J-Horror Reading Collections ~ Reading Response Stuff

So for this week I revisited some of the Junji Ito stories that I used to read in the past, as well as re-reading some of the Fuan no Tane collection again. As much as horror scares the shit out of me, I do enjoy these visual novels a lot.

So, for starters, I went back and re-read The Enigma of Amigara Fault, which at this point is a well known 'classic' amongst most people who have even been on the internet in general, due to its strange nature in the manga. It's your bog-standard style of manga, and looks harmless enough from the outside. The plot is pretty simple, stating that a large fault has created this huge rift that exposed a giant mountain filled with human shaped holes.

From there, the horror aspect comes from the fact that people are coming from all over the world to go into these holes, as they believe they were 'made for them'. The main character ends up going into them at one point, slowly contorting into a strange, deformed monster that is seen through the smaller version of the holes on the other side of the fault.

What makes this scary, for me at least, is the visual effect of the distorted humans that you see at the end, because they're still just human enough to be seen as people, but still morphed in horrible ways. The use of onomonopea is also very good in this manga, with the unsettling 'drr drr drr' made by the 'humans' as they approach the end of the tunnel in Amigara Fault.

Most of Junji Ito's works are like this, which makes them pretty good for people who can be easily spooked by horror mangas, because at least his look really pretty, even with the gore or deformations.

Fuan no Tane is the same way with Junji's horror stories, but to me rely much more on the visual horror as well as unsettling nature of the way the characters or horror things in the series look. It's a collection of small horror manga's that are usually only a few pages long, and don't really have a huge, cohesive relation to each other. The short size of them make them really easy to binge on, despite how scary they can be because of their visual horror. Most of the visual horror includes huge, deformed, shine-less eyes that stare without a reason, and large smiling mouths that don't really have any teeth but are nonetheless unsettling.

The short-story horror mangas also tend to focus more on some serious topics like suicide, murders, etc, while Junji Ito's tend to be more of the fantasy-horror route. It's got its own fair share of weird horror, but not in the way where it's the typical western way of being very exaggerated and over the top.

Here's a link to read Fuan no Tane also!
https://mangarock.com/manga/mrs-serie-100084031/chapter/mrs-chapter-100084043

Interview With the Vampire ~ Reading Response

An interesting read, for sure. I hadn't previously read or seen anything really for this title or what it enclosed, other than the vague memory of Tom Cruise playing some blonde vampire in some random movie that I wasn't too interested in seeing. I think I had also confused it with another vampire movie, that was incredibly funny and involved 'The Office' style of filming and content.

While reading this book, I had a weird sense of joy in seeing vampires act a little more abnormal than the typical faire of vampires, and the ability to poison them with absinthe was especially interesting to me, given the properties of absinthe on just regular people as well. The different moral politics between Louis and Lestat were also very interesting, as Lestat mostly just read to me as sort of a brat given immortality, but at least he was having fun with it. Louis was considerably more whiny to me, but I suppose he had good reason.

The development of Claudia as she got 'older' was also very interesting, and it was a little terrifying the way she would attack and kill people, and the way she handled Lestat was especially scary for what was essentially a little girl. Towards the end of her life span, I actually got Baby Doll (the batman villain) vibes from her. It was slightly sad to see her killed in such a grisly manner, especially with Madeline near her. Also, reading all of the ways Louis sort of seperate himself from everyone he could be close to due to his griefs with the death of Claudia, was really interesting. Especially since at the end of his story, he seemed to think himself a pariah of being a vampire; some sort of miserable existence that can only be unhappy.

Either way, the weird 'family discourse' sort of vibe that the book gave was really fun, and I was happy to read this! Definitely a really good read, and I might give the actual movie a watch too, though I can't imagine it's as interesting as the book was.

Frankenstein ~ Reading Response

Heehoo.

I'm writing about Frankenstein, because this is honestly the first time I've ever read this book! I'd heard about Frankenstein for many years, and seen the various iterations that have been in media for many, many years. So, when reading this, I had a general gist of what the story was going to be about!

WRONG!! I only really knew the fact of Frankenstein creating the monster, but everything else I had assumed about the book and story was completely wrong! One of the first things being of course the fact there wasn't a flaming, pick-wielding angry mob that lights a weird stone lighthouse on fire in order to kill the monster at the end.

So, going into the gothic elements..

I would say one of the gothic elements is the damsel, or oppressed female character, which is Elizabeth, and even Justine to some extent. Elizabeth and Justine are both prone to being overtaken by their emotions, and swooning/fainting in response to things like the sight of the Monster. It's overdone and expected, but that's what it is.

Also, the moral dilemma with Frankenstein and refusing the monster, is in a way 'saving' the world without the expectation of a reward, though it's a little strange with Frankenstein's reasoning for it.

Overall, I had such a good experience reading this novel for the first time, and I really really enjoyed it. I felt really bad for the monster, and sort of wished he wasn't as evil as the circumstances made him be.