Halloween – Contemporary Japanese Literature

Junji Ito’s 2014 collection Fragments of Horror presents eight short manga stories about ghostly and demonic women and their hapless victims.

In classic Junji Ito style, the plots are fantastic bordering on ridiculous, and the stories are enhanced by marvelously creative and grotesque imagery. You wouldn’t want any of these cautionary tales to happen to you, but it’s great fun to watch them happen to someone else.

Ito writes in his “Afterword” that Fragments of Horror is the first short story collection he’d published since 2006. He also writes that his editor was taken aback by the opening story, “Futon,” in which a young man stays in bed for so long that his blankets become a substrate for mushrooms with hallucinogenic effects. This story is only eight pages long, but it’s filled with vivid imagery, from the fungus-filled blanket being peeled off the man to the pandemonium of hellish creatures he hallucinates. Ito’s editor may have wondered if he’d lost his touch for horror, but “Futon” is a marvelous introduction to the collection.

The story that will probably linger in the minds of most readers (whether they want it to or not) is “Tomio – Red Turtleneck,” which is filled with exquisitely unpleasant body horror. I was amazed by the places this story goes. The opening scenario, which involves a young man named Tomio who only manages to stay alive by holding his decapitated head onto his neck, is bizarre enough; but, at the end of the story, a woman’s corpse rapidly decays on the carpet of Tomio’s girlfriend’s apartment as the ghosts of dead babies smile from the sidelines. Perhaps the most outlandish thing about this story, though, is how goofy it is. I could almost feel the grin on the artist’s face as he drew “Tomio,” which is camp horror at its silliest.

My favorite story, “Gentle Goodbye,” breaks from Ito’s signature campy tone to weave a more subtle and elegiac tale of a haunted household. After Riko marries into “the pedigreed Tokura family,” she notices something strange about their sprawling manor. Namely, there are ghosts about. These shadowy members of the household are mostly ignored, but they’re still treated respectfully. When Riko finally notices that these quiet presences aren’t just distant relatives but actual ghosts, her new husband tells her about a ritual that creates “afterimages” of family members who have died. So that she’s able to understand, he even invites her to participate in one of these rituals herself.

The afterimages created by the family are justified as a means of dealing with grief, but are they really that healthy, psychologically speaking? Or is it perhaps better just to let go?

“Gentle Goodbye” has a number of twists that it would be a shame to spoil, but I think it’s worth commenting on the story’s subtle social commentary. Riko loves her husband; and, though she’s a (relatively) strong and independent modern woman, she considers it an honor to marry into his family. At the same time, living in another family’s house while occupying a subordinate position isn’t an ideal situation, and there’s more than a touch of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca in Riko’s story. Who’s to say that Riko isn’t a type of ghost herself?

I’m also a fan of “Whispering Woman,” in which a wealthy widower hires a caretaker for his teenage daughter, Mayumi. Mayumi suffers from anxiety and decision paralysis, and her father has determined that she would benefit from a companion to help guide her through the day. Due to the level of time and attention required, most of Mayumi’s caretakers quit after a few sessions.

The young and beautiful Mitsu is different, however. Mitsu seems to be content to live vicariously through Mayumi, who appears to be recovering under her care and attention. Still, given that Mitsu’s private life is anything but healthy, it’s possible that she may have an ulterior motive in issuing quiet suggestions to her impressionable charge.

“Whispering Woman” is 24 pages long, but this story is a journey that manages to cover a lot of narrative ground and character development. It’s difficult to discuss such a short story without spoiling the ending, so let me just say: good for her. Good for both of them, honestly. I wouldn’t want to encounter any of the demonic women drawn by Junji Ito, but I’m delighted to cheer them on from afar.

I’ve always been somewhat lukewarm on Ito’s graphic novels, but I love his short story collections. Fragments of Horror is probably my favorite, from the ridiculous (and ridiculously entertaining) body horror of “Tomio – Red Turtleneck” all the way to the haunting gothic drama of “Gentle Goodbye.” Every story in Fragments of Horror is a banger, and this is the book I’d most strongly recommend to anyone looking for an introduction to the artist’s work. If you’re a fan of spectacular horror art and devilishly campy humor, then this hole was made for you.

Title: Now You’re One of Us
Japanese Title: 暗鬼 (Anki)
Author: Nonami Asa (乃南アサ)
Translators: Michael Volek and Mitsuko Volek
Publication Year: 2007 (America); 1993 (Japan)
Publisher: Vertical
Pages: 239

A few months ago, 26-year-old Noriko married into the Shito family, who operate a grocery and rice trading business in the Koganei suburb of Tokyo. Noriko’s husband Kazuhito, whom she became acquainted with through the auspices of a matchmaker, is handsome and loving, and his mother Kimie wants nothing more than for Noriko to be happy. The Shito house is large and surrounded by gardens, and the extended family of eight people all lives there comfortably. Noriko’s new life seems almost too good to be true.

It turns out that this perfect family is indeed too good to be true. The first indication that something is amiss appears three months into Noriko’s marriage, when one of the Shito family’s tenants tries to warn her about something but is immediately silenced by Kimie. When this man is killed in a mysterious explosion a week later, the Shito family denies any knowledge of the incident and sends Noriko to the funeral by herself.

Although she tries to suppress her gut instincts, Noriko finds herself bothered by the uncanniness of the Shito family. Everyone is too kind and too friendly, which renders it even more perturbing that the family never receives visitors or attends community events. In addition, the Shitos seem to have far too much money coming in from the family business, the Ichifuji Rice Mill, which primarily operates as a general store. Noriko isn’t allowed into certain areas of the manor, including the greenhouse, and she suspects that the family is meeting together late at night while she’s sleeping.

Noriko has no evidence to support her suspicions, however, and she’s hesitant to leave the comfortable household in the upscale suburb of Tokyo and return to her family in rural Yamanashi prefecture. After all, Noriko is well aware of just how lucky she is to have been given the opportunity to enter into such an advantageous marriage. When she meets her high school friend Tomomi in the city and hints at her concerns regarding the Shito family, Tomomi is thoroughly creeped out, but Noriko chalks up her friend’s response to jealousy.

Nevertheless, Noriko can’t shake her feeling that something is wrong with the Shito family. When she eventually confronts her husband Kazuhito, things become very strange very quickly, and the story shifts from a mystery centered around the death of the tenant to a terrifying account of gaslighting, a form of mental manipulation in which someone’s perception of reality is repeatedly denied while what they know to be true is replaced by false information. The members of the Shito family work together as a collective to destroy Noriko’s sense of identity, alternating between befuddlement that her memories do not align with theirs and outright bullying and abuse. By the end of the book, Noriko’s “pride was tattered, and all of her values smashed to bits. Everything – her confidence and will, and her reasons for being who she was – had vanished like dust into a breeze” (215).

Generally speaking, the accusation that a person not in a position of power has deliberately fabricated falsehoods serves to silence voices that offer contradictory evidence against a normative position, and it’s easy to read Noriko’s trials as an allegory of how the social institution of marriage is almost cult-like in the control it exerts over young women’s psyches and sense of self-worth. Moreover, the Suburban Gothic of the Shito family intersects with the repressed trauma of the Pacific War, and the bizarre history of the clan is braided into the strands of Japan’s history as a national polity.

Now You’re One of Us is a truly disturbing piece of feminist horror. The novel is also genuinely compelling, and it’s almost impossible for me to put down once I start reading, no matter how many times I return to it. Nonami Asa has been hailed as one of contemporary Japan’s finest writers of mystery and horror, and Now You’re One of Us showcases the author at the top of her game. By the time the reader understands what it means to be “one of us,” it’s too late to turn away, and the experience of surviving this book will stay with you long after its bone-chilling ending.