Tomie

Varagauzer Jan 4, 2018

9.5

Horror done right Each chapter of this manga revolves around a beautiful girl named Tomie who has this uncanny ability to regenerate any part of her body into another copy of herself and she has a very strong influence on men driving them to do things they normally wouldn't do. It's important to note that this isn't a continuous story, each chapter its its own story with Tomie being the only reoccurring character. Also for some reason the very first chapter is sloppily drawn, I have no idea why but as of chapter 2 onwards the artwork drastically gets better. Story and Characters One of the most important aspects of horror is fear of the unknown, fear of not knowing what will happen next, its this aspect that Junji Ito masterfully does well. We don't know just what in the world Tomie is and its never explained and this is exactely what makes her so freaky. She doesn't care about anyone to her people are just "accessories" that she uses at her own pleasure. She always tells lies and often provoke people go against each other. She also has this sort of seductive influence on men often driving them to insanity and most of the time they end up tyring to kill her. Of course due to her regenative powers she always comes back as down to each limb or even organ creates a new copy of her, its pretty unsettling to know just how much copies of her are out there. Bad this happen to everyone in this manga, each chapter ends in a very grim fashion. This isnt your "happy ending" manga, nothing good ever happens where ever Tomie comes, bad things always follow her. Each chapter is also quite creative with all of the various situations that happen. Each story gets quite creative, I really don't want to spoil anything, but there are quite a lot of freaky and disturbing stuff that happens. Art Junji Ito is one hell of an artist, the guy is amazing. If I had to rate the creativity of this guy it would be easily 10/10. Characters are drawn realistic. One thing that is emphasized a lot is the maddness each character goes through, the faces are quite detailed. A lot of the environments looked hand drawn and not traced over and they all look really good. But probably the most important of all, is some of the hellish abominations that are drawn, all of them are just disturbing and this greately lends to the story. The creative and detailed artwork is what makes this manga quite unique. Overall I'll be frank, not everyone will enjoy this some people will be thrilled (such as myself) and others will be put off. But if you're looking for something unique in terms of horror give this a shot, its very creative with both its art and story.

DYNASTIA Mar 1, 2022

3

I started reading Junji Ito from here, and I frankly feel like I should have just skipped this...It's all undoubtedly very mediocre for a J-Horror saga.Tomie seems to be a horror creature flimsily assembled from the discarded pieces of several other works, taking some bits of gothic horror, slasher flics, ghost stories, cosmic horror...A patchwork of mismatched influences all centering on the character of Tomie, a monster with a human figure, but as irresistible as she's indestructible, a ''waifu'' Michael Myers.For the length of its three volumes, this all remains very repetitive. The art, especially from the earlier chapters, is subpar. Every character is so inconsistent between pages, or even sometimes panels, that I've had trouble telling who is supposed to be who and what the horrible Ito wants us to see in their nonsensical actions. Tomie appears as a monster without explanation or purpose. All Tomie wants is to seduce her victims, but this inevitably leads her to be killed...The temporality is nonexistent, some stories last for too long, where each non-recurring character tries to stop Tomie, and all inevitably fail because the narrative is too poor to allow for any development, Ito seems unable to write any humane character. The disposable victims are on a level only ever reached by b-grade ''so bad it's good'' schlock, except none of it is funny, just boring. These people stand there, encounter Tomie, try to stop her or fuck her, and get absorbed...Tomie kills a child, Tomie vs Tomie, Tomie goes to school, Tomie on the moon...If we think about it, it could have been worse, Ito could have given Tomie alien origins!I think I will take my leave before I decide to tackle Uzumaki.

AbbyG Nov 8, 2020

5

I will get into the feel I got from the stories.. Each chapter has a different set of people n different story with tomie. I didn't feel any scare or horror whatsoever, maybe because I'm more into the jump scares n ghost type horror. Tomie was more like a blood n gore filled book. It was a different type of scare I guess. But it was funny at times for me as I didn't feel scared at all. It was more nausea inducing looking at some of the stuff. I will certainly have indigestion today.  There were some sad moments.. Looking how she was targeting innocent people. Some scare moments where I felt how the people in the story might have felt. She is like a tumour cell that keeps on multiplying.  Overall, if you are into blood n gore stuff and a beautiful girl *wink wink*. You should definitely try it. I will stick with R L Stine and Stephen King.