Deserter

I am in the middle of too many books.   There are so many that I am reading for my profession, but then there are so many that I am reading for entertainment. And soon it will be October and I rather enjoyed the past years wherein I would read a few horror-genre items.  So, of course, at the library last week I saw they had a copy of Deserter by Junji Ito and borrowed it. The obvious thing to do when the book stacks are avalanching – very much like a horror scene.

Deserter ( 脱走兵のいる家) is a collection of twelve short stories by Japanese creator Junji Ito. This edition is the English edition published by Viz Media in 2021.  I had been considering buying this so it is not exactly ridiculous that when I saw it at the library I left with it.  I still might purchase it – because I have really grown in appreciation for Junji Ito’s works.  I still have Remina that I own and that I need to read, but I will keep an eye out for Deserter on sale.

I do not love horror – a thing that I keep stating. It bothers me and I do not really enjoy it.  However, I do like challenging myself to read other genres and I really do like this artist’s art and storytelling.  If Junji Ito were to ever write a science fiction story, I can promise you that I would be all over that book!  I do know other readers who do not enjoy horror – and I think this is a good collection for readers who might be courageous enough to read some horror.  The contents being short stories help mitigate the overwhelming feel that might happen with reading a larger work in the horror genre. Smaller bites can help digestion.

I struggle with having an effective way to review manga.  So, I felt that for this collection, I would rate each story in four categories. But the ratings are purely what I would call “like/dislike,” in some cases this could be a rating of degree. So, I decided to rate the stories for:  interesting/entertaining story, gore-level, artwork-engagement, and horror-level.  Obviously, this is entirely subjective and relative and just embarrassingly without any uniform measuring stick besides my silly opinion.

Bio House – story 2, gore 5, art 4, horror 4
Face Thief – story 3, gore 3, art 3, horror 2
Where the Sandman Lives – story 4, gore 4, art 5, horror 3
The Devil’s Logic – story 1, gore 3, art 3, horror 2
The Long Hair in the Attic – story 3, gore 3, art 4, horror 3
Scripted Love – story 5, gore 3, art 5, horror 3
The Reanimator’s Sword – story 2, gore 4, art 3, horror 2
A Father’s Love – story 3, gore 3, art 3, horror 3
Unendurable Labyrinth – story 4, gore 3, art 4, horror 4
Village of the Siren – story 4, gore 5, art 3, horror 4
Bullied – story 2, gore 2, art 3, horror —
Deserter – story 4, gore 2, art 4, horror 4

I am not going to go in-depth with each story. I would prefer to point out the highlights or the key items that seem to be most important.  I will start with what I think are the lowest tier:  Bullied and The Devil’s Logic are the worst of the collection.  The former is too horrible (not necessarily horrific) for me to talk about; it was actually difficult for me to read through. I do not like it. The Devil’s Logic gets a low rating from me because I feel like it does not develop at all and while short stories in the horror genre can leave some work to the reader, this one just felt weak and rather flat. It was unconvincing and maybe felt unpolished.

The second tier stories would be Face Thief, Where the Sandman Lives, The Long Hair in the Attic, and The Reanimator’s Sword.  All four of these stories have a sort of classic horror story trope behind them.  I felt they all were takes on what would be familiar to most horror fans.  Though they may have hints of known story elements, that does not mean they were bad.  Face Thief is titled appropriately, let us say.  My favorite of the bunch was probably Where the Sandman Lives.  Where the Sandman Lives causes me a bit of grief because I cannot match the story with the title no matter what. I keep reading the title and have to sit for a minute and recall which story this was. I have to type quickly; chances are I will forget again. The story does not wow me, but I think the artwork in this story was amazing. I like when the stories allow Junji Ito to showcase the frames of hands, eyes, simple drawings that contain movement and panic or, what is best, the sudden realization a character might have.  The other stories are vaguely entertaining in their own way. I think the story itself in The Reanimator’s Sword kind of slips away from Junji Ito a bit and gets a bit messy.

A Father’s Love is a longer story than the rest.  It has a lot of emotion from all of the characters.  I do not know that I liked it, really, but I think it is well-done, regardless. It is an entirely average story across the board – meaning, I feel it hits all the checkpoints to be included in any consideration of horror. It is too emotion-driven/character-driven for my tastes, but it includes a lot of the more common horror elements. Headaches, suicides, sudden violence, chases at night…. The ending is unhappy, but expected. Maybe the story would have rated higher if it was shorter and trimmed a bit.  There is a hero, at the end, and it seems like the author tried to drum up a little reader sympathy. I am not sure any of this worked to a huge extent, but it did feel a little different than the other stories for it.

Bio House is hands down the goriest of the group. It is nasty and the artwork is utterly depictive of exactly how horrific things are.  There is not a lot by way of backstory, maybe a few extra frames would have helped this aspect.  I would have liked a little more introduction to the main character and her role in the backstory. I mean, readers can figure something out via context, but its maybe not enough when the gore and the pandemonium start escalating.  Its a bit outrageous to say, but the art is so good:  for example the slaves on their knees lapping up blood were drawn perfectly. The final frame of the story is structured perfectly as well – the main character exits, seemingly with all the poise in the world while one of the slaves looks off-screen.   The fact that this is the opening story in this collection is quite a guidepost for the reader – if they make it through this one, they should be forewarned that anything could be possible and Junji Ito is not pulling punches. And, honestly, since it is the most gory, it probably sets the bar a little high for the readers in that respect. The rest of the stories do not really come close to this one, I think.

Scripted Love, Unendurable Labyrinth, Village of the Siren, and Deserter are all top-tier stories and my favorites of the entire collection. I would say they are not to be missed.  These are the higher rated stories in the collection, I gave them four stars each. I liked how they seemed to have just the right amount of world-building and background.  Again, they do have some of the classical elements of horror. One story has mummies, one has flying demons, one has revenge and suicide.  My favorite, if pressed, is probably Unendurable Labyrinth, but if you know me it is not a surprise that that is the one I find most interesting and engaging.  Deserter is good, after all, it is the flagship of the collection.  However, the motivations of the characters seem pushed too far; if any of these are psychological horror, I would say this one is solidly in that category.  I say this, but people can be extreme and wild and unpredictable, so maybe that is just my own perspective on this.    I like that Deserter has a lot to consider and question and wonder about after the story (and the book) ends.  There is something to chew on here even after the story is over.

I got a big kick out of Scripted Love because I feel it is the only story in this collection that has a storyline with a real plot twist surprise.  Its clever and weird and satisfyingly creepy, if that is a thing.  Readers who like a little snark will enjoy this, I think. My favorite section is the last page – the violence is off-stage and you cannot see who is talking, but you know. Very nicely written story.

Overall, based on story rating alone, I think this collection averages out to a three star rating. However, I know that that is low. Simply put, I think the four top-tier stories alone make this collection worth reading and I rated all of those four+ stars.  At this point, I am very comfortable with Junji Ito’s art, meaning I can recognize it and I am noticing subtleties in it.  I am glad that I read this collection and I can recommend it to horror fans and readers who might like to read some horror, but maybe need an alternate delivery method. This manga works really well for the genre.

Uzumaki

I read Uzumaki as my next October “Scary.” Uzumaki is a manga by Junji Ito (b. 1963) – I read the 3-in-1 hardback collection. I happily paid full price for it and took my time reading through it starting the day I bought it. It is a large book, well over 620 pages of artwork and story. I do own Junji Ito’s Remina, but I have not read it yet. Reading something classified as horror manga was a new one for me and, overall, I enjoyed the experience. I think horror does work as a genre for manga format. I think Junji Ito has a decent understanding of horror/horrific. So, I am glad I read Uzumaki since it is probably his most famous work.  In any case, now I have a referent for all of the spiral-talk regarding this work.

The gruesome parts are very gruesome. I mean, even in black & white drawing the images and the situations depicted are often just beyond sanity. Really. I mean, if any of this was even remotely real, I do not think there would be anyone writing/drawing/reading anymore. Its kind of precisely what horror is about – pushing boundaries and “confronting” (as per Alan Baxter).

The most gruesome part, in my opinion, is Chapter 11 “The Umbilical Cord.”  There is so much gruesome, gory, horrific, awful in this chapter – honestly, it was a little difficult to read through and I did skim a little bit, because yikes. I cannot honestly say those are images I want to “eye-digest.”

For the first bunch of chapters the book reads as collected, related, but independent stories.  Like any good episodic television.  I really liked how the book started with serene frames/pages of the narrator/main character Kirie. I really like Kirie as a character. She was loyal, brave, but had that deadpan honesty that was a bit strange, too. I think, maybe, we could have been given a few more scenes and storyline regarding her and her boyfriend. We are just told Shuichi is her friend and then a few frames later he is asking her to leave their town – the town they grew up in. It seems sudden and kind of extreme at that time.  It takes a few chapters and I think then for the rest of the book I was lamenting the fact that Shuichi and Kirie did not leave town that very frame. Just pop home to grab a backpack and then leave. I mean it – every dang page afterwards:  aw, why didn’t they follow Shuichi’s suggestion?!

There are some good spiral segments – The Firing Effect, The Black Lighthouse – that show how the “spiral” presents in a variety of ways. It is not all snails and whirlwinds.  When, finally, the episodes start to carry over into other chapters, let’s say, that is when the reader sees the full effect all of these variations of spirals have on the town.

Chapter 6 – Medusa is somewhat light-hearted in a ridiculous high-schooler sort of way. Its probably the most amusing/ridiculous of the chapters. Granted, I mean, calling anything in this work “light-hearted” is very relative and strained.  Medusa touches on storylines about those competitive high-school girls for whom popularity is everything. By the way, Shuichi is the hero!

The problem is, and I am sure Kirie would agree, no matter how super, really, massively bizarre an event is the townspeople seem to be on a totally wrong level of reaction.  Oh look – that old man turned into a long coiled spiral-y thing. Huh. Weird.  Instead of:  what kinda diabolical, twisted, alien, Lovecraft, madness is dis stuff?! While I would expect the townspeople to be running, not walking, to their nearest exit, life just kind of goes on.  The chapter that highlights this the most, for me, is Chapter 8 – The Snail.  So, high school students turn into snails. Really large snails. And I guess everyone just puts them in a cage outside like its a normal snail farm. No, they should not have classes or continue doing homework or slipping notes to each other in class. Are you kidding me? Where is the reaction that is appropriate to the fact that your classmates are now in a fenced in area out back with the mud? Yeah, but did you finish your math homework? C’mon!

So, it is my opinion, that this is the “out” that Junji Ito gives readers. He is allowing us to say its all a dream. Its all just a horrific stupid nightmare. We can say this because just like in the best dreams, everyone just is not reacting in the way we deep down know that they should.

Anyway, from Chapter 16 to the end, the storyline is all connected and it details the final story arc of the whole book.  There are some mighty gross parts here, please do not think that the gruesome level has let up at all. For example, when the “creatures” in the row houses tell Kirie and friends that there is no room inside, but could they please dispose of the dead creatures – yikes. All of the frames in this section are just… mind-hurtingly gruesome. But it is horrific, for sure. Even if some of the gruesome is hidden from view or just given brief glances.

The ending was nothing for me. I did not care for it – I am not even sure it suited all the stories and mania that came before that. Finally, yes, I was still sad for Kirie and Shuichi – they should have left town. It was a sad moment when Kirie found her parents. (Also, whatever happened with her brother? I mean, he went down that mountainside and then, I guess, he’s off doing spiral things?)

I do not know the Japanese word that was used, but there is a line in the story that the town is contaminated with spirals. I like that phrasing in English – contaminated with spirals. Its not the same as overrun or overwhelmed or controlled by or any other word. Its contaminated – and it fits the story perfectly.

This is good for horror fans who enjoy different, varied takes on the genre. Its got some gruesome gory scenes for those persons who like (??) to collect such imagery. I am very glad I read this – it is a different read, sometimes shockingly horrific. I like that it is also a slow burn. I miss Kirie already – 600+ pages and I was content to run around the town and find spirals with her. This is not a book for children or people who are squeamish or non-horror fans.

4 stars