. Mimi always thought that the next door apartment is empty, but the young man believes that someone is living there, due to listening door opening and closing all the time. Mimi knocks the door, with no avail. At least from the start, because after some time, the door opens and the owner appears. A tall, young man completely dressed in black, with sunglasses, gloves and a big hat, who simply walks away, ignoring Mimi and her neighbour.

Interestingly enough, another neighbour appears, disrupting by the argument, and claims that there are actually three women living on that neighbour.

Some time after, the noise upstairs stops and Mimi is satisfied, because she can finally study. However, one day, Mimi finds the young man outside; he tells her that he is completely terrified of that woman, and then…

…the mysterious woman appears in front of them, going upstairs.

Things become stranger when, at night, Mimi listens a loud scream from the neighbour, who moves from that house next day. Despite Mimi feels very uncomfortable due to the abrupt moving of the young man, she moves to his apartment, because she finds it very quiet and peaceful, perfect for her study.

On her way home, Mimi accidentally trips with one of the women, dropping her groceries. Mimi apologises, and when she tries to help her…

…Mimi discovers that her arm is a large metallic rod. The large woman ignores Mimi and gets back to her apartment.

Some time later, Mimi talks to her friends about what what she saw, and one of them tries to convince her that the arm was a mere prosthetic. Obviously Mimi doesn’t believe that, however she decides to forget the event and celebrate her new house.

And just like the young man before her, Mimi does not her absolutely anything at the other side of her wall. While studying, Mimi finds a hole on the wall and assumes the young man did it. Out of the curiosity, she comes closer and peeks at the hole. What she sees surprises her… but not in a good way. The woman from before is here, and she is removing some screws from her arm, which allows her to extend in a very unnatural fashion.

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Immediately, the woman finds out Mimi is spying on her and stretches her arms so it will go through the wall. Mimi deduces that the three women is actually one, and proceeds to block the hole. She begins to calm down and feel safer, due to the door being locked as well. Then suddenly, she begins to listen to some noises outside, first on the hallway, and then outside the building.

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The woman attacks Mimi, who passes out from the stress.

Shortly afterwards, the woman keeps acting as if nothing happened, while Mimi decides to move somewhere else.

SYMBOLISM

The purpose of The Woman Next Door, according to Junji Ito, was to point out the fact that we never find out who our neighbours actually are, because we never know them properly, expect that we salute them, or crosses path in a rushed manner, but we never take our time to find out of them, and that we are always in our own world.

Therefore, we… might be living next to a really bad person, like a criminal, or a serial killer. This element is more common nowadays, due to globalisation, because we are connected from a place to another, due to the Internet and social media, but we are more isolated than before, unlike fifty, or forty years ago, time in which a true sense of community was always present.

CONCLUSION

Personally, as a story, The Enigma of the Amigara Fault is better constructed, but if we have to mention the commentary that impacted me the most, that is the one from The Woman Next Door, naturally because it is something more deep and relatable to us. Yes, the element of compulsion is keen to humanity, but the isolation and lack of true communication is dealt every day, unintentionally or not, and that is why I see it more as a precaution, because if we are not careful, we find an unpleasant, if not dangerous surprise from our neighbours… or roommates.

And I finish by sharing with you a small game based on this fantastic story.

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/The_Woman_Next_Door&gt;

A VERY JUNJI ITO ANNOUNCEMENT (MY PLANS FOR OCTOBER)

A VERY JUNJI ITO ANNOUNCEMENT (MY PLANS FOR THIS OCTOBER) 伊藤 潤二

Hello my friends. Welcome to another entry of my blog.

Today… I want to do something different. Once again. The title says it all. Also… Welcome to October.

First and foremost…. What can you say about Junji Ito that it hasn’t been said already? I will start saying that what H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King are for literature, and R.L. Stine is for children’s literature, it is Junji Ito for manga.

Born on July 31, 1963, on Sakashita, Junji Ito (伊藤 潤二) was deeply influenced by many experiences from his childhood, especially the one in which he had to cross towards an underground tunnel to reach one of his house’s bathrooms, and that tunnel was apparently full with spider crickets, and by his previous job as a dental technician during the 1980s, when he started to write as a hobby.

Then, on 1987, he published a short story, called Gekkan Halloween (月刊ハロウィン), which was immediately serialised on one of his most important works – Tomie.

From that moment, Junji Ito has been creating a lot of characters and monsters that have starred some of his most important and bizarre stories, including Gyo, Uzumaki, Museum of Terror, Remina, The Junji Ito Collection, and many more.

In all his stories, the protagonists are victims from an inhuman and, shall we say, cosmic evil that destroys their minds and bodies, to the point of almost deviate from everything known as humanity, and always combine with an unnerving social commentary, especially to the Japanese modern society.

Even Mexican filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro, has based some of his work on Junji Ito.

MY EXPERIENCE WITH JUNJI ITO

Personally, I am more reader of H.P. Lovecraft and Mary Shelley than of Junji Ito. I have a lot of favourite authors, including Jules Verne, Gabriel García Márquez, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Homer, J.K. Rowling, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Mikhail Bulgakov among others. Unfortunately I was never a big reader of Junji Ito, especially while I lived in Colombia.

But now, everything has changed, and now I am enjoying this fantastic author as much as I can.

And throughout October, I will be reviewing many of his work, along with my usual anime reviews. Also, I am planning to do a First Impressions of the Junji Ito collection at Crunchyroll. Of course, I will not review EVERY character of Junji Ito, because, like I said, I basically started just now, besides, it is humanely impossible to analyse the work of Junji Ito in one month.

So join me throughout October, with this new section that I have called.

IT’S JUNJI ITO TIME.

And… what a great way to start this new section than… with the very first story of Junji Ito that I read, and that is…

Stay tuned.

And Happy Halloween.

JAINITUOS ANIME REVIEWS – HIGH-RISE INVASION – MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS

HIgh-Rise Invasion

Studio: Zero-G

Genre: Survival horror, Action

Hello my friends.

Welcome to another entry of my blog.

Finally I was able to handle all the work I got to do this week, and now it is time to continue with another thing that I really enjoy. Sorry! That sentence was pointless. The point is that I decided to go outside of my plan, and watch that series I was thinking about, one that Netflix is distributing at the moment.

And now, I feel very relieved because I can express what I think of it.

Having said that…

But before I start, I want to ask you the typical question:

Are you guys ok? Feeling healthy?

If the answer is yes, then I am very happy.

And now, let’s go to Columbia and rescue Elizabeth!!

Sorry about the bad joke. Anyway, High-Rise Invasion.

PREMISE

High-Rise Invasion, or Tenku Shinpan (天空侵犯), tells the story of Yuri Honjo, a normal high-school girl who finds herself on the roof of a skyscraper, finding out that there are more buildings like that , inter-connected by some suspending bridges. She immediately calles her brother, Rika, who explains her that this is another world where many masked individuals will try to drive her insane with violence, to the point of killing herself.

After surviving two of these masked individuals, and a crazed survivor, Yuri meets another survivor, high-schooler called Mayuko Nise, who is more violent than her. However, after Yuri saves Mayuko, both work together to fight those masked murderers, find Rika, and destroy this world, while finding more of its secrets.

As you already guess, this anime is a survival horror, exactly like…

The Island of Giant Insects

The studio in charge of High-Rise invasion is Zero-G, who directed the anime of My Roommate is a Cat and, much to my surprise, another anime that I reviewed a year ago…

Science fell in Love, So I tried to prove it.

The opening song, HON-NO, is performed by the Japanese idol group, EMPiRE, who is pretty recent, just founded on 2017; while the ending «My Name is Blue» (わたしの名はブルー, «Watashi no Na wa Burū») is performed by the group Have a Nice Day, but I don’t have any information about them.

High-Rise invasion is available on Netflix, and all the episodes were released on February 25, 2021. And, unfortunately or fortunately, this series has twelve episodes, and as of August 22, there are no news regarding a potential second season, but, from my viewpoint… IT DESPERATELY REQUIRES ONE MORE SEASON.

It is not because High-Rise Invasion is necessarily a bad anime (It has some flaws), it is because I think is a series with so much potential. But I am about to get there.

STORY

I will start with my the question, whether I like this series or not.

And the answers is… Yes. I love High-Rise Invasion, but there are obviously some elements in the story that even I must admit that are absolutely wrong. But I will try to get there later.

First and foremost, High-Rise Invasion is perfectly a survival horror; which means, having a main protagonist trapped on a aggravating and hazardous environment, whether because of atmosphere or for any kind of monster, in which he/she must survive… by any means necessary, fully charged of tension. For those who have played Five Nights At Freddy’s, Alien Isolation, Outlast, The Last of Us, Resident Evil (except for 5 & 6) or Silent Hill, know what I mean. But what makes High-Rise invasion setting so fascinating is the fact that everything takes place on rooftops and inside.

Many will consider this last element a bit formulaic, and I agree to some extent, but when you think about it… It is a TERRIBLE DISADVANTAGE, Why is that? Simple! Because hanging bridges with a powerful wind are dangerous, and you can fall and… 1. Either crush your brains and have an instant death… 2. Break a lot of bones and have a slow, agonising demise, for the really unlucky ones.

Also, because the insides of a building can be really small, and if you don’t know the ground, you will likely be killed.

Furthermore, there are other two factors that made me enjoy High-Rise Invasion a bit more. The first one is the VIOLENCE FACTOR. Needless to say that the series is violent, and that’s good, because it brings credibility to its premise, and High-Rise Invasion is no shy when it’s showing blood. Of course it is not as graphic as in Invincible, but it is well-managed. If this was done by a Western company, the story will become kid-friendly.

For the most part.

The second factor is that the story unveils little by little, developing what’s is behind this skyscraper world and why it is ruled like that. For me, it is important because it brings decent, unique world-building. One of the things why I didn’t fully enjoyed…

The Island of Giant Insects

…it is because it relies too much in shock value rather than in story; and I am saying this for both the movie and the anime (Yes. Believe it or not, I am reading the manga). Some shock value is ok, it adds more credibility to the series, but it must be used wisely, because that is not enough for building tension.

It is like horror videogames who rely exclusively in jumpscares to create atmosphere. And that is very lazy in my opinion.

Let’s not get off-track.

Those are the good elements of High-Rise Invasion. Without mentioning that the animation is beautiful and the soundtrack is fantastic. I enjoy the opening every time I watch it.

However, the story has a lot of cliches, mainly manga ones, like the typical pantyshots that are terribly gratuitous, and since they happen in the midst of a battle, they end up being distracting, especially because it reduces tension harshly. In fact, in episode two, one Mask guy is dying, and then, when Yuri and Mayuko are questioning him, the Mask says:

«Lady. I can see your panties.»

And I was like..

Earth… Swallow me.

Another cliché is the typical cutesy sleep.

See what I mean? Most of the comedy are those manga/anime cliches that are either wasted or plain unfunny.

Fortunately, the series puts the comedy in the midst of a battle, because that will ruin the tension even more.

Anyway, now it’s time for…

CHARACTERS

I admit that talking about the characters is really hard. Of course they are very formulaic, but I don’t hate them at all.

At least they have some personality.

At this point, there are five that I will focus on. The first one is our main protagonist, Yuri Honjou. And, many people will find my next sentence weird, but, for me, Yuri is like Mutsumi Oribe 2.0.

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They are both beautiful, brave and resourceful. In that sense, these two are really similar.

The problem is that, unlike Mutsumi Oribe, Yuri ends up like a klutz rather than a strong leader.

With Mutsumi, we come to believe that she knows what is she doing, because she spent all her life learning about insects, having a calm attitude after a dramatic event from her childhood, and, when the situation is needed, she is willing to made big sacrifices for the survival of the group. In other words, Mutsumi gets a believable background.

Yuri, on the other hand, is your textbook high-school that gets transported into another world, not unlike many other isekai protagonists. But… Is it just me or she becomes an expert fighter from episode one? That;’s right. It is obvious that Yuri never used a gun, and in just two episodes, she becomes a marksmanship expert. I found that very contrived. It does not convince me at all.

Ok. I know that it is a desperate situation and she has to adapt. Survival of the fittest to say the least, and that Mayuko Nise aids her throughout the story, but I have the feeling that there was something in the story that I miss. I think that if we got some hints on the first episodes about her past, or anything that has to do with her learning about resilience, it will make more believable.

Speaking of which…

I found Mayuko pretty fascinating, especially because of the glimpses of her life before being transported to this new world. In fact, there is a big loveable variety between Yuri and Mayuko. The former was to survive while having her principles and humanity intact, while the latter is like a personification of «The End Justifies The Means». It is an interesting contrast.

Many will think that both are not that special. But they do not need to be the most complex anime characters. Simply unique enough to feel interest. And they both succeed. In fact…

«Am I the only who confused Mayuko Nise with Tanya Von Degurechaff?«

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Seriously. Something keep telling me that they are relatives, or that Mayuko is a descendant of Tanya. Who knows!

Moreover, Rika is the brother of Yuri, and he seems to be more adept to this new world than her. And he is more identical to Mayuko than to his sister, willing to use violence to survive and save his sister. You might think he is a bit extreme, but at the end of the day, you definitely sympathise with him.

And finally, we got Sniper Mask and Kuon Shinzaki.

I am not going to go deep on these two. All I will state is that both Kuon and Sniper is one of the reasons why I am convinced High-Rise Invasion desperately needs a second season. There are some many questions about both, that it will be shame to just let these two go.

CONCLUSION

High-Rise Invasion might not be the greatest, most original anime of 2021. But it definitely will entertain you, especially if you like stories like Highschool of the Dead, The Island of the Giant Insects and many survival horror media.

Even if you spent a day watching, I don’t think you will feel like you wasted your day.

In fact, if you wanna feel like you wasted your day with a generic, awful anime. EX-ARM IS THE TORTURE FOR YOU.

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The Horror… THE HORROR!!!

Anyway. Thanks for stepping by and have a nice week.