Remina

Minor spoilers ahead. I used to be a huge fan of Junji Ito's work - I sang his praises constantly on Tumblr and recommended him to many of my friends. Now, I see the fault in my actions. Jigokusei Remina - Hellstar Remina - is a work that feels ultimately pointless. Hellstar fits quite nicely into the Junji Ito mold - the female heroine watches the world collapse around her, and nearly everyone in the story dies. The work is so full of violence and death that I nearly felt sick reading it - not because I can't stand violence or death (hell, one of my favorite moviesis End of Evangelion) - but because everything in it feels pointless. There is virtually no explanation for WHY the things in the story happen. They just happen, seemingly without any sort of reason. At least in Ito's other works - Uzumaki, for example - there is a REASON for what happens and the death that it entails. This reason is nowhere to be found in Hellstar. The planet Remina just comes and destroys everything for no reason. Millions, if not billions, of innocent people die for no reason. You watch them die - not only die, but struggle to live by doing everything they can, and then still die. The death in the story is dealt with so objectively that it is not fun to read. You feel nothing towards these people killed en masse; they are simply plot devices. Not only is it uncomfortable, but it is flat-out boring. This kind of voyeurism can be enjoyable sometimes, sure, but in this work I found it totally off-putting and uncomfortable. Like I said, I felt that it was handled in a miserable way compared to usual Ito. The main characters don't have enough time for real development - Remina stays the absolute same throughout the story, and every other twist can be seen from a mile away. The story feels so forced through these characters, your level of psychic distance from the fiction is astronomical. The work is just boring, with its only redeeming qualities coming from Ito's art. The man has a real talent for drawing grotesque landscapes, may they be on Earth or on foreign locales, and his characters are expressive physically if not emotionally. Pass on this and read Uzumaki instead, or some of his shorter-form collections. They have much more impact and depth than this misfire.

TL;DR - Hellstar Remina is a good manga. Just know that it has some pretty gross imagery and a disturbing plot. Squeamish readers beware. If you've read an Itou Junji manga before, you know shit is getting real real up in here. Let me just state this: Hellstar Remina includes some crazy imagery that is not suited for everyone. Eldrich abominations and locations are in there. With that, let's go. There'll be some very slight spoilers in this text. You have been warned. Hellstar Remina's premise is incredibly simple. A professor predicts a wormhole to be present in the Hydra constellation. One day a planet iswitnessed passing through it, into our dimension. The professor receives the Nobel prize. He decides to name the star after his daughter, who is instantly propelled into a global celebrity. Some time after this, it's noticed that the planet is constantly moving - at times at the speed of light - and that stars around it seems to just disappear. Scientists are befuddled, especially when they notice that the star has changed its trajectory and is now headed towards Earth. Then shit gets crazy. The following panic makes some people just lay down and cry and some go on a wild chase after the people they hold responsible: Professor Oguro and his daughter Remina. All while the planet slows its pace and seems to now be slowly approaching our blue planet. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: The planet has eyes and mouths, and devours the damn moon in a quick bite. It's an interesting notion that Itou puts out about celebrity: We're rather quick as a people to shine the spotlight on things we find curious and then put it on a pedestal. Remina has done nothing apparent to validate the gigantic fanbase and general following she gets and her decision to "enter the world of entertainment" is incredibly bizarre from our viewpoint, but is widely celebrated in the manga. Maybe the people are so starved for enjoyment that they cling on to anything new, or maybe its a symbol for the sheep we all become to the organisations that produce the products we consume. It's an interesting point to make. Let me just restate: This manga is bonkers. Absolutely crazy. It's a look deep into the human psyche. How far will you go to save yourself with apocalypse knocking at the door? How far can people be driven by insane ideas, when reality is insane enough that they seem plausible? As much as Hellstar Remina is about a monster-planet from another dimension coming to Earth and killing the fuck out of everything in its way, it's also about people losing their morale values and becoming driven by mad ideas and basic needs. In the middle of global panic, a cult steps up and takes control of the numerous mobs in Japan. Their Mission? To kill the professor and his daughter. People follow these zealots with a burning passion and a wild hunt is on. It features some commentary on people using religion to get other people to follow their lead. It's also not pointed out as an evil, because hey, what if they're right? As crazy as it sounds, reality is more crazy now than ever before, so it's not plausibility isn't naught. People basically revert back to the dark ages and witch hunting. At times they even stop to find enjoyment in what they're doing, which is when they're seemingly pointed out as being of lesser morality than us readers. That said, they could also be so relieved at the ordeal soon being over and just letting go. However, not only religious craze is spotlighted when people lose their shit with apocalypse on the doorstep. There's a scene where a man tries to rape Remina, and she fights back. The scene is discovered and the man says "she was asking for it." Surely we're all shaking our heads at that comment, but it's accepted in the manga, because, hell, she's the cause of the apocalypse. If she can bring a killer-planet to us, why can't she ensnare men by sheer will? It's a different kind of horror to the jump-scares us horror fans find in most horror flicks nowadays. It's the realisation that anything goes when it comes to killing this girl when it's about staving off all our deaths. And we don't even know that her death will save us. All this while the monstrous planet above is just looking on. Maybe approvingly. Maybe it's just observing us to see what happens when it shakes the world. By all accounts, it appears no more intelligent than a small child, poking our planet to see what happens. The few times we do get a peek at Remina's surface, it's terrifying beyond words. The art is really good. It's not the best I've seen, but it's highly realistic most of the time, and very confusing at other times. As for the characters, there's really only one to talk about, and there's not much to say. Remina is a young, shy and modest girl who is propelled into super-stardom just by existing and having a planet named after her. She seems to have difficulty with handling the attention given to her, and then the apocalypse happens. Her desperate struggle is certainly one you feel sympathy for, but there's not much exploring as far as character development goes. Remina is just another person. She just happens to be in the middle of a global witch hunt when mind-boggling coincidence has it a planet named after her arrives to kill Earth. I highly enjoyed Hellstar Remina, and recommend it to people who enjoy horror and chaotic stories. As far as the ending goes - without spoiling it - I wasn't a big fan of it. The story feels unresolved to me. To finish, let me just say again that this manga is not for everyone. It features very graphic violence, like torture and (attempted) rape, which could be a trigger for some. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it. Just know what madness you're opening yourself to.

Ahhh...another classic by Junji Ito himself. I've been waiting to read Jigokusei Remina when I was in a definite mood for some good gore/horror, and Junji can always satisfy my appetite for that. The story leans a lot toward syfy though, with flying cars, cell phone watches and such, which I've never been into that genre, but it being a piece by Junji Ito, I knew he would combine his usual grotesque style and syfy-ish feel into one perfectly. !!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER!!!!! I'M SORRY BUT I FELT THE NEED TO SAY A FEW THINGS... I read a few discussions at the end andwas glad to realize I wasn't the only one who felt the same way about Remina the girl and Remina the planet - like there was a deep connection between the two and Planet Remina was either helping or saving her at times when she needed it. For example, the mob tied Remina to a crucifix and was just about to kill her when missiles were launched at Planet Remina and something backfired to cause hundreds of explosions only to upset Planet Remina to create an earthquake. like Remina was there the whole time, tied to the crucifix and still alive??? You can't tell me there was no connection between the two!! There were a few more scenes like that in the story so I think this was a sneaky move on Junji's part making us identify the correlation between Oguro Remina and Planet Remina without having to say it. "Army of One" oneshot at the end was perfect. It tied into Jigokusei Remina's theme extremely well. I actually read it a long time ago not realizing it was a chapter in Remina until now and thought all this time that Natsuko was behind all the murders, (lol ya I know...) but after reading people's comments I think it was a sick, never-ending cycle of mass hysteria. How could one 20-something year-old-girl do all of that in one night without going unnoticed? And then the song. It was some hypnosis tool used to influence people to kill. Ah well anyway, I definitely recommend Jigokusei Remina to anyone definitely into gore meets syfy! And the oneshot at the end has always been my favorite, so look forward to that, too!