It’s often what leaves the biggest impression on people who talk about his work.

Thanks to Ito’s art his horror can make your stomach turn, skin crawl, and haunt your dreams with twisted sights unimaginable, this book having been no exception. My enjoyment of his horror has fluctuated in that time, Uzumaki setting the bar high at the outset. Over the course of the last year and a bit I’ve enjoyed a lot of the Junji Ito comics that have been officially published in English. This is the stage set in the first chapter of Tomie that ignites a saga of obsession, vanity, and brutality around one beautiful young woman who just can’t stay dead.

The entire school is shaken, authorities are baffled, and her classmates and teacher begin to feel a creeping dread, having been more involved with her death than anybody else realizes. That is, until Tomie walks into class the next day as if it were all nothing more than a bad dream. Her classmates gather for her funeral, mourn her loss, and consider the dangers that might await them with a killer on the loose. High school student Tomie has met a tragic and brutal end at the hands of an unknown killer, with only pieces of her body having been recovered for cremation. These comics were originally published serially in the manga magazine Monthly Halloween from 1987 to 2000. Tomie by Junji Ito is a deluxe hardcover edition collecting every chapter of the horror manga of the same name.

Tomie junji ito collection