Week 11: Horror

So for this week we are going over the theme of Horror, and how its incorporated in Manga. I would like to start off my stating that I have no prior knowledge reading any horror manga. So when I began to read this weeks manga I went in completely blind.

So for starters, I read the first chapter of Tomie, an anime which goes over the death of a student Tomie that was murdered and slaughtered. At first the story starts off in the present, showcasing the somber nature of the teachers and students grieving over Tomie's death. We are then placed into the past and see the reason as to how Tomie died. I found the secret teacher relationship and Yamamoto's keen interest towards Tomie to be the most interesting aspect of the story. What I found to be the most disturbing aspect of at least the first chapter was the eagerness in the students to help the teacher disassemble Tomie,  and cut her into pieces. It made it for quite a twist that she was still alive and they proceeded to kill her anyways. I found this story's art style to match the dramatic and harsh nature of the plot.

I proceeded to continue to skim over the additional chapters of Tomie, and I began to realize that Tomie is this inhuman entity that always results getting dismembered. Each story there is some sort of male interested or entranced by Tomie which then they come to realize she isn't as  human as she comes off to be. Overall, this was a good first impression into the genre of horror and I was interested to see what other things were in store.

I then I attempted to read a few of the recommended horror manga from the Itou Junji Horror Comic Collection. I normally wouldn't even write that I attempted to read this, but I genuinely tried a variety of stories to read and I couldn't find the actual pages anywhere.

So in term, I was really intrigued by the horror manga, Tomie. It definitely helped me understand the type of story arch these types of manga follow, and like many other weeks I will be reading more for weeks to come!