Gyo: The Death-Stench Creeps

The manga starts as a fun read, with a creative premise and situation. Since neither the reader or the characters knew anything about what was going on, it felt eerie and weird, as in, “what the fuck is going on?”, I’d say this was a good start. But that’s it, after the initial beach chapters, the manga starts showing it’s terribleness. Unlike most of Ito’s manga, Gyo, doesn’t have that creepy atmosphere always looming in the background, normally represented by the visuals, be it the dreadful backgrounds or the sheer expression of terror on the character’s faces. One of my main gripes with this manga is thatit focuses too much on the premise, dead sea creatures with legs and walking among earth are scary at first, but a strong premise isn’t nearly enough to hold an entire manga on it’s own, it needs more than that to keep the reader engaged and entertained. Gyo is a gore fest, it’s obviously trying it’s hardest to shock you and show off the nastiest images possible, but it doesn’t do that very well. Drawings of gore aren’t that disgusting, specially when it’s so ridiculous and over the top. The “story”, if you can call it that, is simple and very cliché, another “save your girlfriend, save the world” kinda story, where the main character gets involved in all this and has to save his love, eventually discovering what really happened and the truth to these horrible creatures, despite being a completely average person. To make matters worse, he’s nothing new and hardly developed, if at all. it’s also incredibly hard to feel anything for the girlfriend when she’s just a damsel in distress. The explanation of the mystery and events tries to be very scientific and realistic, but fails miserably, in actuality it is terribly lazy and weak, with a bunch of science mumbo-jumbo sprinkled in the middle. Junji Ito wasn’t at his best when writing this, at least his other most popular work, Uzumaki, being as average as it was, had a stronger premise and also was an enjoyable, interesting read, the characters were realistic and had amusing reactions to their world and what was happening, you won’t find anything like that here. Most manga by Ito has interesting visuals and presents something new and scary every chapter, a smart move by the author. It’s hard to be sacred by something you are familiar with. By keeping it fresh and introducing new horrors, he keeps that feeling of uneasiness and dread, the feeling of not knowing what’s to come. This is evident in that most of his work are one-shots or very short manga in general. Gyo, however, barely introduces new horrors or monsters at all, it escalates things, sure, but you can only be so terrorized by a shark with legs after you’ve seen it many times. It’s become clear that Ito wanted to creep you out with the “monsters” on this manga, and that’s fine, but on this work, were the monsters are almost all fish, they get old fast, losing the impact along with it. It’s easy to get a shark, put some legs on it and call it a monster. The best I can say about it is, besides the beautiful art, that the ending doesn’t have any sequel-bait and just ends things quickly. Don’t read this. If you are interested in Junji Ito’s works, go read Uzumaki, Junji Ito’s Horror Collection or, better yet, The Enigma on Amigara’s Fault, a short tale on the end of this book, great fun and by far the best thing to come out of Gyo. Follow me at mangapan.tumblr.com for more reviews

Remember those B-grade horror films they air on sci-fi quite often? This is pretty much the same thing. If you've ever seen Snakehead Terror, its quite similar to that. I wouldn't recommend reading this after you've eaten, as some of the images are gruesome enough to make your stomach do loop-de-loops in your chest. The story however is very creative, and has many twists and turns you don't see coming, so if you have some down time, drop by onemanga or buy the manga if you have some extra cash, plop yourself down, and you'll never want to eat Sushi again.

Gyo— another masterpiece by Junji Ito after 'Uzumaki', one of the greatest horror manga series that could have ever been made! Having his works equipped with bizarre plots and aberrant visuals, Junji has proved that horror is not necessarily synonymous with 'the ghost with long black hair' or 'the evil, bloodsucking vampires lurking in the bush out there'. He has the ability to create gruesome horror out of anything and everything, even if it is a fish. Fish— that's exactly what he portrays in 'Gyo', well, in an extremely absurd way that is beyond anyone's imagination with Junji being an exception of course. The mangahas nineteen chapters, each having 16-19 pages for the main story, and another chapter that comprises of two short stories which are independent of the main story; the total being twenty chapters. The manga is thus pretty short but by the time I finished reading it, it felt as if I have been through a long journey filled with 'skin crawling' moments. To be precise, I love the story. I'm really impressed with Junji's creativity at horror storytelling. I seriously can never imagine something as unique as that even in the next ten, twenty or thirty years. It has suspense, it has that 'Oh-crap-why-did-that-have-to-happen' feeling and it keeps you turning the pages because you simply have no idea what's going to happen next. The characters are also pretty good. I especially liked the protagonist, Tadashi. He didn't give up in spite of the havoc around him. Instead he chose to stand up to the 'monsters' and protect his girlfriend. The ending, however, turned out to be a disappointment for me. It was not satisfactory and it seemed incomplete. I was so engrossed in reading that I didn't realize it was already over and when the first short story came up, I was literally like, "Huh? What is this?" until I realized that the main story is already finished. Speaking about the two short stories in the end, the first one wasn't really that good. There was no mention of what had happened, how it happened and why it happened. It just happened. The second short story, on the other hand, was fantastic. I might as well call it a little masterpiece of Junji because it is short, hardly around 20 chapters or so, but it was downright creepy. The art is great. It is similar to Junji's other works. The backgrounds are detailed, and the characters and their expressions are also well drawn. The style is well suited for horror manga. To conclude my review, I will say that I recommend this series to all those who love horror and are looking for something unique to read which will stay in the back of their mind for quite a long time, if not forever. But I think it is also necessary to warn you that it has various disturbing visuals and if you think you can't take them, you must stay away from this manga. Story: 9 | Art: 9 | Character: 9 | Enjoyment: 9 | Overall: 9

Gyo – Spoiler Free – Not Recommended TLDR Story – 2/10 – 2 x 0.275 = 0,55 Art – 7/10 – 7 x 0.2 = 1,4 Characters – 1/10 – 1 x 0.225 = 0,225 Enjoyment – 4/10 – 4 x 0.3 = 1,2 Total: 3,375 -> 3Story – 2/10 Gyo’s story isn’t scary at all. Instead, it is quite funny. Genuinely, it probably one of Junji Ito’s funniest stories. There is a sense of strangeness, but it just ends up being funny. There isn’t really much to say about Gyo. It’s a story about a fish invasion in Okinawa and, later on, Tokyo. There is no eerie atmosphere, drama, cliffhanger, suspense, or nothing. We have fishes with legs walking around running amok, fishes with legs inside of plastic bags that float around the city, fishes with legs that are being caught in the sea by fishermen, walking whales invading the city and, later on, mechanical creatures, and some of which fly. There is basically no plot, other than surviving, no intrigue, nothing: we just have panels after planes of fishes walking around the city and creating chaos. There were times when a plot was foreseeable, but rest assured: the story will not deliver! Most, if not all, action scenes are just walking sharks or mechanical creatures pursuing the main characters. The ending is horrendous, and one does not understand why it ended (only for a straightforward aspect that got resolved). This is definitely one of Junji Ito’s worst stories. Art – 7/10 The art is good, in the sense that it is functional. The gore scenes that are meant to be disgusting are nothing more than just a dead fish with legs, ending up being, once again, quite funny. There are some good panels, but definitely nothing too fancy, and none are awe-inspiring. The character design is just the average of a Junji Ito story. And although there are some stories that have memorable panels, this just isn’t the case with Gyo. It doesn’t have problems with panel fluency and is technically well achieved. Characters – 1/10 There are no characters worth mentioning, for they have no personality. Gyo’s isn’t about the characters but the invading fish with legs. Thus, the characters are null and only serve to be pursued or scared by the fish. It is incredibly bland. The “main” characters—Tadashi and Kaori—only fit the aforementioned purpose. In all due honesty, only Koyanagi isn’t all that annoying. Without going into spoilers, Kaori will fill a role other than running, but it is so idiotic that one cannot take it seriously. Mechanical creatures abound. Enjoyment – 4/10 Gyo is a great comic relief, but it cannot be compared to some of his better works, such as Tomie, and cannot definitely be considered a horror story. For being so ludicrous, it deserves a not recommended: the story is bland and outright bad, the premise is stupid, the development is terrible, and the characters are ever worse than the story. Gyo may be made of the stuff of nightmares, but for all the wrong reasons.