Voices in the Dark

8.5/10 Pretty good collection, though I still hate Ito for Glyceride. I stand with his editor, no doubt. 1. *The Dark Drinks Blood*: 6/10 Fine, at best. The story starts off by introducing its protagonist as insecure and recovering from a bad relationship. It could have gone in a better direction if Ito decided to explore those feelings with horror elements but the story is quick to dismiss that premise and instead introduces a largely unimpressive concept, reducing the opening premise to a mere segue. That’s where the story starts going downhill, the ‘antagonist’ is not at all interesting and you guess the mystery very early on leavingyou with nothing to hold on to. Though this short is never terrible, it’s just hugely boring and mediocre, maybe others might like it better than I did. Sadly, this is one of the rare Junji Ito stories where the art failed to impress me, something which stories with far worse plot-lines still managed to do. 2. *Ghosts of Golden Time*: 8/10 This one works surprisingly well to be honest. It has a good horror concept and a great villainous duo, together with great art and nice atmosphere. All aspects are well done and even the ending, which left me cold immediately after the story, has grown on me since. 3. *Roar of Ages*: 5/10 Another Ito story which ends up being disappointing wholly because it does not build upon it’s premise well enough. I feel that a good percentage of Ito’s average stories can be elevated to great ones if he learns to tell apart which premise will work better as a 10-15 page mood piece and which one deserves to be developed up to a minimum 25-30 page length, this one clearly falls in the later category. 4. *Secret of the Haunted Mansion*: 7.5/10 This story is where readers first meet Souichi, who is also a part of several other subsequent short stories and overall it’s not that bad. The story starts off as an atmospheric piece and is elevated by the night setting but then quickly moves it’s focus away from the atmosphere and to the creepily drawn eccentric villains, something which I’m not usually very fond of. But here Souichi and his son are done well enough to make that gimmick work. 5. *Glyceride*: 8.5/10 It is believed, where I live, that all things and people have God residing in them. Today I think that God in me died. DO NOT LET MY RATING CONVINCE YOU TO READ THIS STORY. Absolutely Revolting, Repulsive and Sickening, this Ito short is a proof that editors should include a readers’ warning for shit like this. A decent story and mystery with the Ito’s utterly abhorrent, loathsome and detestable visual imagination brought to life (regrettably) by his undeniable skill when it comes to art. The only reason I am rating this shit this high is because it delivers upon what readers expect from a horror manga, shit that’s so terrifying and disgusting that you have to look at it with your hand covering most of your eye lest you see any more of those drawings than the bare minimum required to get over with the story. 6. *The Earthbound*: 9/10 This short’s central theme is a spoiler so I won’t mention it but I must say that this is one of the Ito stories which is very strong at the end too. The atmosphere, art, mystery and all are undeniably good but the twist at the end elevates the story to another level, great for a change. 7. *Dead Man Calling*: 7/10 The second story in this collection to contrive horror from guilt and it does a fairly good job at it too. Great sense of mystery throughout the story but again the end left me cold, for a different reason tho, it fails at thematic conclusion rather than with the explanation of the supernatural phenomenon at hand, as with most Ito stories. This one too is strongest in the beginning and middle.

Yami no Koe is a goru manga collection by renowned author and artist Junji Ito. Known for his gruesome and psychological horror with a career that spans many years. The first collection I read by him was Mimi's Ghost Stories, known in romanised Japanese as Mimi no Kaiden. I wasn't too keen on the story itself and so was hesitant to go into this collection. However, after hearing great things from my friend on the story Glyceride from my friend and finding it was present in this collection, I decided to throw caution to the wind. This collection is hard to review. The stories are disjointedand only join together in their collection of strange artwork and horror themes. Demons, ghosts, criminals, and disconcerting plots are found throughout this story. Each story has its good points, and others weaken in comparison to others. Each story alone is a four or five stars rated story but together, I almost rated it three and a half stars. Stories such as Earthbound don't correlate and pale in comparison to stories such as Secret of the Haunted Mansion which then pales in comparison to others. It's the only issue I find with collections such as this - within Mimi no Kaiden, it was a snapshot of the same girl's life so it was less comparable. I enjoyed this, I truly enjoyed this. However, I didn't enjoy it as much as I would have liked. A collection like this would have done better with stories at least connected, for instance, paranormal stories in one collection. The horror level for each story would be the same, rather than one being scarier for the content than others. Mentioned before, Earthbound itself felt more like science fiction or crime rather than horror of some form despite the existence of the paranormal. With qualms out of the way, however, this is a strong collection, despite the disjointed feeling. Ito proves himself in this collection to have a talent of mastering horror from the paranormal to the confusing, hairraising and stomach churning. The artwork is stunning throughout, and I even flinched back from the manga a few times upon turning the page. His artwork in this collection once more proves his skills at not only writing a horrifying image but his ability to draw something that makes readers flinch or nervously bite their lips. A talent that not all artists and authors of the same piece can manage, it's something to truly be cherished, and this collection only allows his skills to shine.

Yami no Koe is a set of short stories or one-shots. It's a bit difficult to score as a whole since each one left different impressions with me. I suppose it all was good. I enjoyed reading some of these well enough. The best thing about this was the art. There's a definite unsettling style that Ito has that pairs so nicely with the stories he's conveying to a visual medium here. But, my main issues with this whole thing comes down to a couple specific stories. There was one in particular that felt grotesque for the sake of being grotesque without having much of astory to really back it for me. Overall, I'd say that if you're looking for some short horror stories, this is worth looking at. But, if you're squeamish at all, be aware it can get a bit, not gory but... There's a gross factor to some scenes.

I seem to be making a habit of marking down highly rated authors lately. I loved Uzumaki for its weirdness, and just about tolerated Gyo (maybe have to do a review of that in the near future), but Voices in the Dark didn't really do it for me, for all of Glyceride's gross-out factor. Art 6/10 Was fairly torn on whether to rate this a six or a seven tbh. I both love and hate Junji Ito's signature style at this point. I like how it's very realistic, but at the same time, if you've seen one Ito work, you've seen literally all of them bar themonsters. The characters all make the same expressions and their mannerisms feel like they were almost traced from another Ito work. The environments are good enough, but there are definitely other authors out there with more striking art styles at this point. The monster stuff, like the bat-thing in the first chapter, have the stand-out page turns that Ito is known for, and the art is, as usual, consistently good there. Story 5/10 This is an anthology, so somewhat hard to rate, but overall the stories are decently constructed, but feel very 'on the nose' for the most part. One chapter is dedicated entirely to an homage to one of his other works, so it's basically pure fanservice for those characters. Otherwise, in terms of themes, it's strictly by-the-book, with characters stumbling upon urban legend style mysteries and such. Something horrible/mysterious happens, usually with someone looking crazy, and we end on the main character either living on ominously, or (more rarely) implied death. Classic Ito short story material. It's not bad, but story-wise, it's not good either tbh. Characters 4/10 Okay, unpopular opinion time. I've always hated the way Junji Ito writes his characters. They're bland shells, open stand-ins for the audience and their loved ones, with little to make any of them unique. They really start to blend together if you read his works back-to-back, and their samey facial expressions from story to story really start to piss me off. Junji Ito is obviously quite gifted at art, but his human characters are completely stagnant, both in terms of design, and in terms of writing. Their lines are often stilted, and nobody is particularly distinct across stories. I get that this is because they're meant to be blank slate characters for Japanese readers to project their own loved ones onto (this scary stuff could happen to you!) but as a non-Japanese reader, it falls completely flat. As a lapsed reader of Steven King, I find this writing device works poorly on me in regards to American works, too, so maybe it just isn't for me. Enjoyment 5/10 Gotta say, for a horror manga, next to nothing got to me in this work. There's maybe one panel in the first story, and not one of the 'shock' page turners, just a vaguely creepy look on a guy. Otherwise, Glyceride is gross-out material, and nothing else was notably scary. Ghosts of Golden Time is an absolute mess of a story, and the fact that it got past the concept stage honestly amazes me. One of the worst Ito stories I've ever seen. This was, in all, an okay bunch of 'urban legend' horror stories. I hate to say it, but it felt more like something Junji Ito put out to make a chunk of pocket change. Deeeefinitely not his best work, by a long shot. Overall 6/10 If Ito's work usually scares you, this might scare you. If it doesn't usually scare you, this definitely won't, and you'll probably want the half hour you spend reading it back. That's a pretty narrow niche.