(Preface: Japanese manga is read from the right side of the page to left, in case reading the following images is confusing.)
Junji Ito is a man I would love to have a drink with if only to ask him one question: how do you get the inspiration to create such god-awful stories? And I do mean ‘god-awful’ in the best possible way. He’s the twisted mind behind all-time horror manga classics such as Uzumaki, Enigma At Amigara Fault, and countless other terrifying tales that frequently bend the boundaries of body horror, bizarre imagery, and the supernatural core of Japanese folklore. So yes, I would buy him a Yamazaki (a 12 year, to get him talking) and ask him my one question.
And then, once I have that first answer, I would ask him what the bloody hell is up with Tomie.
Tomie is the series that Ito can probably thank the most for his success, as it was the springboard for the extremely successful career that has followed. The first chapter’s publication in 1987 earned him an honorable mention for the prestigious Kazuo Umezu prize in Japan’s Monthly Halloween magazine, setting a high bar for his future work - and for Japanese horror manga as a whole. It was no throwaway debut, either. We are introduced to Tomie as a pretty young schoolgirl who ends up being murdered in brutal circumstances. Her best friend opens the piece recounting the shock of her death, and her brief funeral. As you’d expect, it’s all very sad - at least until the next school day, when Tomie turns up in class like nothing ever happened. Like you do. Like anyone does - at least when the purpose is for a horror story that winds up as hideous as this one.
Tomie, it turns out, is not your average schoolgirl-back-from-the-dead. As the first installment in the series reveals, she is considerably more sinister and other-worldly - a seemingly immortal femme fatale with a literally deadly allure. Over and over again, she comes into the lives of men, steals their attention, gains their affections, drives their ever-frenzying obsession with her, and is promptly murdered by them. But the real twist that follows is even more gruesome. When she’s killed, she simply re-generates and even multiplies herself - usually through some grotesque visual sequence - to intentionally repeat the same ritual of obsession and murder over again with a new target.
In typical Ito style, nothing about Tomie - her origins or what kind of creature she truly is - is ever fully explained. She seduces, she’s murdered, she replicates in Cronenberg-esque fashion. And that’s it. Almost. Later stories in the series do expand on the questions surrounding her, but there’s no ultimate explanation, nor origin tale. We just get to witness men, albeit of different backgrounds and story themes, repeatedly lose their minds over her. Women are also driven mad with jealousy in her presence, and not even children are immune from developing murderous crushes on her. And with her ability to clone into perfect copies of herself? Yep, even clone Tomies hate each other too. But no matter what, her fate is always the same - she is savagely murdered, and her killer spirals into oblivion shortly afterward. And if you’re looking for a ‘why’ to it all, then it’s up to you to fill in the blanks.
Compiling every Tomie story to date (1987 - 2001), Viz Media’s deluxe edition shows that Ito’s knack for using the unexplainable to add further chill to his vivid, outlandish style of horror was always there from the start. It’s also a great study into how he’s developed as an artist over time. Early chapters are a bit rough around the edges compared to his later work, lacking the depth of detail (grisly or otherwise). Keep on reading through though, and you start to find the later entries increasingly hammer home the gaunt yet arresting art style he’s known for nowadays. I would even say it was fascinating to witness the transformation, if not for the fact that, naturally, it also gets significantly more disturbing with every chapter! But it’s great to see the evolution of a master of his craft nonetheless.
Evolution isn’t much of a thing for Tomie herself, though. With every story, she continues to carry the same creepy mystique, but revelations about her are few and far between. They teasingly bubble to the surface in a couple of three-parters - both of which promise to serve as final confrontations - but the payoff of both of them is vague and disappointing. In its defense, this franchise did originally exist as a serial. You don’t want to give too much away if you’ve got people reading it month in, month out. But it does mean that some stories get repetitive. There is some variation in the assembly of each piece - Tomie’s ‘victims’ range from self-adoring models and school peers to your average nerd, for example. But other than that, the conclusion of each entry is mostly the same. She always comes back at the end, and the only real creativity in each story is in how most of her targets face their own inevitable fates.
Still, with Ito’s blend of horror always being in the mix, their fates are always as ghastly as you might expect. The ‘fun’ of horror isn’t really in the creativity of the plots as it is in the horrible things that unfold, and whoever Tomie manages to get under the skin of - quite literally in a couple of particularly nasty stories - is guaranteed a wild ride to their likely, dreadful demise. There’s also plenty of murder-laden gore to be appalled by, with the visuals depicting some pretty graphic deaths (usually Tomie’s) that lean just a little too much into realism. And Tomie’s transformation sequences are also a garish nightmare to experience with the eyes. If you ever wondered if Ito pulled the punches in his early years, wonder no more: he didn’t. All of these elements, plus the odd bit of nudity (though not gratuitous), distinctly keep this in the area of horror that is off-limits to kids.
Anyone looking for some deeper commentary on Tomie is also likely to find that off-limits, too. There is, after all, a curious propensity in the West to try and find deeper literal meaning in a lot of Japanese pop culture that is simply there to entertain. For example, all you need to do is search the words ‘Neon Genesis Evangelion’ to find all sorts of pseudo-religious ramblings on that TV series, trying to make sense of what was essentially a largely aesthetic (and bloody good) mecha show. It’s no different with Tomie - all the opinions are out there.
Is the series’ underlying message anti-feminist? Possibly - the idea of a free-spirited, attractive, conceited girl who is ‘monstrous’ to men is the very foundation of the outdated femme fatale trope. Or is she an allegory for victim-blaming and misogynistic violence, perpetrated by grown men who simply cannot keep a lid on their carnal passions? Again, a solid theory. Or maybe it just doesn’t matter, and the point is to be creeped out by stories about a living dead girl that all the guys want? Whatever the truth of it, the Tomie: Complete Deluxe Edition at least proves that Ito’s horror had visceral clarity right from the start. And maybe, just for that, I’ll leave him to his Yamazaki and won’t bother with my second question.
