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A review by futurama1979
The Liminal Zone by Junji Ito
3.0
my brother collects Ito's books, and has been feeding me one collection at a time for a bit now. this one impressed me the least so far, but i feel bad saying it, because it was still a really good time.
"Weeping Woman Way" was a classic Ito plot. go to a creepy village, have a weird experience, try to get back and find it again and you're fucked.. the Catholic school one was really freaky, good stuff. it was a little more layered, there was the salt and the weird roommate, the idea of the special class, the messed up headmistress; i liked that the causal horror wasn't any of the supernatural stuff, or, at least, the source of horror is layered too. the visual horror is the wife and what she does, her powers, but the true horror and root horror, the causal horror, was the fucked up way the headmaster treated women and girls. well and of course the religious fanaticism added to the insanity of all the teacher characters. but really, none of it would have happened if there wasn't that base horror of this man will ruin women's lives, murder women, come onto his own students et cetera solely to fulfill religious fantasy.
"The Spirit Flow of Aogikahara" was weirdly sort of my favourite. it was short and strange, but a fun idea. the concept of fighting misery and illness and suicidal thoughts with joyous physical change, even and especially change that is horrifying to an outside eye has always been interesting to me. but, then, the serial killer one was corny and almost cheapened the collection for me. Ito's common themes of suicide, sleep/insomnia, and tradition rear their heads at various moments in the stories. i think maybe if this collection had a few more stories it would feel a little more balanced and less concentrated. still, though, lots of fun to read.
"Weeping Woman Way" was a classic Ito plot. go to a creepy village, have a weird experience, try to get back and find it again and you're fucked.. the Catholic school one was really freaky, good stuff. it was a little more layered, there was the salt and the weird roommate, the idea of the special class, the messed up headmistress; i liked that the causal horror wasn't any of the supernatural stuff, or, at least, the source of horror is layered too. the visual horror is the wife and what she does, her powers, but the true horror and root horror, the causal horror, was the fucked up way the headmaster treated women and girls. well and of course the religious fanaticism added to the insanity of all the teacher characters. but really, none of it would have happened if there wasn't that base horror of this man will ruin women's lives, murder women, come onto his own students et cetera solely to fulfill religious fantasy.
"The Spirit Flow of Aogikahara" was weirdly sort of my favourite. it was short and strange, but a fun idea. the concept of fighting misery and illness and suicidal thoughts with joyous physical change, even and especially change that is horrifying to an outside eye has always been interesting to me. but, then, the serial killer one was corny and almost cheapened the collection for me. Ito's common themes of suicide, sleep/insomnia, and tradition rear their heads at various moments in the stories. i think maybe if this collection had a few more stories it would feel a little more balanced and less concentrated. still, though, lots of fun to read.