Book Review – Tomie by Junji Ito (Translated by Naomi Kokubo)

I’ve wanted to read a Junji Ito book for a while. So finally decided to read ‘Tomie‘ which was his first book.

High school students go on a hike up the mountain, as part of a class trip. One of them goes missing. Her name is Tomie. It is later discovered that she is dead, brutally murdered. No one knows who killed her. After her funeral, the students go back to class. Their teacher tells them that they have to be careful as the murderer hasn’t been caught yet. At that point, there is a knock on the door. Everyone looks at the class entrance, and who do they find? It is Tomie! She’s alive and kicking and acts as if nothing has happened! Some classmates feel that the dead person must be a different person and it was a case of mistaken identity. But other classmates seem to know something that we, the readers, don’t. They are sure that the real Tomie is dead. So according to them, there can be only two explanations. One is that the new Tomie is an impostor. The second is that Tomie has come back from the dead. The first explanation is simple and logical. It will probably lead to an old-fashioned revenge thriller. The second explanation is scary and offers delightful possibilities in the telling of the story. Junji Ito being the smart guy, chooses the second one. And we have this beautiful, scary, delightful 750+ page horror manga book.

There are 20 stories in the book. Some of them continue from where the previous story left off. Some of them tell new stories with the characters which appeared before. There are other stories which are independent, and which can be read as standalones. I loved stories from each of these categories, but I loved the standalones more. In some stories, Tomie does bad things or makes people around her do bad things. In other stories, Tomie is the victim and she suffers at the hand of others, and later she comes back to haunt her oppressors and take revenge. I liked the second kind of stories more. There were a few stories which were neither, which was very unusual in a horror book. Some of the third type of stories were very beautiful. Many of the stories were predictable in terms of plot, and relied on the horror aspect to create dramatic effect. Some of them were unusual and surprising though. Some stories seemed to be a nod to other famous horror stories and fairytales.

I enjoyed reading most of the stories in the book, but I loved some more than others. One of my favourites was ‘Little Finger‘. In this story, a few brothers do bad things (won’t tell you more) and call their youngest brother to clean things up. This youngest brother is very ugly. While he is cleaning up his brothers’ nasty deeds, the law comes after him, and he ends up living in a cave. Strange things happen in the cave, and five ghostly women rise from there. Four of them are pretty and one of them is ugly. The pretty ones taunt and torture the ugly one. When this youngest brother sees that, he fights for the ugly one and defends her. This woman falls in love with him. She is a strange being though, and she is not human. What happens after that is told in the rest of the story. It is a very unusual love story. It makes us think of ‘Beauty and the Beast‘.

In another of my favourite stories, ‘Boy‘, a boy is wandering in the beach, when he finds a cave. Inside the cave is a young woman who is in bad shape. The boy brings food and clothes for her and the woman recovers. She treats the boy like her own son and the boy treats her like his mom. But the boy has his own real mother. And this new mother is unusual and may not even be human…

I’ll write about one more favourite story. It is called ‘Waterfall Basin‘. In this story, a travelling salesman comes to a village. He sells a strange package and says that it will bring people happiness. People refuse to buy anything from him. Then, one villager relents, and buys a small package from him. And, of course, only one thing can happen after that. All hell breaks loose. This story made me think of Stephen King’s ‘Needful Things‘, which has a very similar overall plot, though both these stories are very different in details.

The artwork in the book is very interesting – it changes in style depending on the way the mood of the story changes. When the plot moves, the artwork is simple and straightforward. But when the situation gets intense, and scary things start happening, the artwork is intricate and detailed and is beautiful and also gives us nightmares at the same time. Have shared some of the pages from the book, below. Have avoided the more scarier ones.

From the story ‘Moromi‘ – Part 1

From the story ‘Moromi‘ – Part 2

I enjoyed reading ‘Tomie’. I loved the stories in which Tomie is the good person and suffers at the hand of bad guys and later comes back to haunt them. Of course, these stories are not as simple as I’ve described them, but I loved them. I don’t think I’d have loved this book as much, if I had read it when I was younger. I remember reading Charles Burns’ ‘Black Hole‘ many years back. It was too dark for me and gave me nightmares and I never went near his books again. ‘Tomie’ is ten times more darker and more scarier. Being older and wiser now (or maybe the mind has become numb, after watching series like ‘Game of Thrones’), I could resist the impact of the violent scenes, and appreciate the beautiful scenes. Luckily, the last few days, while I was reading the book, I didn’t get any nightmares. It would have been scary to hear Tomie’s whisper in my dreams and then feel someone prodding me, and then get up in the middle of the night to see Tomie sitting next to me laughing in a nasty way. Doesn’t mean that it won’t happen tonight and Tomie won’t step out from the pages of the book into the real world. But I hope and pray it doesn’t happen. Please pray for me.

I read in Junji Ito’s afterword to the book that he used to work in a dentist’s office during the day, and work on ‘Tomie’ during the night. It is interesting to contemplate on – that he was a regular guy with a regular job, but when the sun set and he came home in the evening, he dreamt of terrifying fantasies and put them in this book to scare us. Life is always surprising!

Junji Ito is one of the legends of horror manga. There are two more famous books of his – ‘Uzumaki‘ and ‘Gyo‘. I’ve heard Junji Ito fans saying that ‘Uzumaki’ is their favourite. I’m hoping to read that, the next time I feel brave enough.

This book is not for everyone. If you are not a horror fan and you find these things scary and they give you nightmares, please stay away from this book. But if you are a horror fan, this is 750 pages of pure pleasure. Go read it now.

Have you read ‘Tomie’? What do you think about it? Which is your favourite Junji Ito book?

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Book Review – January in Japan – Citrus (Volume 1) by Saburouta

I discovered ‘Citrus‘ by Saburouta recently and read it today. Yuzu moves to a new place and to a new school. She is odd at the new school, because she is an outsider, as nearly everyone there has been in the school since kindergarten. The only exception is Harumin, who becomes Yuzu’s best friend and tells her how things are. The new school is an all-girls school and is strict with rules for everything including what colour one’s hair should be, and how one should dress. Yuzu is a fun person and loves expressing herself and finds these conservative rules extremely hard to follow. On the first day at school she gets into a tiff with the student council president over dress code. She comes back home frustrated and when she tries to talk to her mom about her first day at the new school, her mom tells her that she has a surprise for her. Her mom then tells Yuzu that she has a step-sister and introduces her to Yuzu. Yuzu is shocked to find that it is her biggest nemesis from school. When they are later alone, and Yuzu tries having a conversation with her new sister, her ‘sister’ kisses her. Yuzu is shocked, of course. What happens after that – lots of fascinating and beautiful things, I can promise you that 😊 You have to read the book to find out more.

‘Citrus‘ belongs to a genre of manga called ‘Yuri manga’ which focuses on female relationships, sometimes romantic, sometimes close friendships. I love the idea of a whole genre of manga dedicated to close female relationships. I didn’t know about this before. It is fascinating and beautiful.

I loved ‘Citrus‘. The story is beautiful and the characters are interesting.  Yuzu is charming and is filled with energy and is fearless and is a big extrovert and her passion for life and having fun is contagious and we love her from the first instant. Mei, Yuzu’s new ‘sister’, is tall, stately, dignified, mysterious and is also likeable but in a different way. Yuzu’s best friend Harumin is very likeable. I loved them all. The first volume ends in an interesting situation, and I can’t wait to find out what happens next, and how the attraction between Mei and Yuzu grows and deepens.

Have you read ‘Citrus‘? What do you think about it? Do you like Yuri manga?

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Book Review – January in Japan – The Garden of Words by Makoto Shinkai and Midori Motohashi

I was in a distracted mood today and so I decided to read a manga comic – ‘The Garden of Words‘ by Makoto Shinkai and Midori Motohashi.

A teenager who is in high school has a challenging life. His mom is not around at home most of the time. His siblings don’t help much. So, he has to take care of the house, in addition to going to school. Everyday after he finishes the house chores in the night, he sits in his corner, puts the table lamp on, and designs shoes. That is his thing, designing women’s shoes. He hopes to pursue training in that and have a career in that, after high school. Our teenager has an interesting eccentric quirk. When it rains in the morning, he misses the first period at school, goes to a place which is kind of his sanctuary, and sits there watching the rain fall around, and takes his notebook out and gets back to designing shoes. One day, when he gets to this place, he finds a woman here – a young woman, but older than him. They spend their time in companionable silence, but these rainy days come one after another, and the companionable silence leads to conversation and magic happens. You have to read the book to find out what happens next 😊

I loved ‘The Garden of Words‘. How can we not like a book with this title? 😊 Also, there is a tanka poem in the story, and references to the the classic Japanese poetry collection Manyoshu, and Lady Sarashina’s diary. More reasons to love the book 😊 Also, the story is beautiful and the artwork is exquisite. The rainy scenes were beautiful and evocative. The first few pages were in colour and they were breathtaking. I wish the whole book was in colour. I’ve shared the first few pages below for your reading and viewing pleasure.

Have you read ‘The Garden of Words‘? What do you think about it?

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Book Review – January in Japan – Death Note (Volume 1) by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata

I first heard of ‘Death Note‘ by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata years back when I was discussing manga comics with a friend. My friend said that it was her favourite. Later, I discovered that it was a cult classic. One day in my book club, there was a long discussion on ‘Death Note‘ and I discovered that some of my book club members were huge ‘Death Note‘ fans. So I thought that one day I should read it. That day turned out to be today.

The story told in ‘Death Note‘ goes like this. Shinigami are a kind of supernatural beings who live in their own realm. One of them is important to us – his name is Ryuk. Ryuk has a notebook called ‘Death Note’. The thing about this notebook is that when a human being’s name is written on it with a date and time, that person will die at the appointed time. One day Ryuk accidentally drops the Death Note into the human world. And a high school teenager called Light Yagami finds it. The Death Note has instructions in it on how it can be used. Light reads it and he doesn’t believe it. He thinks it is all a prank. Does Light discover the true secret of the notebook? What does he do with it? What does Ryuk have to say about it? You have to read the book to find out.

I loved the first volume of ‘Death Note‘. I was expecting it to be dark and scary, and looking at the way Ryuk is represented, he does look extremely scary. But the book is anything but. It is cool and stylish, the story is fast-paced, and Ryuk belies his scary looks – he is actually cool and stylish and charming, speaks some wonderful lines, and he is one of my favourite characters from the story. How his character develops across the subsequent volumes, I have to wait and see. The story is mostly a cat-and-mouse game of two people trying to trap each other and it is quite gripping. The artwork is nice. I can’t wait to read the second part and find out what happens next.

Have you read ‘Death Note‘? What do you think about it?

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