Ears and My Man Junji Ito
So I'm not a super avid horror fan; I'm usually turned off from movies at the pretense of gore and guts, and I don't do well with existential dread when it's so directly addressed. Interacting with J-Horror as a less material-focused genre gave me a lot to think about! I got through the majority of A Wild Sheep Chase (got a little bit hung up on the ears, I will say,) and managed to connect with some of the horror manga done by Junji Ito.
I think that, while A Wild Sheep Chase was definitely an interesting read and a uniquely written narrative with a nice sort of stream-of-consciousness feel, I definitely found it frustrating. It was almost too languid for me to feel connected to the actual narrative unfolding. And, as an aside, it seemed less like a supernatural horror than more of a melancholy, sad read. I felt less scared and more disquieted; the whole bit with the ears threw me for a loop I couldn't quite shake, definitely. So after I made my way through this book a bit, I turned my gaze to something I at least have some interest in; Junji Ito's work!
I had read a bit of his more comedic Cat Diary which focused on his familial life, and had heard a ton of people recommend me his work in general, so I was interested to check it out even though I wasn't one hundred percent sure if I would actually enjoy it.
To me, it felt like a lot of the short spreads done by Junji Ito focused on deep, underlying fears and how people are forced to interact with them; the psychological tole on people was palpable, but paired with a lot of creepy imagery I wasn't so horrified as I was intrigued. Again, I'm not a super avid horror aficionado, so it was my first time actually reading his horror work. One of the small stories I singled out simply because of it's clever narrative flow was Mold, where a man returns to his house after renting it to an old professor of his.
It might just be that my family, particularly my dad, is absolutely a hound for mold in our house, but I definitely was unnerved with the idea of a never-ending spread of the fungi through the home, and that the man and his brother kept visiting it at all; I was practically yelling at them in my head not to go in, not to return, not to see the outcome or cause of the infection. My lungs were tight thinking about walking into a house with vents pumping out fine bacterial powder, so it was definitely effective for me.
And the resolution of the story, of the family's children infected and spreading the infection through the house and even their parents, and becoming truly a part of the whole, I suppose, organism, was something I found really neat! It was less physically morbid than it was more of a macabre, interesting twist that upon the reveal our protagonist himself succumbed to the house, finally. Sort of cathartic, considering he was walking through a disheveled, moldy home the entire story.
And, knowing now that J-horror often has balance at it's core, it seemed sort of a return to nature through decomposition and rot, the last step in the process of life if you will. A very true connection to the real fear that black mold can have on people; it can kill! I quite liked a lot of his other work, but this one specifically had some nice ties to reality that made it seem eerily uncanny rather than entirely otherworldly.
J-horror has been an interesting ride for me for sure, one I think I've enjoyed!
I think that, while A Wild Sheep Chase was definitely an interesting read and a uniquely written narrative with a nice sort of stream-of-consciousness feel, I definitely found it frustrating. It was almost too languid for me to feel connected to the actual narrative unfolding. And, as an aside, it seemed less like a supernatural horror than more of a melancholy, sad read. I felt less scared and more disquieted; the whole bit with the ears threw me for a loop I couldn't quite shake, definitely. So after I made my way through this book a bit, I turned my gaze to something I at least have some interest in; Junji Ito's work!
I had read a bit of his more comedic Cat Diary which focused on his familial life, and had heard a ton of people recommend me his work in general, so I was interested to check it out even though I wasn't one hundred percent sure if I would actually enjoy it.
To me, it felt like a lot of the short spreads done by Junji Ito focused on deep, underlying fears and how people are forced to interact with them; the psychological tole on people was palpable, but paired with a lot of creepy imagery I wasn't so horrified as I was intrigued. Again, I'm not a super avid horror aficionado, so it was my first time actually reading his horror work. One of the small stories I singled out simply because of it's clever narrative flow was Mold, where a man returns to his house after renting it to an old professor of his.
It might just be that my family, particularly my dad, is absolutely a hound for mold in our house, but I definitely was unnerved with the idea of a never-ending spread of the fungi through the home, and that the man and his brother kept visiting it at all; I was practically yelling at them in my head not to go in, not to return, not to see the outcome or cause of the infection. My lungs were tight thinking about walking into a house with vents pumping out fine bacterial powder, so it was definitely effective for me.
And the resolution of the story, of the family's children infected and spreading the infection through the house and even their parents, and becoming truly a part of the whole, I suppose, organism, was something I found really neat! It was less physically morbid than it was more of a macabre, interesting twist that upon the reveal our protagonist himself succumbed to the house, finally. Sort of cathartic, considering he was walking through a disheveled, moldy home the entire story.
And, knowing now that J-horror often has balance at it's core, it seemed sort of a return to nature through decomposition and rot, the last step in the process of life if you will. A very true connection to the real fear that black mold can have on people; it can kill! I quite liked a lot of his other work, but this one specifically had some nice ties to reality that made it seem eerily uncanny rather than entirely otherworldly.
J-horror has been an interesting ride for me for sure, one I think I've enjoyed!
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