Week 14: Thing That Drifted Ashore

I stumbled upon this Junji Ito short story. It's about a massive, tubular, sea creature that washes ashore. It is composed of rotting flesh and looks to be an ancient serpent from the deepest trenches of the sea. People from all over are compelled to see the gigantic being, even if they hate the ocean. Thing That Drifted Ashore is similar to Amigara Fault as it shows people being being compelled by an unseen force. I find it more terrifying, however, because the ocean is a very deep fear of mine, especially the dark sea and whatever comes out of it. One of the characters says of the creatures of the deep, "it felt like they were beings that had been forgotten by all the universe" and I feel it is very accurate to my feelings of the deep sea. More so, Thing That Drifted Ashore emphasizes the more Lovecraftian aspects of the sea by hypothesizing the depth and shear size of it. At the end of the story, it is revealed that the thing has been responsible for several deaths at sea and zombie-esque bodies pour out from its stomach. A character says of the people in its stomach, "what do you suppose they saw in the deep ocean through that transparent skin..."

Also check out Alfred Kubin

Also Golden Kamuy was interesting. At first it seemed like it was a normal shoujo manga until we learned more about the Ainu people through it. I really liked that aspect of it and it made me want to read it.

Week 13: Presentations & Silver Spoon

I had a feeling this art style looked familiar, and to find out it was also the creator of Full Metal Alchemist was validating and interesting. I only read 3 chapters, but Silver Spoon seems to be about an agricultural high school in Japan focused on preparing young adults for their specializations in the farming industry... Therefore a concept I'm completely disconnected with and frankly, would not choose to read. However, more generally, it is established early on that the main character, Hachiken, is confused by his future. He feels insecure that he doesn't have a concrete dream or path like his other classmates. This is a common feeling when approaching a more transitional period in life; there are a lot of unknowns.

Present with in the hatchery with the egg production explanation, the chicken meat, Tamako, and the Equestrian club, is the subversion of expectations. This is an attitude that the author imposes on Hachiken as he makes a conscious effort to "not base his judgements off of his preconceptions." This same attitude is also imposed on the reader as it's also a delivery device for a lot of the humor.

As far as I know, Silver Spoon has already been adapted into an anime, but ideally I would make it into an anime as well. The manga provides all of the necessary information, like the characters' motivations, appearances, etc. Locations are very clear, too. There's no guess work involved and that's why an anime adaptation would be the easiest and clearest form of media. However, in my adaptation I would like to make Hackiken's motivations clearer. He can still be a conflicted young adult, there's good, generic conflict there. But I want a real source for his apprehension, and why of all places did he choose an agricultural high school? I would make these changes in an effort to create less of a slice of life story and more of a drama.

Week 12: Junji Ito Resources & Presentation Details

Hi, here's some resources for Junji Ito's work:

Junji Ito Archive
Tomie
Gyo
Uzumaki: Low Quality

And I have a google drive folder of some choice scans that I made while I was researching for this presentation. It contains some images of Gyo, Uzumaki, Tomie, Dissolving Classroom, and Shiver. Feel free to flip through (using your Ringling email) to get a feel for Ito's artistic style. Some panels were scanned due to their notable dialogue as well. Here's a link to my presentation.

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And to finish this post off here's more about the alternative Japanese artist that I mentioned at the end of my presentation:

Suehiro Maruo is one of the more classic gore artist. He depicts scenes more inspired by eroguro (erotic gore), in a style reflective of the muzan-e subgenre of the ukiyo-e period. His art and story was used to make the 1992 animated film Midori: Shōjo Tsubaki which showed scenes of rape, violence, and graphic depictions of circus performers.
Shintaro Kago's popularized work is more along the lines of something I like to call "pop-gore." It is vibrantly colored and inventive like a theme park. His familiar graphic design images almost cannot be taken as seriously as they're more so an assembly of broken shapes of viscera vs. his more brutal, personal gore manga work.
Takato Yamamoto has been one of my favorites since high school, a lot of these artist have, however Yamamoto's attention to minute detail has always struck me. Dead eyes and pale figures are the primary subjects of his work. Bondage is a common theme in his work, as are ribcages and other significant parts of the skeleton. Stringy entrails are often traced around Yamamoto's canvas to encapsulate the tortured subjects. His style of detail is reminiscent of Gustav Klimt.
And finally, Kaneoya Sachiko. She is the youngest on this list; a very contemporary artist. Using a 50s Japanese manga style, she experiments with erotic visuals like taboo subjects between men and animals and medical horror. In her art book, she explains how her real goal is to depict the little moments that are attractive about men, such as the small parts of skin that are exposed when wearing a collared shirt. She explores a true perversion that I've always appreciated.

Week 11: Censorship & Uzumaki, Tomie

During this week, we primarily talked about censorship in Japan. In continuing to research for my Junji Ito presentation, I read Uzumaki and Tomie.

On Uzumaki

Uzumaki is a story about a town affected by the natural phenomena of the spiral. While utilizing the manipulation of natural phenomena as a horror technique, the core of it's narrative is gradually revealed to be more cosmic, and overwhelming as the story concludes.

Beginning with the dispersal of Shuichi’s father's ashes; the town becomes afflicted by the constant torture of spiral symbolism. Shuichi's father's initial obsession with spirals began it all, and it is a theme I noticed in Ito's work. A character will often become unusually obsessed with something until it kills them. This often leads to a series of self-mutilation that can only end in the painful, and ominous character’s death. This then spreads to their loved ones, as it did to Shuichi's mother, and produces a great paranoia. This paranoia also leads to death for those afflicted as it's the only way to escape horrors of the body. In a grander analysis, Ito uses this to create scenarios of mass hysteria. Along with these themes, I found that scapegoating was a minor theme often used in Uzumaki. Because of the internal torment that the character's experience, such as the lead character Kirie, other characters are quick to turn on one another. Azami is another case where there was a centralized villainization of one character, she was seen as a source of people's problems, an outlet for their anger. Again, this all contributes to the eventual breakdown of the society that Ito is often depicting.

As previously mentioned, the story shifts in the last ~5 chapters from an obsessive compulsive tale about the breakdown of a town to a rather melancholic, Lovecraftian horror of overwhelming proportions. The source of the town's obsession about spirals is revealed to be an eternal loop that has happened before, and it will continue to happen. Found underground; a mass of twisted bodies and canyon-like structures form a sort of hellscape that Kirie and Shuichi stumble upon under the center of the town. Unable to comprehend the magnitude of what they are seeing, Kirie and Shuichi decide to submit to the spiral, only to continue the pattern. The ending of Uzumaki brought upon an atmosphere of grief and an acceptance of eternity.

On Tomie

Tomie was Ito's debut manga about a girl who comes back to haunt her killers that covered up her death. Told through a series of short stories, we are first introduced to Tomie as a young high school girl that is attracted to her teacher. After being rejected by him during a field trip, she is pushed off a cliff's edge. Her body tumbles to the bottom. Thinking she is dead, her classmates panic, and with the guidance of her teacher; decide to cut up Tomie's body and dispose of her in 30-some different ways. When they begin cutting, she is still alive, however. 

Throughout the manga, Tomie is eternally reborn every time she is killed. She is so beautiful that eventually her admirers are compelled by a deep obsession to kill her by desecrating her body and disposing of the remains. She regenerates and clones herself from her remains; producing many Tomies. Tomie is basically cursed to live how she died. I find that I think about Tomie on a dark road while driving at night. It evokes a feeling like that, true dread and mystery.

Week 10: Cyberpunk + Neon Genesis Evangelion

I've always liked mecha animes, I started with Gundam Wing years ago. Looking back, still, I can't confidentially say why I have an affinity for mecha as it's the most distant of what I usually like in my anime; as it tends to be hyper masculine and one-note. I do like the possibilities that robots and the technology offers to the story. But if we look at the genre as a whole, sci-fi and further more cyberpunk, we can see more animes utilizing the visual conventions of the genre to discuss different things these days.

Cyberpunk in Japanese media often opens up a large library of alternative ideas about politics, economy, and sexuality due to it's future setting and technology. For example, Ghost in the Shell discusses themes of what it means to be human through a robot heroine in a future struggling with the political nuances that come along with advanced technology. Cowboy Bebop emphasizes the lonely, existential dread of humanity that happens upon an intergalactic backdrop. Psychopass discusses how an integrated morality system controlled by a computer is inherently flawed and how it affects society. As much as I love mecha animes of the late 90s where robots punch each other, cyberpunk anime largely talks about capitalism and how technologies affect various social classes. Even Astro Boy spoke to Japan's greater need to aspire in mechanics and electronics.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a great example of a mecha that speaks about the errors in human communication and the economy & politics of a war-torn Japan, all with religions overtones. Additionally, the Evas, AKA the mechs, are awesome. Their designs are still one of the most original I've seen from a mech anime in years. The Evas being inspired by human biology, simulating bleeding and such, causes the fights to be incredibly brutal. Their deaths and battle cries are not just mechanical, it is viscerally painful.