Junji Ito's Dissolving Classroom

According to friends IRL and users on MAL, this book allegedly pales in comparison to Junji Ito's other works. Well, as someone who had this book be their first Junji Ito work, I would make the rather bold statement that this would fit right it with iconic slasher films I grew up with. What I mean by that is this book is ridiculous. You have cute, creepy-ass kids who have supernatural powers and act in almost cartoonish ways, with gore and imagery that well suits the expectations I had regarding Junji Ito's craft. I love both main characters the same way I loved Chuckie, Freddie, Jason,etc. This feels like such a breath of fresh air in a time where this genre is getting misused and tired in today's slasher flicks, ones where they take the horror aspect too seriously or sequels where they simply forget the charm of the originals. What I'm saying is, if you want good horror, look no further and pick this up. The art's great and fantastically creepy, the main characters are very charming, and the stories are well-crafted. Meantime, I'll definitely be looking more into Junji Ito's works.

Dissolving Classroom – Spoiler Free – Not Recommended TLDR Overall: 4/10 Disclaimer: due to the nature of this work – a collection of short stories –, my normal parameters of Story, Art, Characters and Enjoyment with a weighted average won’t be applied. Instead, a global overview will be offered. Are there really words enough to describe the mess that Dissolving Classroom is? Dissolving Classroom is a collection of Junji Ito’s short stories with a common thread. The story wasn’t scary. Actually, neither of the stories was; there was no gore, no anxiety, no suspense, no eerie visuals, no atmosphere. In essence, no elements that can make this story horror. Itis just a bizarre couple of stories with a bizarre premise. Part of the story is about a character who is always saying sorry because he summoned the devil, and his sister, who loves to eat melted brain. As a result, almost all stories end in the same way: melted brains. Moreover, this has led rise to some of the funniest panels in a horror manga. However, this isn't surprising taking into account the rest of Junji Ito’s work, where a dimension of comedy is always present. Nevertheless, there is no comparison between some of his better works – such as Tomie or Uzumaki – and Dissolving Classroom. Dissolving Classroom looks like a watered version mixture of both, but for the worse. The art, is obviously, quite good, being typical of Junji Ito. Nevertheless, between his works the characters all look the same. The story is also very easy to follow along, because of the good cadence of the panels. Although this was nevertheless a quick read, lessening our suffering, one cannot recommend in any shape or form Dissolving Classroom as a good horror manga, not only because it is not scary and there's not even any element that turns it into actual horror, but because the stories are bad; moreover, it does not deserve to enter in the pantheon of Junji Ito’s. For all these reasons, it is not recommended.

This mostly deals with the two siblings detailed in the synopsis. The stories are all connected (aside from the one-shots). Story, 5: The two one-shots are extremely short, and while they offer mildly interesting premises, they simply didn't have enough time to develop into anything beyond average. The "Dissolving" series was interesting, but I didn't really like any of the chapters until "Interview with the Devil", where everything from the previous chapters comes together (which actually gave a satisfying conclusion). Art, 7: There are some cool pieces here, namely for fans of biological horror (mostly to do with dissolving). It's solid otherwise as well. Characters, 5: I thoughtthe idea of a constantly apologetic character (Yuuma) was intriguing, but his character didn't extend much beyond that, nor did his sister's personality. All of the side characters were fairly flat as well. Enjoyment, 5: It was a quick read, but it didn't thrill me until the final chapter. Overall, 5: Fans of Ito's other works that contain longer plotlines ("Gyo", "Uzumaki") may find this more appealing than the various volumes that collect his one-shots (as this volume offers a multi-chapter story), but I don't think it's really on par with those works, in terms of storytelling or characters. The final chapter in this volume almost makes it worth the read, but I wouldn't recommend this particular story, other than to superfans of Ito Junji.