Gyo vol. 1
VIZ Media
Story & Art: Junji Ito
Reviewer: Bryce Holland

Ringu. Ju-on. Kairo. Audition.

I fucking love Japanese horror. The current masters of Japanese horror – names like Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Takashi Shimizu – have provided me some of the most thrilling film experiences of my life. But, for me, the real master of Japanese terror tales isn’t a filmmaker, but a writer and artist: comic book auteur Junji Ito. Ito first came to my attention when I read his horror masterwork Uzumaki, arguably one of the best pieces of horror fiction in any medium of the past few decades (If you haven’t read it yet, do yourself a favor and go pick up a copy ASAP). Describing Ito’s work is a bit of a task, because, honestly, I can’t think of anyone else crafting terror like he does. His works deal quite a bit with the kinds of “body horror” that marked so much of Cronenberg’s horror work, yet he also entrenches his narratives in that “fear of the unknown” found so often in the works of Lovecraft. His works are a melange of different kinds of terror that are always deeply unsettling, and Gyo is no exception.

Gyo begins with two young people, Tadashi and his girlfriend, Kaori, on vacation at his uncle’s summer home on the island of Okinawa. Their relationship is clearly on the rocks, as Tadashi has trouble dealing with Kaori’s many neuroses. Things come to a head when Kaori refuses to kiss Tadashi because she feels he is suffering from a terrible case of bad breath. Tadashi becomes annoyed with this because he brushes his teeth twice a day. Soon, the smell that Kaori assumes is Tadashi’s bad breath becomes worse and begins permeating the air all around them, and they are quickly faced with origin of the odor: a bizarre fish with mechanical legs that reeks of rotting human flesh. The couple kills the creature, but are soon confronted with a swarm of legged sea creatures that stink of decaying corpses (including a pants-shittingly-awesome legged shark), and are threatening all life on land. Tadashi and Kaori make their way back to their home in Tokyo, where find out the true origin of the fetid plague, and are faced with the horrifying realization that the putrid swarm has followed them.

The writing of Junji Ito is quite unique, as far as horror comics are concerned. Most of the popular horror comics on the shelves these days – titles like The Walking Dead or Crossed – tend to get a lot of mileage out of dialogue, which isn’t a bad thing by any stretch. It’s just refreshing when you find a book like Gyo that is able to ride on atmosphere and ambiance more than anything, and what an atmosphere it is. The book’s tagline is “The Death-Stench Creeps,” and a more apt tagline I can’t imagine. Throughout every page I was left with this creeping feeling that something terrible was lurking. Ito has a real ability to generate suspense, and he never lets the pace falter here.

Honestly, though, the real reason to pick up this book is for the amazing drawings contained within. Sure, Ito’s characters have that requisite Manga/Anime look to them, complete with big eyes and gaping mouths, but his attention to detail is amazing. The fish and squids and other myriad sea creatures he conjures seem to leap off the page, and his muted, cross-hatched backgrounds and textures just make every panel come to life. What’s even more amazing, though, is his ability to make even the most mundane aquatic animal seem horrifying just through the attachment of some bio-mechanical legs to their underside. Then there’s the death scenes. There really aren’t as many here as in his previous works (of course, I haven’t gotten a chance to check out the second volume), but suffice to say that the man knows how to render some truly cringe-worthy carcasses.

Like I said before, Junji Ito is a true master of horror. The man’s prose has a way of luring you in and not letting you go. In a time when people are consistently complaining about a lack of originality in modern horror, Ito is consistently creating unique horror stories that keep one engrossed from beginning to end. One would think that it would be all but impossible for Ito to create something that even remotely lived up to his previous efforts like the aforementioned Uzumaki, or even his first masterpiece, Tomie, but Gyo quite ably lives up to their legacy without feeling like a retread.