Creepy online 32-page manga story.

[joespam]

The Enigma of Amigara Fault (http://brasscockroach.com/h4ll0w33n2007/manga/Amigara-Full/Amigara-1.html). A little tough to read until you understand the pages are oriented right to left, but the basic idea: An earthquake has exposed ancient people-shaped holes in the side of a mountain. They are carved so that a person who walks into one can only move forward. Each hole seems to be carved for a specific person....

[Ashwin Pande]

I think this is done by the same guy who did Uzumaki. Art is very similar.. so is the storytelling vibe.

[Bill Nolan]

I never understand why people label all Japanese art as identical. This, to me, is not much different than what we're used to in the US, except maybe the artist has a better grasp on anatomy and how clothes look on actual real humans. Slap some overblown coloring on this and give the lead male a haircut, and it's practically a Marvel book, artwise at least.

[Shepherd]

That was pretty good. Fucked-upedly good, but good.

R

[Ashwin Pande]

nice.

[Masculine Todd]

Life's going to be hard for all those people emerging from the whole with contorted and elongated bodies. Maybe they'll become a minority.

[mario]

Wow!
I genuinely felt anxious reading that comic! What a great comic! This is really creepy and would make for a real good creepy movie.
This scared me more than every zombie book out there

[joespam]

I think this is done by the same guy who did Uzumaki. Art is very similar.. so is the storytelling vibe.It's a bonus story in Junji Ito’s 2003 horror manga Gyo. I know no more than that.

[Ashwin Pande]

Wow!
I genuinely felt anxious reading that comic! What a great comic! This is really creepy and would make for a real good creepy movie.
This scared me more than every zombie book out there

One word.. four syllables : Uzumaki.

And they made a movie for it too!! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244870/)

[Ashwin Pande]

It's a bonus story in Junji Ito’s 2003 horror manga Gyo. I know no more than that.

Junji Ito! Yeah that's him!

That dude is messed up in so many ways... I can't even begin to imagine how he comes up with the stuff he throws at us. My guess is copious amounts of drugs and a horrible childhood.

[Brian Defferding]

Wow. Thanks for the heads up! This is great!

[Brian Defferding]

I never understand why people label all Japanese art as identical. This, to me, is not much different than what we're used to in the US, except maybe the artist has a better grasp on anatomy and how clothes look on actual real humans. Slap some overblown coloring on this and give the lead male a haircut, and it's practically a Marvel book, artwise at least.

The japanese art we see here is identical. There's a lot lost in the translation (so to speak). There's plenty of great comic art over there that doesn't follow the craptastic formula one would normally see on a standard Yu-Gi-Oh or Naruto cartoon/manga, but it's not finding a market here unfortunately (or at least, it's harder to find).

[JoeE]

So fucking creepy.

"A hole made just for me..." *shiver*

I wonder if I would enter mine.

[Garth]

What a great creepy story. Horror seems to be really difficult to pull off in comics. But that was actually scary. Had me nervous throughout!

[JoeE]

Of course, logically it doesn't quite work...if a hole was carved perfectly in your silhouette your legs wouldn't move, so you probably wouldn't be able to move forward at all. At worse you'd be stuck near the front.

But it's still very creepy.

[Ashwin Pande]

Of course, logically it doesn't quite work...if a hole was carved perfectly in your silhouette your legs wouldn't move, so you probably wouldn't be able to move forward at all. At worse you'd be stuck near the front.

But it's still very creepy.

Well... logically there's no way whatsoever to even carve those kind of holes...

[mario]

One word.. four syllables : Uzumaki.

And they made a movie for it too!! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0244870/)

nice!
I'd want to seek out more work by him, but I'm scared:scared:

[Ashwin Pande]

nice!
I'd want to seek out more work by him, but I'm scared:scared:

Yeah... this story is nothing compared to the creepiness of Uzumaki..

I don't have the stones to watch the film.. :Panic:

[mario]

Of course, logically it doesn't quite work...if a hole was carved perfectly in your silhouette your legs wouldn't move, so you probably wouldn't be able to move forward at all. At worse you'd be stuck near the front.

But it's still very creepy.


perhaps the rocks are lubed up on the inside?

[Whip]

*makes note to stay the fuck away from mountains*

[JoeE]

Also, how do the contorted people turn around down there? They go in face first and apparently come out face looking out of the hole.

[Ashwin Pande]

Yeah so they didn't turn. The hole just keeps going on straight or meanders accordingly.. and they get twisted along the way.. the hole opened up on the other side of the... mountain thing..

[Adrian B AWESOME]

Also, how do the contorted people turn around down there? They go in face first and apparently come out face looking out of the hole.

Um, it was the other side of the mountain?

Fantastic story.

[JoeE]

Yeah so they didn't turn. The hole just keeps going on straight or meanders accordingly.. and they get twisted along the way.. the hole opened up on the other side of the... mountain thing..



Um, it was the other side of the mountain?

Fantastic story.

Yeah, that makes sense, actually.

[half guard]

holy shit! this is intense. i just finished it and it's creepy as hell. great stuff!

[JoeE]

I can't stop thinking about this story.

I know it's ultimately a horror yarn, but I think it has existential themes as well. The holes are proof to their victims that at some point in the history of space and time, someone or something beyond comprehension was aware of their existence (or future existence, I suppose), and for some reason had strong enough feelings towards them that they dug holes for them which long after the fact would be ready for them to enter. They're proof to the victims that they matter, and that the universe isn't completely indifferent to their lives.

No, we don't really know if the holes were specifically made for the individual victims or if they just appeared that way. But people have a tendency to want to think that the world has been designed with them in mind, which is the reason, I think, why everyone in the story entered their holes willingly.

My initial reaction was to read the holes as a metaphor for religion, with the physical torment being analogous to the mental torment religions often make you go through in order for you to believe that God Loves You, and that you matter, but I think that's a little crude.

Just my two cents.

[DaGetHighKnight]

That was good stuff!

[half guard]

I can't stop thinking about this story.

I know it's ultimately a horror yarn, but I think it has existential themes as well. The holes are proof to their victims that at some point in the history of space and time, someone or something beyond comprehension was aware of their existence (or future existence, I suppose), and for some reason had strong enough feelings towards them that they dug holes for them which long after the fact would be ready for them to enter. They're proof to the victims that they matter, and that the universe isn't completely indifferent to their lives.

No, we don't really know if the holes were specifically made for the individual victims or if they just appeared that way. But people have a tendency to want to think that the world has been designed with them in mind, which is the reason, I think, why everyone in the story entered their holes willingly.

My initial reaction was to read the holes as a metaphor for religion, with the physical torment being analogous to the mental torment religions often make you go through in order for you to believe that God Loves You, and that you matter, but I think that's a little crude.

Just my two cents.

your analysis was scarier than the story itself.



j/k, joe. i agree that it's deeper than the surface and that's makes it all the more creepy.

[Cth]

Ito is a master :)

Hey Deff.. remind me and I'll bring some of his stuff to Heroes Con for you to check out.

[Hawkdevil]

that was pretty awesome. I liked that a lot, creepy as it was...

[thatguyfromsyracuse]

I'm not a big manga fan, but that was pretty creepy and a bit off-putting.

[Ashwin Pande]

What'd you find off-putting about it... I mean.. apart from the obvious creepiness... but anything specific?

[Blake Sims]

Nice.

[thatguyfromsyracuse]

What'd you find off-putting about it... I mean.. apart from the obvious creepiness... but anything specific?

I can't really explain it, just reading it, it made me uneasy. Maybe thats the word. I mean, "Oh, human shaped holes that have been underground for thousands of years" is strange enough, but then thinking "That one looks like me! I need to crawl into it!" I don't know, just weird man. I'll probably have some bizarre nightmare about it tonight.

[Ashwin Pande]

I can't really explain it, just reading it, it made me uneasy. Maybe thats the word. I mean, "Oh, human shaped holes that have been underground for thousands of years" is strange enough, but then thinking "That one looks like me! I need to crawl into it!" I don't know, just weird man. I'll probably have some bizarre nightmare about it tonight.

Yeah I get what you're saying.

Don't read Uzumaki or anything else by Junji Ito. It's all more fucked up than this one.

[Wastrel]

were allowed to post pirated comic scans now?

[Brian Defferding]

Ito is a master :)

Hey Deff.. remind me and I'll bring some of his stuff to Heroes Con for you to check out.

Aw, thanks man! You rock. Please do bring more! :ecstatic: I would love to see more!

[Jmd211]

I saw the movie last night after reading this manga, it wasn't bad. Really great in the beginning, but the end it seems that they threw everything together to finish it. I would watch again.

[VitoDGK]

I saw the movie last night after reading this manga, it wasn't bad. Really great in the beginning, but the end it seems that they threw everything together to finish it. I would watch again.

what's the name of the movie?

[Jmd211]

what's the name of the movie?

Uzumaki (Vortex)

90 minutes, not about the manga that is listed in the beginning but elements from the other stories. There are subtitles.

[Cth]

I saw the movie last night after reading this manga, it wasn't bad. Really great in the beginning, but the end it seems that they threw everything together to finish it. I would watch again.

The movie is ok, it leaves out a TON of the really good stuff.. the ending was completely left off from the original.

The original made it more Lovecraftian type cosmic horror and felt like Innsmouth filtered through manga.

[Jmd211]

The movie is ok, it leaves out a TON of the really good stuff.. the ending was completely left off from the original.

The original made it more Lovecraftian type cosmic horror and felt like Innsmouth filtered through manga.

After watching the movie and reading the story from the 1st post i really want to find the manga!

Do you mind telling me what was supposed to happen for the ending? Was this for the movie or the manga books?

[Cth]

After watching the movie and reading the story from the 1st post i really want to find the manga!

Do you mind telling me what was supposed to happen for the ending? Was this for the movie or the manga books?

The movie is more about the people and how it affects them. The manga makes it more epic and about the town and leaves you with a creepy ending.

SPOILERS

Volume 1

* The Spiral Obsession Part 1 - High school student Kirie Goshima finds out that her boyfriend Shuichi is worried about his father, who has begun a strange obsession about spirals. He collects anything featuring a spiral pattern, and eventually he stops going to work to stay at home and stare at his spiral collection. His obsession becomes so disturbing that he starts to use his own body to create spirals.

* The Spiral Obsession Part 2 - After he dies in a strange suicide, Shuichi's father's body is cremated, but during the funeral, the smoke from the cremation forms a spiral shape in the sky, consequently driving Shuichi's mother to insanity. She develops a phobia of spirals and starts to rid herself of everything in her body that looks like a spiral.

* The Scar - Kirie's class friend Azami asks Kirie if she can meet Shuichi. Although hesitant, Kirie agrees, but when they go to Shuichi's house something weird happens: Shuichi feels a sinister presence coming from Azami's forehead, and Azami reveals that she has a crescent-moon shaped scar which she believes has the power to make any boy fall in love with her. However, Shuichi suspects that the scar is causing terrible effects in Azami, and is proven right.

* The Firing Effect - For some reason, the bowls, pots and vases that Kirie's father, a potter, creates in his workshop are turning into hideous failures featuring spiral patterns and the faces of people who have recently died in the city of Kurozu.

* Twisted Souls - Kirie meets a former classmate who has recently been having a problem with his girlfriend's family. It seems that both families of the couple are in a constant and aggressive feud, and do not agree to let their kids date. Kirie decides to help her friend and his girl to escape from their parents, but the story ends in a grotesque way.

* Medusa - Kirie's hair begins to grow unusually, and when Kirie goes to cut it, the hair comes to life and refuses to be cut. It starts to control Kirie, forcing her to seek the attention of everybody in the town. The problem worsens when Kirie's classmate, Sekino, becomes jealous and decides that her hair should have the same gift.

[edit] Volume 2

* Jack-in-the-Box - Kirie is being stalked by a boy named Mitsuru, who likes to jump out and surprise people, which gained him the nickname Jack-in-the-Box. When Kirie refuses to be his girlfriend, Mitsuru decides to prove his love by trying to stop a speeding car. However, Mitsuru is killed and he is buried because the town is now afraid to cremate bodies. Kirie still has no peace, as she receives a strange message that Mitsuru will come back from his grave.

* Snail People - A classmate of Kirie's starts to behave strangely: He only goes to school when it is raining and he walks and talks in an oddly slow way. Also, he has a big and strange spiral-shaped scar in his back. It's only the beginning of a bizarre epidemic that makes people turn into giant, mutant snails.

* Dark Lighthouse - The lighthouse of Koruzu begins to switch on by itself mysteriously. Anyone who is caught by its light is blinded and caused to walk in circles. Some people of the town decide to go there to investigate, including Kirie's brother Mitsuo and his friends. Kirie goes to bring her brother and the others back from the building, but as she enters she faces the terrible truth about the lighthouse.

* Mosquitoes - Admitted to the hospital due to the burnings made by the lighthouse's light, Kirie discovers a body drained of blood on hospital grounds. Later, Kirie's pregnant cousin Keiko moves into her room in the hospital after suffering an attack from a swarm of mosquitoes. At first everything seems normal, but one night Kirie discovers that her cousin, as well other pregnant women, have a dark secret which is related to the mosquitoes.

* Umbilical Cord - The pregnant women finally give birth to adorable babies. To Kirie's relief they all look normal, but after a strange accident she discovers that she is mistaken, and that the babies are as dangerous as their mothers.

* Typhoon 1 - When a typhoon passes by Koruzu, Kirie is caught by the typhoon's eye and somehow, the typhoon falls in love with her and begins to stalk her everywhere, causing horrible damage. Shuichi then appears to protect Kirie.

[edit] Volume 3

Volume 3 contains the final 6 chapters, plus an extra chapter that forms an epilogue with a story connecting to Volume 1.

* Haunted Apartment - After the typhoon destroyed much of the city including Kirie's house, Kirie moves into a previously abandoned apartment provided by the town officer with her family. It happens that the apartment is an old shack in bad conditions. Her neighbors are a young man with the secret habit as a peeping tom named Wakabayashi, and a mysterious couple of mother and son. Everyone living in the apartment starts to catch a strange skin disease. The disease will only get worse and lead to a horrible outcome.

* Butterfly - Maruyama Chie, an anchor girl comes at the town with her co-workers in a van, only to be chased after by a typhoon. Only Chie survives the car crash and she travels into the town seeing ruins and dead bodies everywhere. Now the townpeople realize they can create twisters with nothing more than a sudden movement or a strong exhalation of air. It appears that the previously abandoned apartments around the town is the only sort of shelters not destroyed by twisters, so every apartment becomes crowded and tension amongst dwellers tightens. Some naughty kids group up to destroy the town for fun, creating twisters only by blowing wind.

* Chaos - The gangsters and some young men form a gang called 'Butterfly'. They destroy buildings for fun and rob food from rescue teams. Snail people begin to appear again after long unseen. The apartments become more and more crowded and people begin to quarrel with one another without proper causes. By helping Shuichi from a conflict with another man, Kirie's family is casted out from the apartment. As they wander to find a new place to shelter, they witness the Butterfly gang having snail people as a meal. They say snail people's meat is delicious and persuade Kirie to join their meal.

* Chaos Part 2 - Several groups of town-people try to escape from the town, but all end in failure. The apartments become overly occupied until they crash into pieces of wood. As food runs out, some begin to eat snail people's meat left over by the Butterfly gang. Shuichi eats it and tell Kirie to take some. Kirie finally finds Mitsuo, her brother who has lost along with her mother and father since the last twister, only to discover the horrible truth.

* Escape - Kirie's group make another attempt to escape for now Mitsuo's transforming to be a snail and other town-people are desperate for food. They seem to find no way out of the town and Mitsuo finally transforms. Kirie forces her now snail brother to flee away from the hungry townpeople.

* Labyrinth - Kirie's group finally comes out of the woods only to discover that they have returned to the town. They also discover that several years have passed while they were away, and the remaining townspeople have repaired and expanded all the old apartments, revealing that they connect together form a giant spiral-shaped labyrinth with the lake at its center. Shuichi theorises that the strange events have happened again and again through the ages, always ending with the rebuilding of the spiral apartments. After all is over, the apartments are slowly ruined and all traces vanish, and a new town is built. The reason why no-one knows of this is because all the people have vanished after the events.

* Ruin - Kirie, Shuichi and Chie follow the labyrinth to its center, but Chie is trapped by some of the now spiral-shaped people who live in the apartments, and Kirie and Shuichi must continue without her. When they reach the center, they discover that the lake has dried up has been replaced by a long spiral-shaped stairwell that goes deep into the earth. Without any other choice, they follow the stairs and discover a huge cave with a lot of gigantic, spiral-shaped ruins, with a huge, glowing spiral-shaped stone in the center. They find all the corpses spiral-shaped inhabitants of the towns, who have begun to turn to stone, Kirie's parents included. Shuichi is wounded after an earlier attack, and is unable to leave the cave, and asks Kirie to leave him. Kirie refuses and decides to stay with him. As they hug each other, their arms become spirals that bind them together. The stairwell begins to close, thus imprisoning Kirie and Shuichi and ending the spiral curse for now, only to return later, when a new town is built around the lake.

* Epilogue: Galaxies - Strange-looking radio galaxies are discovered in the night sky, which begin to have strange effects on the residents of the town.


You may want to look up a film series called TOMIE as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomie



The original manga series was created and illustrated by Junji Ito. These rather disturbing tales tell the story of a high-school girl named Tomie, who can be seen as a living embodiment of lust and all the negative emotions that go along with it, such as jealousy. Tomie is the ultimate self-destructive entity, yet ironically she survives anything. She is identified by a mole under her left eye, or her right in the American adaptation of the comic.

She possesses an undisclosed power to make all men fall in love with her. Through sleight of hand, or emotional manipulation, she drives these men into jealous rages that inevitably lead to brutal acts of violence. Men kill each other over her; and girls are sometimes driven to jealous rages as well. Tomie is inevitably killed time and again, only to regenerate. Tomie is cursed to go on forever in this way.

In the first story "Tomie", she returns to school after an announcement that she had died, much to the horror of her friends and teachers. It transpires that during a school trip, her fellow students and favorite teacher murder her and dismember her body.

Each story tells a different viewpoint of how she lived and died, with some recurring characters. The teacher who murders her in the first story returns several times, and though clearly insane, he still is under Tomie's thrall.

Her hair is a major factor in the stories. It kills as well as possesses, such as in the story of a young girl who steals the hair of her father's ex-lover (Tomie) and puts it in a box. The hair grows despite it not being attached to anything. The girl wears it and soon has a lovely head of the longest, straightest and darkest hair. But there is a price to pay for everything in these stories. The stories are gruesome but draw the reader in with horrors that hide just around the corner.

Later it was revealed there are several copies of Tomie roaming around the world, each with an individual mind. Sometimes the two Tomie copies would be jealous of each other and try to have each other killed.

When her body scattered into pieces, each fragment of her body is capable of regenerating into a complete and independent body. When her body is burnt to ash, the ash floats in air with life of its own.

Although her body is mortal and weak against all assaults, her regenerative power makes her immortal. Sometimes it takes a lot of time to regenerate her body if it is greatly damaged.

Ito's Tomie stories have twice been released in the United States. The 1997 release by ComicsOne featured "flipped" artwork, whereas the 2005 releases by Dark Horse Comics reprint the artwork in its original right-to left format.

[Jmd211]

The movie is more about the people and how it affects them. The manga makes it more epic and about the town and leaves you with a creepy ending.

SPOILERS

Volume 1

* The Spiral Obsession Part 1 - High school student Kirie Goshima finds out that her boyfriend Shuichi is worried about his father, who has begun a strange obsession about spirals. He collects anything featuring a spiral pattern, and eventually he stops going to work to stay at home and stare at his spiral collection. His obsession becomes so disturbing that he starts to use his own body to create spirals.

* The Spiral Obsession Part 2 - After he dies in a strange suicide, Shuichi's father's body is cremated, but during the funeral, the smoke from the cremation forms a spiral shape in the sky, consequently driving Shuichi's mother to insanity. She develops a phobia of spirals and starts to rid herself of everything in her body that looks like a spiral.

* The Scar - Kirie's class friend Azami asks Kirie if she can meet Shuichi. Although hesitant, Kirie agrees, but when they go to Shuichi's house something weird happens: Shuichi feels a sinister presence coming from Azami's forehead, and Azami reveals that she has a crescent-moon shaped scar which she believes has the power to make any boy fall in love with her. However, Shuichi suspects that the scar is causing terrible effects in Azami, and is proven right.

* The Firing Effect - For some reason, the bowls, pots and vases that Kirie's father, a potter, creates in his workshop are turning into hideous failures featuring spiral patterns and the faces of people who have recently died in the city of Kurozu.

* Twisted Souls - Kirie meets a former classmate who has recently been having a problem with his girlfriend's family. It seems that both families of the couple are in a constant and aggressive feud, and do not agree to let their kids date. Kirie decides to help her friend and his girl to escape from their parents, but the story ends in a grotesque way.

* Medusa - Kirie's hair begins to grow unusually, and when Kirie goes to cut it, the hair comes to life and refuses to be cut. It starts to control Kirie, forcing her to seek the attention of everybody in the town. The problem worsens when Kirie's classmate, Sekino, becomes jealous and decides that her hair should have the same gift.

[edit] Volume 2

* Jack-in-the-Box - Kirie is being stalked by a boy named Mitsuru, who likes to jump out and surprise people, which gained him the nickname Jack-in-the-Box. When Kirie refuses to be his girlfriend, Mitsuru decides to prove his love by trying to stop a speeding car. However, Mitsuru is killed and he is buried because the town is now afraid to cremate bodies. Kirie still has no peace, as she receives a strange message that Mitsuru will come back from his grave.

* Snail People - A classmate of Kirie's starts to behave strangely: He only goes to school when it is raining and he walks and talks in an oddly slow way. Also, he has a big and strange spiral-shaped scar in his back. It's only the beginning of a bizarre epidemic that makes people turn into giant, mutant snails.

* Dark Lighthouse - The lighthouse of Koruzu begins to switch on by itself mysteriously. Anyone who is caught by its light is blinded and caused to walk in circles. Some people of the town decide to go there to investigate, including Kirie's brother Mitsuo and his friends. Kirie goes to bring her brother and the others back from the building, but as she enters she faces the terrible truth about the lighthouse.

* Mosquitoes - Admitted to the hospital due to the burnings made by the lighthouse's light, Kirie discovers a body drained of blood on hospital grounds. Later, Kirie's pregnant cousin Keiko moves into her room in the hospital after suffering an attack from a swarm of mosquitoes. At first everything seems normal, but one night Kirie discovers that her cousin, as well other pregnant women, have a dark secret which is related to the mosquitoes.

* Umbilical Cord - The pregnant women finally give birth to adorable babies. To Kirie's relief they all look normal, but after a strange accident she discovers that she is mistaken, and that the babies are as dangerous as their mothers.

* Typhoon 1 - When a typhoon passes by Koruzu, Kirie is caught by the typhoon's eye and somehow, the typhoon falls in love with her and begins to stalk her everywhere, causing horrible damage. Shuichi then appears to protect Kirie.

[edit] Volume 3

Volume 3 contains the final 6 chapters, plus an extra chapter that forms an epilogue with a story connecting to Volume 1.

* Haunted Apartment - After the typhoon destroyed much of the city including Kirie's house, Kirie moves into a previously abandoned apartment provided by the town officer with her family. It happens that the apartment is an old shack in bad conditions. Her neighbors are a young man with the secret habit as a peeping tom named Wakabayashi, and a mysterious couple of mother and son. Everyone living in the apartment starts to catch a strange skin disease. The disease will only get worse and lead to a horrible outcome.

* Butterfly - Maruyama Chie, an anchor girl comes at the town with her co-workers in a van, only to be chased after by a typhoon. Only Chie survives the car crash and she travels into the town seeing ruins and dead bodies everywhere. Now the townpeople realize they can create twisters with nothing more than a sudden movement or a strong exhalation of air. It appears that the previously abandoned apartments around the town is the only sort of shelters not destroyed by twisters, so every apartment becomes crowded and tension amongst dwellers tightens. Some naughty kids group up to destroy the town for fun, creating twisters only by blowing wind.

* Chaos - The gangsters and some young men form a gang called 'Butterfly'. They destroy buildings for fun and rob food from rescue teams. Snail people begin to appear again after long unseen. The apartments become more and more crowded and people begin to quarrel with one another without proper causes. By helping Shuichi from a conflict with another man, Kirie's family is casted out from the apartment. As they wander to find a new place to shelter, they witness the Butterfly gang having snail people as a meal. They say snail people's meat is delicious and persuade Kirie to join their meal.

* Chaos Part 2 - Several groups of town-people try to escape from the town, but all end in failure. The apartments become overly occupied until they crash into pieces of wood. As food runs out, some begin to eat snail people's meat left over by the Butterfly gang. Shuichi eats it and tell Kirie to take some. Kirie finally finds Mitsuo, her brother who has lost along with her mother and father since the last twister, only to discover the horrible truth.

* Escape - Kirie's group make another attempt to escape for now Mitsuo's transforming to be a snail and other town-people are desperate for food. They seem to find no way out of the town and Mitsuo finally transforms. Kirie forces her now snail brother to flee away from the hungry townpeople.

* Labyrinth - Kirie's group finally comes out of the woods only to discover that they have returned to the town. They also discover that several years have passed while they were away, and the remaining townspeople have repaired and expanded all the old apartments, revealing that they connect together form a giant spiral-shaped labyrinth with the lake at its center. Shuichi theorises that the strange events have happened again and again through the ages, always ending with the rebuilding of the spiral apartments. After all is over, the apartments are slowly ruined and all traces vanish, and a new town is built. The reason why no-one knows of this is because all the people have vanished after the events.

* Ruin - Kirie, Shuichi and Chie follow the labyrinth to its center, but Chie is trapped by some of the now spiral-shaped people who live in the apartments, and Kirie and Shuichi must continue without her. When they reach the center, they discover that the lake has dried up has been replaced by a long spiral-shaped stairwell that goes deep into the earth. Without any other choice, they follow the stairs and discover a huge cave with a lot of gigantic, spiral-shaped ruins, with a huge, glowing spiral-shaped stone in the center. They find all the corpses spiral-shaped inhabitants of the towns, who have begun to turn to stone, Kirie's parents included. Shuichi is wounded after an earlier attack, and is unable to leave the cave, and asks Kirie to leave him. Kirie refuses and decides to stay with him. As they hug each other, their arms become spirals that bind them together. The stairwell begins to close, thus imprisoning Kirie and Shuichi and ending the spiral curse for now, only to return later, when a new town is built around the lake.

* Epilogue: Galaxies - Strange-looking radio galaxies are discovered in the night sky, which begin to have strange effects on the residents of the town.


You may want to look up a film series called TOMIE as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomie

Ya, I looked all that up on wiki earlier today. Thanks.

[ZeeS]

Just to get a better sight of how fucked up and bone chilling his work is...
http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/7531/uzumakiv02c011158wa5.jpg
http://www.startdrawing.org/images/comics_JunjiIto.jpghttp://www.9therapy.com/images/uzumaki_strip.jpg
http://img464.imageshack.us/img464/5158/itouzumaki1998bn4.jpg

[ZeeS]

His work has alot to do with passivity of life and despair in fate...real feel good happy shit.

[Adrian B AWESOME]

Naked boobs? :no:

[Icaruss]

Man, that was good. I mean, it was a nice little story. Creepy, too. I've never really liked the pace in mangas, and how the characters act (man, do they fall in love really fast, don't they?) but the plot was fantastic.

[Icaruss]

One thing though, the holes were supposed to suck them in, right? I mean, they weren't going forward on their own, right?

[En Sabah Poo]

I can't stop thinking about this story.

I know it's ultimately a horror yarn, but I think it has existential themes as well. The holes are proof to their victims that at some point in the history of space and time, someone or something beyond comprehension was aware of their existence (or future existence, I suppose), and for some reason had strong enough feelings towards them that they dug holes for them which long after the fact would be ready for them to enter. They're proof to the victims that they matter, and that the universe isn't completely indifferent to their lives.


Not only that its not indifferent, but it wants to put them through agony, be it punishment or not. Not only the dream that the main character has, but also just the idea of what the holes do. They serve a purpose and that purpose was definitely intended.

[joespam]

One thing though, the holes were supposed to suck them in, right? I mean, they weren't going forward on their own, right?It seemed to me that the people moved forward on their own. But it's possible that the compulsion that made them want to go into the hole also made them unable to stop moving forward once inside.

Though since the holes somehow didn't allow them to move physically backwards, their only choices were forward or stopping.

But I didn't get the impression that the holes physically pulled people in and through.

[En Sabah Poo]

It seemed to me that the people moved forward on their own. But it's possible that the compulsion that made them want to go into the hole also made them unable to stop.

But I didn't get the impression that the holes physically pulled people in.

My impression was that even if you just nudged yourself along (like a snake almost) the downward angle of the holes combined with that made you move slowly.

[Icaruss]

My impression was that even if you just nudged yourself along (like a snake almost) the downward angle of the holes combined with that made you move slowly.

I think that's it.

[c. page]

My impression was that even if you just nudged yourself along (like a snake almost) the downward angle of the holes combined with that made you move slowly.

that's what i thought, too.

[YouStayClassy]

My impression was that even if you just nudged yourself along (like a snake almost) the downward angle of the holes combined with that made you move slowly.

That's disturbing to picture.

[Adrian B AWESOME]

God, what a great story, been thinking about it all day and I've read it at least twice again.

[changingshades]

Of course, logically it doesn't quite work...if a hole was carved perfectly in your silhouette your legs wouldn't move, so you probably wouldn't be able to move forward at all. At worse you'd be stuck near the front.

But it's still very creepy.

is it sad that's what i thought too?

[Cth]

If you're a fan of this style of artwork, check out a series called DRAGON HEAD.

(meaning, more realism, as opposed to big eyes, triangle noses, etc)

The premise is a class is on a field trip, and taking a train through a tunnel when something catastrophic occurs above ground. The mountain tunnel collapses and they try to survive and escape. They don't know if the rest of the world is ok or what even happened. Apocalyptic survival drama, similar to Lord of the Flies.

http://tcj.com/journalista/dragonhead4.jpg

http://bp2.blogger.com/_n5xC4ByBQAU/RoCC6YtLm4I/AAAAAAAAC6w/RzF4OdzLAWI/s400/scan0004.jpg

http://bp2.blogger.com/_n5xC4ByBQAU/RoCC6YtLm5I/AAAAAAAAC64/WTxzUpqlaYY/s400/scan0005.jpg

http://bp3.blogger.com/_n5xC4ByBQAU/RoCC6otLm6I/AAAAAAAAC7A/toKd92VKS2E/s400/scan0006.jpg

Review by Matt Brady:
http://warren-peace.blogspot.com/2007/06/dragon-head-where-are-scaly-fire.html

[Bill Nolan]

Because of this thread, I now own seven volumes of Ito's work... :)

I just finished all three volumes of Uzumaki. That's some creepy shit right there. Yikes!

[joespam]

Because of this thread, I now own seven volumes of Ito's work... :)

I just finished all three volumes of Uzumaki. That's some creepy shit right there. Yikes!Cool!

So are they all as good, if not better, than the enigma fault story? Can you list your favorites and give us a taste?

[Bill Nolan]

The strongest stuff I've read so far has been the Uzumaki material. I would recommend buying vol. 1 of that. It's part of a larger story, but the first volume especially is made up of a bunch of stories which stand alone pretty well. I haven't read through the other books I own yet, so I can't really make specific recommendations. I've read the first couple of stories in Museum of Terror vol. 3, which seems to be short stories from earlier in his career when his art style was still developing, and they're more straight-up horror. Definitely worth checking out. Museum of Terror vol. 1 and vol. 2 contain his "Tomie" material. After three volumes of Uzumaki, I was ready for some shorter works, so I'm saving the Tomie stuff for later.

[danlomb]

shudder...my greatest fear is not being able to move

i'm okay in elevators and stuff, but being pressed against on all sides...

brrrr....good comics, good good comics.

[Shwicaz]

It's a bonus story in Junji Ito’s 2003 horror manga Gyo. I know no more than that.

yeah, I read this a couple years ago, and totally LOVED it.

[Shwicaz]

The strongest stuff I've read so far has been the Uzumaki material. I would recommend buying vol. 1 of that. It's part of a larger story, but the first volume especially is made up of a bunch of stories which stand alone pretty well. I haven't read through the other books I own yet, so I can't really make specific recommendations. I've read the first couple of stories in Museum of Terror vol. 3, which seems to be short stories from earlier in his career when his art style was still developing, and they're more straight-up horror. Definitely worth checking out. Museum of Terror vol. 1 and vol. 2 contain his "Tomie" material. After three volumes of Uzumaki, I was ready for some shorter works, so I'm saving the Tomie stuff for later.

The Tomie stories were/are fucking bizarre.

and creepy.


again, right up my alley