junji ito: the takeover of my halloween

I'm a bit of a horror connoisseur, I'd like to believe. I've consumed every horror streaming platforms have to offer and delved headfirst into the original novels each of my favourite movies were based upon (which is mainly Stephen King, and though I love his movies and I believe he has good ideas, the way he weaves thick tones of sexism into every word he writes makes me feel like each sentence is puffing heavy smoke into my brain, tainting it with unnecessary grossness. It makes me feel icky to see into the way gross men's minds work when they see women, reading three, maybe up to seven-hundred words at a time convoluting my brain is quite the task). But, anyway, I've recently discovered a creative genius in the horror genre that I'm pretty sure a million people were already very aware of before this, but it's new to me and so I'm freaking out a little.

A couple of days ago, I was looking for a scary anime to procrastinate my work for, and also tame the urge to consume anything to do with horror while spooky season still has an active grip on me. I say that like the urge ever leaves (it doesn't), but the community that becomes involved with horror only around Halloween ignites the flame of excitement for me. I think it has something to do with Sainsbury's horror aisle.

I stumbled upon the Junji Ito Collection. Now, I've known about the existence of this collection from the many Tomie references I've seen on social media. But, I never really got around to it. What a mistake. The show is incredible. This author knows their way around the human psyche better than any horror director or author I have ever discovered before. As someone who hasn't been scared or disturbed by any horror since The Conjuring when I was thirteen, this show made my insides crawl. A combination of a deep understanding of the irks and irrational fears that most humans share, and a unique art style that's simultaneously characteristic of anime we know and love, whilst also delving into simple, yet highly disturbing imagery. There's something wrong that I just can't put my finger on, and I think this is part of the reason so many people have fallen in love with the manga and anime alike.

One particular story from the anime is, I believe, a prime example of using simple disturbances to create a unique, yet simple narrative that plays on the existentialism we share as humans, and that is The Long Dream. This story features a young woman who is absolutely terrified of death and claims she keeps seeing him, reach out, trying to get her. It's shown that, actually, who she is mistaking as Death is a patient from another ward. This patient, Mukoda, was admitted not long ago with what he referred to as 'long dreams'. Every night, his dreams seem to be getting longer in duration. Despite the fact he's sleeping for the same length of time in reality, the dreams his mind creates are forcing him to live in nightmares for what feels like months. The doctors are trying their best to find the source of his issue, but with very limited time considering the leap his dreams are taking from months to years, it's almost impossible work. Every time we return to see Mukoda after a couple of days, we can see the way his body is deteriorating is response to how long his brain feels it has been alive. Close to the end, his body has melted into the bed and his face has mutated as he tells the doctors that his most recent dream was hundreds of years long - it takes a while for him to realise he's now in 'reality', because his reality is so short compared to the alternative. Eventually, he doesn't wake up and crumbles into dust, leaving behind red crystals. Presumably, it's because his dream has become eternal. It's discovered that the red crystals he left behind were the cause of his long dreams. The most disturbing part of this was not the man who slowly deteriorated into something awful, and something wrong. It was when the young girl who was so afraid of death begins to comment on the strange length of her own dreams. Her doctor found the ultimate solution to her fear of death; eternal dreams.

This short story is so effective because it plays with aspects that our brains don't see as natural. I'm not talking about objects or anything non-human, I'm taking about variations of the Uncanny Valley, the way the our brains are programmed to feel disturbed by anything that only seems to appear like a human. The same effect is created through humanoid androids and such. We see the way Mukoda slowly deteriorates from human to something only resembling one, the disturbing art style only exacerbating its effect. It also plays on the existentialism that rules our lives - what comes after death? What if what is beyond is the stuff of nightmares, somewhere we can never escape? Mukoda never found the cure to his awful dreams and was consumed by a terrifying world in an eternal slumber - this concept is so disturbing because it unlocks the part of our brains that are petrified of the inevitable unknown - the one that we'll eventually spend the rest of our eternity knowing. We have no way in the living realm to comprehend what could come next, and this leaves a lot of room to pick on human fear. It's a really disturbing watch, but one that draws you back in for the same reason (that being that humans enjoy dwelling on our fears in a useless attempt to mitigate the inevitable), and it was probably one of the most interesting animes I've ever watched.

So, to anyone obsessed with the unnatural and horror like myself, I'd highly recommend giving this show a watch. I can't say much about the manga collections (yet.), but I'm definitely going to let Junji Ito's works invade my whole life and psyche until I run out of content. To the day I finish and the insane amount of money I will spend on manga in the coming months!

< 89% baked >