Horrific Imagery: Junji Ito and The Human Centipede

If you haven’t been under a rock lately, you may have heard about a terrible movie called The Human Centipede. The reason I bring this up on a (mostly) manga blog is that while I was initially interested in the film after only seeing the trailer, the horror of what exactly is happening to the victims therein sank in, and its focus on the way the “centipede” is connected ruined it.

Consider Junji Ito’s Gyo. The man can stick tubes in every orifice of a bloated, gaseous corpse, pop it on top of a pair of creepy mechanical spider legs and run it all over Japan and I’m disgusted, disturbed and unable to put it down. I’m disgusted and disturbed by the very idea of Human Centipede and have no desire to even be in the same theatre as it. Why?

Matsuri Akino Otaku Week: Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo

Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo (新ペットショップオブホーラズ; Shin (New) Pet Shop of Horrors) picks up a little after the first series with D opening a shop in a Neo Chinatown located in the less-than-reputable Kabukicho area. Sketchy characters, pets that aren’t always what they seem and enough sweets to kill a flock of hummingbirds…the only thing missing is Q-chan. And Leon. But it wouldn’t be a series without someone for D to torment and this time around it’s Woo-Fei Rau, the suspicious, power-hungry manager of the Neo Chinatown building.

Matsuri Akino Otaku Week: Genju no Seiza

Unlike the other series readily available domestically, Genju no Seiza (幻獣の星座; The Mythical Beast’s Constellation) is a a little of a departure for Akino-sensei because it is meant to be a single story with a beginning and end rather than the episodic nature of both Pet Shop and Kamen Tantei.

Matsuri Akino Otaku Week: Kamen Tantei

One of Matsuri Akino’s lesser-known manga in North America, Kamen Tantei (仮面探偵; The Masked Detective) centers around two high school students who are aspiring mystery authors. They enter a story into a publishing company’s contest and are thrilled when they win the grand prize, making their big debut in a mystery magazine. While trying to [...]

Matsuri Akino Otaku Week: Pet Shop of Horrors

Welcome to Matsuri Akino Otaku Week! I’m a huge fan of Akino-sensei’s work, so I’m going to take this opportunity to spend a week discussing her various series that have been licensed and translated. First up is one of my all-time favorite series and the one that got me addicted to Akino, Pet Shop of [...]