Souichi Presents:the Enchanting World of Junji Ito

Ara, ara.... it's a little hard looking for work out there right now, huh...? Not that the great and mighty Souichi would need to worry about such paltry mortal affairs. But if you need a lot of money, and you're willing to take a risk... there's always 'Grey' work. What's 'Grey' Work....? Well....

It's like a part time job. Of a sort. Just... sketchy. Shady. Neither here nor there. Between life and death, or between gods and capitalisim. It's free market D-Class. It's wrapping up soon and I'll be sad to see it go. It's

Ura Baito: Toubou Kinshi

But hey, if you have a nose for danger and a coworker you like, maybe you can just keep making it through one more job. Just. A couple more. Until the ledger balances up. The girls survived this time, right....?

Indeed, instead of cycling us through faceless improbable body counts alone, we have recurring protagonists doing their best to get by, relying on one of them having an incredible nose for danger (literally) and the other... kinda just having nerves of steel. It's a good dynamic, and their connection is a great motivating emotional core to the story.

Well, you all know Souichi. Always sentimental, right~? Or maybe like the last apple in the bowl, souichi's come to have a soft spot with age.... well, either way.

This one comes with a special recommendation or going above and beyond in the field of horror comics. Keep your eyes metaphorically peeled for some truly breathtaking innovations in spot color, and some dips into truly surreal, dreamlike horror.

All the warnings one could wish for apply, wonderfully or regrettably. Gore, manglings, surreal and existential fates, a really scary cube, and the depressing capitalistic structure all abound.

If horrors what you like, say, wasn't there something concerning that reigon... the Kiniki reigon..... that's right......

Kinki Chihou no Aru Basho ni Tsuite, by Usui Tsukasa, adapted from the novel of the same name by Sesuji. Which Souichi hasn't read yet, himself, but is eagerly waiting by the mail for~

But until then, he can most highly recommend this.

Literally every time someone mentions they used to read this blog it makes me SO happy, I hope y'all know that. I am indeed well! And I still think of this blog very fondly, with the back of the head conviction that ONE of these days I'll come back and finish the job.

But even if that's still a ways off, I'm always glad I made the work I did here- the practice it gave me in talking about and evaluating stories, and especially thinking about horror, will always be really valuable. I figured out what I like best, the emotions I love, even how I personally define horror, which... comes up a lot now!

For them who don't know, I wound up as a duo streamer with my best friend as Frankenbugs (facefullabugs on twitch, Frankenbugs VODS on youtube), and as I write this we're literally in the middle of a very fine-grained exploration of a game called Shipwrecked 64. And a lot of what I've talked about then about haunting as something beyond ghosts, about dread as the core of horror, even the bittersweet kuroame Black Sugar flavor I love so much...

That's all from here! And I'm always really grateful to the lil audience I had/(have?) here for helping to motivate me in these studies.

Ah, all of which is a bit off topic but- thank you so much for writing in! If I do come back, I will be sure to investigate this tale. 💚

Hello! Souichi ain't in at the moment, but this silly guy named Frankie Frankenstein* can provide an answer best as he can.

I think... in a lot of ways, Souichi was an incredible pain in the ass of a kid. But not in a way that's too special to just him. When you're young, wanting to be special, especially if you got the kinda dark tastes that maybe are weird to other kids... you don't always know how to act right.

So to me, as a humble fan, I think that Souichi probably really just wanted his siblings to think he was impressive, and cool. I think it's very telling that in his fantasies about being a scary grown up running a house of horrors, he still invokes his family members, you know? Like the selfish 'one day they'll see!' kind of stories a kid tells himself.

But I think that selfish desire to be impressive and scary shows he at least cared what they think about him. Maybe when he's older, they still won't get along! If he never stops being a pain until they're all adults, they'd probably still be in their rights not to want to hang out with him.

But then again, maybe those kinds of relationships are easier once you don't all live in the same house, too.

And I think he very much enjoyed that cake. I think the fact that his cousin hadn't given up on him entirely meant a lot to him; maybe more then he's really any good at saying.

I like to think when he's older, maybe he'll thank her properly. I also like to think maybe one day he could meet Oshikiri, and those two could calm down a little by being each others weird goth friends.

...Ah! Incidentally, for any Ito fans, let me humbly recommend a manga I have become very fond of! "Souboutei Kowasubeshi", aka "Souboutei Must be Destroyed" by Fujita Kazuhiro. You can find it on mangahere (which should have any ito chapters that lead to broken links on this blog, incidentally! My bad.) and i've found myself incredibly gripped by it. It reminds me in all the best ways of Black Paradox in it's mix of absurdist and horror, but much longer form. And maybe more... optimistic, maybe....? Well you'll see what I mean if you find it interesting. Not without it's flaws, but what is.

Ah! Hold on, I do have a message here from Souichi himself I think...? Lets see if I can read it through all the black ichor.... ah! Of course.

Kyehehe! It seems even online, death still comes for many things.... what a shame! But for any other lost souls looking for this work, it can be found on Mangadex, in Volume 11 of "Itou Junji Kyoufu Manga Collection"! Souichi would recommend Mangadex as a fine alternative to any other sunken ships of dubious legality; its the one site out there with no ads, no profit motives, and manga uploaded by the scanlator groups themselves (for the most part).

So the good news! 

There will be more Souichi Presents- me reviewing the works of Mr. Junji Ito (And I am vibrating to get together something on the Junji Ito Anime running AS WE SPEAK!), as well as horror comics, monsters, and other strange and creepy things. 

But, I’m going to (hopefully soon), also be launching another blog! Title to be decided, but it’s going to be a place where I can talk about other pop culture things! If you follow my personal blog you know I’m not short on opinions, thoughts on writing and design, and have a fondness for zooming in on specific things. Like... the social and technological levels displayed by each species in Fraggle Rock. Or how the clan McDuck as in Scrooge McDuck has a direct line from egypt *right* to their arrival in scotland. Or how Papyrus from Undertale is by far the most mysterious and possibly most powerful character in the whole game. 

This is going to be folded into my Patreon, which will be changed to reflect that! But what I’m hoping for is that generally theres more from me to enjoy, and I won’t risk burnout. Which is good for us all! And means I could possibly make it through gyo someday. 

And thank you all for sticking with me. It’s been a rough... few years, really. But getting used to, for health reasons, having my working time I can write in pretty much halved, combined with finishing school, has been really tough. But I’ve never stopped wanting to keep talking about horror, and probably never really stopped thinking about those fine ghoulish gleeful genres. 

With school finished now, I’m not quite back in the saddle, but it’s at least on the horse. Because after all- 

There is a post up for patreons that explains in detail, but the short of it is: This Sunday I will have an announcement about Souichi and new content! There’s a big post for the blogs patreons that goes into more detail, and will become public then.