| Title | : | Shiver: Selected Stories |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1421596938 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781421596938 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 400 |
| Publication | : | First published October 7, 2015 |
| Awards | : | Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia (2018) |
This volume includes nine of Junji Ito’s best short stories, as selected by the author himself and presented with accompanying notes and commentary. An arm peppered with tiny holes dangles from a sick girl’s window… After an idol hangs herself, balloons bearing faces appear in the sky, some even featuring your own face… An amateur film crew hires an extremely individualistic fashion model and faces a real bloody ending… An offering of nine fresh nightmares for the delight of horror fans.
1. Used Record or Second-Hand Record (from House of the Marionettes, あやつりの屋敷 Ayatsuri no Yashiki), a story about people fighting over the ownership of a record that has a singer's singing as they died recorded on it.
2. Shiver (from Slug Girl, なめくじの少女 Namekuji no Shoujo), a story about a cursed jade stone that causes holes to open up all over a person's body if they're around it.
3. Fashion Model (from Souichi's Diary of Curses, 双一の呪い日記, Sōichi no Noroi no Nikki), a story about an oddly ominous fashion model.
4. Hanging Balloons (from The Face Burglar, 顔泥棒 Kao Dorobou), a story about balloon headed dopplegangers out to hunt their counterparts the moment they go outside.
5. Marionette Mansion (from House of the Marionettes, あやつりの屋敷 Ayatsuri no Yashiki), a story about a family who rather than deciding what they do or how they live, they instead hire puppeteers to control their actions via strings from the attic of their home.
6. Painter (from Tomie), a story about a strange but beautiful woman named Tomie who wishes for an artist to accurately capture her beauty, and all the misfortune that happens as a result...
7. The Long Dream (from The Story of the Mysterious Tunnel,トンネル奇譚 Ton'neru kitan), a story about a man who claims that the length of his dreams are becoming longer and longer and about how he begins to change as his dreams extend farther and farther.
8. Honored Ancestors (from The Face Burglar, 顔泥棒 Kao Dorobou), a story about an amnesiac girl and the encounter that caused her to lose her memories and about carrying on the family line. At all costs.
9. Greased (from Voices in the Dark, 闇の声 Yami no Koe, a story about oil and grease.
10. Fashion Model: Cursed Frame [new]
Shiver: Selected Stories Reviews
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I keep coming back to you . BACK TO YOU!!
Ohhh yess , I promised myself that I will read a lot of JUNJI Ito books in 2021 , and here's the first part of that promise. I am all set to get disgusted and horrified again. AGAIN.
1. Used Record or Second-Hand Record あやつりの屋敷 - ★★★
What happens when people get attached to a second hand record and start taking each other's lives? The concept was actually good but I didn't found the story to be impact , like i am most likely to forget it in a month or two.
The blurb of the story at the end was more scary then the entire premises, if you see Junji Ito somewhere observing you, run away because you might be the concept of his next story.
2. Shiver なめくじの少女 - ★★★★
WTH WTH WTH WTH ?? What if humans start respiring through spicules like insects?
I am disgusted for life , will never be able to see insects w/o thinking about this story. And that art omg , I am falling in love with his art over and over again.
3. Fashion Model 双一の呪い日記 - ★★★
What happens when a fashion model(creepy looks and disgusting smile??) starts following amature filmmakers? This was obvious and creepy.
4. Hanging Balloons 顔泥棒 - ★★★★★
Imagine your balloon headed doppelgangers hunting you the moment you step out of your house? i cant imagine , i am already shit scared. The concept was exceptional. Again i cant with this man , his brain is just wired differently then rest of us.
5. Marionette Mansion あやつりの屋敷 - ★★★★
Bored and tired of doing things , why not hire people to control your actions like puppets ? until you no longer can control yourself. This particular story was so intriguing and interesting , like I mean how come JT think like this? I gotta meet this man.
6.Painter -★★★★
a story about a strange but beautiful woman named Tomie who wishes for an artist to accurately capture her beauty, and all the misfortune that happens as a result. This is the first chapter from the book TOMIE , which i am yet to read but after reading this , i am even more excited , and wth was the drawing at the end. MASTERPIECE!
7.The Long Dream トンネル奇譚 - ★★★★★
Imagine every time you dream your dreams keep getting longer and a stage is reached when your dream become eternal ? BYEE , I am going what is this thinking? My personal fav till now!
8. Honored Ancestors 顔泥棒 ★★★★★
Imagine wearing heads to your ancestors to preserve memories of your lineage. AN UTTER PERFECTION.
9. Greased 闇の声 ★★★★
The after note wass more scary.
10. Fashion Model ★★
a bonus story -
Me and my fear of dolls were chilling until Junji Ito created a short story about goddamn cooking oil that made my skin crawl. This man can do anything.
The king of horror manga is at it again.
Scratch that: I’m at it again, catching up on his work.
This collection was just- weird and gross and unique in the best ways. Everything I’ve come to expect from Ito and his mangas. The variety in the types horror he presents -especially in his short story collections- is fantastic.
If you’ve got trypophobia, be weary because this book will make you uncomfy. Funny enough, I’m afraid of dolls, and there was a puppet story in here that played perfectly into my fears. I loved it nonetheless!
There's something about Junji Ito's art style that conveys horror unlike anyone else. He's one of my favourite manga authors for sure; this collection was awesome! -
A collection of short stories which have no logic except dream logic (i.e. no logic) but a whole lot of eidetic disgusting body horror and very crazy zoned-out dialogue – I will give you a flavour
This isn’t a caterpillar – it’s an assembly of the skulls of my ancestors.
That wasn’t a human face. That was the face of someone who lives beyond the black darkness!
Several thousand years ago, we met in her hospital room and our love blossomed!
In these stories giant faces of real people appear in the sky with nooses dangling from them, and they then try to find and hang the person whose face they have. Or people get a disease where you get holes all over.
Or people drip their pimples over their next of kin
The pimples on my face multiplied almost before my eyes
To a large extent this is easy stuff – we can all come up with strange or horrible ideas from dreams - I dreamed I was the last chocolate in a box and a huge hand was trying to find me and eat me; I dreamed when I went into a department store in town all the store assistants started unzipping their clothing to reveal a smaller store assistant inside; but Junji Ito’s artwork makes it nearly worthwhile ploughing through the daftness.
Got to admit that the unflinching focus on schoolgirl or teenage girl protagonists seemed very pervy, eventually (but he does draw them beautifully!)
Anyway, my advice is, if you see this guy on the street
run away fast. He’s freaking weird. -
Shiver is a collection of short horror stories that really highlight why Junji Ito is considered to be a master of the horror genre.
The stories featured are:
- Used Record
- Shiver
- Fashion Model
- Hanging Blimp
- Marionette Mansion
- Painter
- The Long Dream
- Honored Ancestors
- Greased
- Fashion Model: Cursed Frame (a previously unpublished new story)
Fashion Model was a standout to me, the monster of the tale being absolutely horrifying to look at. The art style here is terrific, Ito at his best! Really glad there was a bonus story featuring the “model” Fuchi.
Shiver made me question if I suffer with trypophobia…! 😖
Painter is another highlight, which feature’s one of Ito’s best and most well-loved characters/creations, Tomie. (I need to work out how to imbed pictures onto my reviews!)
There is also an author’s notes at the end of each story, explaining abit about the creative process and thought behind each of them. Also, there is some concept art sketches. I liked this further insight into how these horrifying tales came to be.
This is the second Junji Ito story collection I have read and it’s definitely my favourite so far ! There are some iconic body horror moments here. Can’t wait to read more of his stories in the future. -
A cursed record that dooms its listeners. A mysterious jade carving that bestows a horrific disease on those who possess it. A monstrous fashion model. Ghostly blimps of the dead. A crazed puppeteer who turns his family into marionettes. A muse that drives painters mad. A man whose dreams distort time and, eventually, his body. A man determined to carry on his family’s lineage, no matter what. And a nightmarishly greasy house and the poor family the grease envelopes.
Shiver is one of Junji Ito’s better horror manga collections. Some of his stories are a bit weak, containing only a striking image or idea and a lot of fluff around it, but some are quite brilliant and unique. Ito’s stories are nothing if not original, though often they’re too absurd or silly, undercutting the horror with unintentionally amusing over-the-top moments.
Ito’s art is first rate and nowhere else is the body horror aspect to his stories more effective than the ones in this collection. Like the holes in people’s bodies in Shiver, the bizarre ways Mukoda morphs in The Long Dream, the heads upon heads in Honored Family, and the gross-out scene in Greased Oil where the brother squeezes the zits on his face, pouring oil onto his tormented sister’s face. The character design of Fuchi in Fashion Model is also genuinely disturbing. This book has some really haunting and unnerving imagery that’ll stick with you - excellent stuff for a horror comic to have.
The stories, though simplistic, are mostly quite entertaining too - Used Record, Shiver, Fashion Model, and Greased Oil were my favourites. I didn’t think Honored Ancestors or Fashion Model: Cursed Frame were very good and Painter is quite forgettable too.
The others had elements I liked in fairly average stories. Hanging Blimp, Marionette Mansion and The Long Dream are the unique stories I mentioned earlier - nobody else could come up with killer ghostly blimps that try to hang you while wearing a giant mask of your head! And Marionette Mansion is insanely goofy in concept, while The Long Dream is pure weirdness. And yet, as inventive as they are, they’re less scary because they’re so strange, verging on the comedic. I won’t go into details in case anyone’s worried about spoilers so I’ll just say that some of the imagery in these three stories just made me laugh.
Also included are brief commentary pieces for each story, along with notes and sketches. They add a little something to each as Ito illuminates how each story was conceived and I thought it was really interesting to see how he outlines his stories.
While my reaction to this collection was mixed, I have to admire the creativity here and Ito’s skill as an artist remains impressive to say the least. If you’re a Junji Ito fan, you’ll read Shiver anyway, but for anyone who’s interested in the author, I suggest starting with Shiver (or Frankenstein, or Lovesickness) as one of the better collections of his distinctive brand of horror manga. -
Shiver is a collection of horror manga by the mang-ka Ito (Uzumaki, Tomie), an elegantly curated collection of 9 his best short stories, illustrating a range of his work. Includes short reflections on the origins of each piece, and a page of early drafting of ideas and sketches that informed each piece, too.
The stories are comics horror, so you get to see it, not just read about it, obviously. So let's say you like Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination, a creative witch’s brew of scares? Well, Ito is in Poe's club, and maybe Lovecraft's (because of the monsters and weird creatures, mainly). Ito gives us stories culled from over thirty years of work, all emanating from strange images and dreams that evolved into stories. Some images/stories are gross, some are disturbing, as is appropriate to the genre, but many of them give you what the title promises: Shivers. Includes “Marionette Mansion," about stories of nightmare marionettes, “Painter,” about a painter who is driven insane painting Tomie, a beautiful femme fatale (wait: is that redundant? Is it possible to have an unattractive femme fatale leading men to destruction?) that became a focus of Ito for many years, collected in separate volumes; “Grease” features a family that is made greasy through compulsive drinking of salad oil (I know, yuk! That was the grossest one for me).
But Shivers focuses mainly on people, like you and me, who are driven insane by obsessive-compulsive urges or images, to the point of catatonia. -
“A story about balloon headed dopplegangers out to hunt their counterparts the moment they go outside.” 😀 consider me unsettled.
I’ve recently fallen down the Junji Ito rabbit hole and despite horror not being my cup of tea, I cannot look away. Some stories here were much stronger than others, my favorite being Hanging Blimp and The Long Dream. The author commentary after each story was super interesting in seeing how Junji Ito finds and grows his concepts. -
I LOVED THIS SOOOOO MUCH
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This collection was unbelievable. Favourite Junji Ito so far!
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Estas historias me provocaron repulsión, sorpresa e incomodidad, por eso le doy 5 estrellas por todas las cosas que me hizo sentir.
Definitivamente me estaba perdiendo de algo muy original y extraño, ¡qué ganas de leer más cosas escritas por Junji Ito! -
this was disgusting.
loved it <3 -
loved (?) every minute of this
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As a big fan of anything creepy and strange, I really enjoyed Junji Ito’s Shiver. Shiver is a collection of 9 short stories that the author personally selected, as well as a new story that was previously unpublished (I enjoyed all the stories, though my favorite was Marionette Mansion). As a fan and collector of his manga such as Tomie, Uzumanki and Gyo-I highly recommend Shiver to horror/manga fans.
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Few horror cartoonists—if any—elicit the shudders that I feel when I read a tale by Junji Ito of Japan. The current widespread availability of his work in the United States shows an increasing interest here, and it’s not hard to fathom why this is so. My favorite stories by this mangaka are his short, standalone tales. His drawings are fairly realistic with simple clean character designs, but when he adds texture or renders a “shock panel,” his art gets significantly darker, more detailed, and quite vivid.
The Ito collection entitled Shiver is my favorite of what I’ve read so far, though Fragments of Horror has some gems in it as well. In the former, Ito contrives a series of interesting weird fiction scenarios that grow more unsettling as the stories progress, and his splash panels leap off of the page and are truly unsettling. These are not “fun” images of zombies munching on a victim or some vampire’s sanguinary sucking, but genuinely disturbing nightmares that put a bad smell in the air that hangs between the tip of your nose and the open book.
I have read (and watched and written and filmed) a lot of repellant stuff, but the acne-centric story ‘Greased’ is a truly repulsive wonder, as are the revelations in the story “Shiver.” In addition to these and other repugnant morsels, nonsensical but engrossing nightmares that seem stolen straight from Ito’s id are explored in ‘Hanging Blimps,’ and the premise of ‘Marionette Mansion’ is a very bizarre original about a family that chooses to give control of their limbs over to unseen controllers in the crawlspace above. Clever premises, engaging mysteries, malodorous shock panels, and nightmare wanderings combine in the uniquely unsettling and uncommonly vivid work of Junji Ito, which I highly recommend to horror fans. -
Shiver is a collection of ten short horror tales by Junji Ito.
Horror manga is quickly becoming one of my favorite things so I was eager to dive into this one. Each of the tales in Shiver is unsettling in its own way. Body horror and a general sense of unease are the order of the day.
While I enjoy most comics and manga I read, few of them produce an emotional response. I wouldn't say I felt nauseous after reading these but there was definitely an uneasiness, a sense of revulsion. I stayed the course and enjoyed the parade of the grotesque Junji Ito marched before me. He's a master, no doubt about it.
Shiver is revolting in the best way possible. Five out of five stars. -
Junji Ito never ceases to mystify and horrify me at the exact same time. Another great read, and one that will leave me sleepless tonight.
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Fantastic, my favorite Ito so far. So gruesome, so disturbing the stuff that nightmares are made of. Favorite story definitely is Hanging Blimp (once having a nightmare similar to this, that still resonates years later). Standouts include Painter ( a Tomie story) and Marionette Mansion. From the stunningly grotesque imagery to the masterful storytelling this is a must for any fan of horror.
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4.75 ⭐️
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An excellent selection of horror manga, Junji Ito's Shiver collects stories that will be new to those who have already read the astounding
Uzumaki, the bonkers
Gyo, the impish
Dissolving Classroom, the affectionate
Cat Diary: Yon & Mu and the eclectic
Fragments of Horror. Those who have read Ito's exhaustive exploration of gender politics,
Tomie, will remember the story re-printed here, which features that titular and ever -resurrecting femme fatale tormenting a painter, a photographer and a sculptor, after each one fails to capture her beauty with their respective mediums. The remaining stories will be an embarrassment of grotesque riches for fans and new readers alike: A vinyl record of a posthumous scat performance by a dead warbler drives record-store regulars and jazz bar drunks to murder! The sky is suddenly populated with floating heads the size of hot air balloons, each one dangling a noose destined for the neck of the citizen below whose faces matches their new airborne overlord! The existential horror of experiencing an eternity during one night's sleep! A woman awakes to discover she has amnesia, an overbearing boyfriend and a prospective father-in law that skitters across the floor like a centipede! A wealthy puppeteer uses his fortune to pay servants to live in the ceiling and control all of his and his family's movements with strings. Production for an indie film goes south when a sharklike fashion model is casted! Living above a poorly ventilated grease-trap diner turns into an oozing scatological nightmare for a dysfunctional family! I wish there were even more stories for me to tease with exclamatory sentences! Junji Ito is the greatest living horror writer/artist, period. -
4.0 Stars
Junji Ito is the master of creating some of the most weird and disturbing imagery in graphic novel horror. Drawn in the classic manga style, all the artwork in this collection was done in black and white, which fit the tone of the stories well. There were so many memorable panels that will undoubtedly stick in my brain. I particularly loved the incorporation of so much body horror in the stories.
Like in every collection, I enjoyed some stories more than others. Some of my favourites in this collection include Painter, Greased Oil, & the bonus story, Fashion Model: Cursed Frame. I did not love this one quite as much as spiral horror manga, Uzumaki, but I am still very excited to read more by this talented author. -
10/9/20
Read this a while back, just as everything Ito makes, it was really good!
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The Storygraph -
I’ll admit it. I intentionally slowed my progress through this book. After each story, I would put it down and read something else for a while. I wanted time to let Ito’s imagery linger, and not just rush headlong into the next story.
Shiver is a collection of short stories by legendary horror manga-ka, Junji Ito. He’s a master of pacing, with a visual imagination that is just indescribable. I would cheerfully put him up against legends like Graham Ingels or Bernie Wrightson--even Basil Wolverton, though he's known more for the grotesque than outright horror--any day.
I also love how we get Ito’s own commentary after each story, along with notes and preliminary sketches. Seeing some of the groundwork helps me to appreciate these stories all the more.
And Ito is about ideas at least as much as he is visuals. Take the opening story, “Used Record,” for instance. There's really no strong visual inherent in the concept, but the story works beautifully nonetheless.
Shivers is a fine collection from an exceptional creator. Highly recommended! -
4.5 stars. Pure nightmare fuel. Beautiful.
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Una recopilación brutal. Me han gustado absolutamente todos y cada uno de las historias, eso si que hay una (la del aceite) que woow!! me ha dejado completamente asqueada.
La gran mayoría ya las había leído, pero son muy buenas y sin duda este tomo vale la pena adquirirlo, una variedad excelente que deja en a la vista la maestría y originalidad perturbadora del mangaka.
Las historias que contiene son:
- Disco de segunda mano
- Frío
- La modelo
- Los globos de la horca
- La mansión de los títeres
- Pintor
- Largo sueño
- Honorables ancestros
- Greased
Extra:
- Fashion model: Cursed Frame
El tomo lo leí en inglés, por lo que no se si todas las traducciones son así, las dos ultimas las puse en inglés no más.
En general es una excelente recopilación, ninguna historia decae, hay algunas muy buenas y otras que simplemente son excelentes, así que me ha fascinado, el arte aquí me ha impactado, siempre junji ito consigue asombrar, pero aquí es un 10/10, la historia y el arte están impactantes. Lo mega recomiendo. -
This manga is the first one I ever read and holy cow did I ever pick a good one because it is truly a masterpiece. There’s just no other way to describe it! It’s big and chunky and filled to the brim with awesomeness. The artwork is absolutely out of this world, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such beautiful illustrations! They are beyond stunning and incredibly creepy and a true work of art. The stories were the true star here though, they truly blew my mind. Each one was creepier and more terrifying than the last and I blew through all of them in one sitting because I just couldn’t stop feasting my eyes and brain on this collection. I think it��s safe to say that I’ll be buying everything Ito has put out, I’m officially a HUGE fan!
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The thing about Junji Ito’s manga, I always have to stop myself from devouring the full book in one sitting so that I can enjoy the stories and illustrations in their full glory. The fact that Hanging Blimps was borne out of a childhood dream, tells us a lot about what goes on in his mind…
Overall, Ito’s stories are so compelling, with amazing artwork and I’m looking forward to reading more! -
Me encanta Junji. Algunas de estas historias ya las conocía, pero disfruté leerlas nuevamente. Mis favoritas: "El frío" (no recomendada para quienes sufren de tripofobia), "Fashion model", y "Los globos asesinos", sin embargo todas son fabulosas.
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Shiver collects ten of Junji Ito's best horror manga, selected and annotated by the author. The stories vary in quality, not always managing to make the reader suspend disbelief enough to accept such far-fetched, freakish premises; but the art is always brilliant. Small details like facial expressions and the folds of clothes are just as striking as images of monstrous creatures and gory deaths.
Another translated collection, Smashed, is due out in April 2019, and I'm putting it on my wishlist. I could happily read hundreds of these comics.
'Used Record': A girl becomes fascinated by a bewitching song, but her friend won't let her borrow the record, which has no label to indicate the artist or title. She steals it, and finds herself pursued by various others. I loved the concept; the problem lies in the fact that it's very hard to convey the power of music through illustrations alone. Thus this supposedly haunting and beautiful song, which sparks intense, murderous obsession in whoever hears it, is reduced to speech bubbles with 'do do doo, la la laa' in them.
'Shiver': Yuji is intrigued by his neighbour, a girl who can often be seen pointing out of the window and giggling creepily; her arm is covered in what look like small holes. While talking to a friend, Yuji remembers that his grandfather suffered from a similar affliction. Could there be a connection? Another good idea, but in this case it feels like too many details have been crammed into a small space and there isn't time to bring everything together satisfactorily.
'Fashion Model': While browsing a magazine, an amateur filmmaker is horrified by the image of a 'model' with an unconventional appearance (to say the least). His friends think it would be hilarious to cast her in their new film, but problems ensue when she realises she's not the lead. This was definitely one of my favourites; Fuchi is scary but also weirdly likeable?! I'd like the concept to have been taken even further – I was totally expecting that when Iwasaki showed Fuchi's picture to his friends, they wouldn't see anything out of the ordinary.
'Hanging Blimp': A teenage pop star commits suicide, and afterwards there are sightings of her face hanging in the sky like an enormous balloon. At first assumed to be either a mass hallucination or some sort of ghost, this image turns out to be the start of something even more terrifying. Despite being formed around one of strangest ideas in the book, this is surprisingly effective.
'Marionette Mansion': Brought up as part of a travelling performance troupe, Haruhiko has never mastered the art of puppeteering and craves a more settled life, while his older brother Yukihiko is more of a natural. I wasn't totally convinced by the direction the plot took – I mean, obviously all these stories are bizarre by nature, but in this case the exposition didn't quite seem to fit with what ended up happening. The story also primes you to expect the reveal of the 'puppeteers' to be more dramatic and shocking than it actually is.
'Painter': Part of a series about the character of Tomie, an extremely beautiful woman with a sinister secret. When Tomie approaches an artist and makes derogatory remarks about his muse, he becomes obsessed with the idea of painting her, convinced she will make him famous. But he can never quite seem to capture her beauty. This was another favourite, and made me keen to read more about Tomie.
'The Long Dream': A girl with a terror of death is admitted to hospital; meanwhile, another patient is complaining of dreams that span abnormally long time periods. An intriguing start, both because the idea of the 'long dream' is unsettling and because the connection between the two characters is initially unclear. The story also lends itself to the possibility of a sequel. On the other hand, it might have worked better for me if Mukoda didn't end up looking like one of the aliens from Mars Attacks.
'Honored Ancestors': Risa has suffered an unknown incident that has caused memory loss. Makita claims to be her boyfriend and, on a visit to his house, his father – who is seriously ill, but able to manoeuver himself out of his bedroom on all fours – lets it slip that Risa had previously agreed to marry Makita. Later, the horrifying truth behind his father's condition is revealed – along with what exactly Risa found so traumatic that she lost her memory. Much like 'Used Record', this is one that feels like it might have been better as a short film – I didn't pick up on the oddness of Makita's father's speech until I read the author's notes.
'Greased Oil': By far the most disgusting and depressing story in the book, this tells of a girl whose family run a barbecue restaurant. Their home is completely saturated with grease; her father and brother are addicted to the stuff, drinking salad oil from the bottle. Dark, smudged and smeary, the panels in this comic just feel greasy and oil-sodden. It's all impressively effective, but – unsurprisingly – I was glad when it came to an end.
'Fashion Model: Cursed Frame': A sequel to 'Fashion Model', cleverly placed to provide a quick hit of gory fun after the bleak experience of 'Greased Oil'. Pretty short, and not as good as the original, but still enjoyable.
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A great collection of short creepy stories. A haunted record player. A cursed jade stone that causes holes to open on everything that goes nears it. A marionette show where the marionettes are the ones pulling the strings and more.
My favorite stories in this collection were The Long Dream and Greased.
The Long Dream plays around with the concept of time in reality vs. time in dreams. Imagine if a million years can pass in a dream while only a single day has gone by in real time. What type of psychological effects would this have on a person's mind and their perception of reality? What if you had to experience the fear of going to sleep knowing that you would be trapped in another million-year dream every single time you fell asleep? It's a terrifying concept.
Greased is pure grossout horror about... grease of course. It's nasty and imaginative. It'll make you want to take a shower and maybe avoid greasy fast foods for a while. -
Compared with the lackluster Fragments of Horror, Shiver is yet another dark gem in the world of horror manga. Junji Ito's short stories in this volume are scary enough to not let me sleep.
As with his other works, all the stories here revolve around some form of extreme obsession that spirals into something dark, many of them leading to a tragic demise of the characters. It is always that way in all of his stories, but the way each of them unfolds - creeping into your soul one scary panel at a time, is brilliantly executed. Junji Ito is truly a horror genius. Crafting authentic horror is a tall order in graphic literature. Ito doesn't only draw horrific images, he carefully executes the perfect timing, plans the pacing and carefully arrange the panels to truly scare the readers.
I deliberately didn't mention any story in this volume. Spoiling even the tiniest of the plot details would greatly affect your experience. Shiver is ought to be experienced fully firsthand.
