Tomie

I had read Junji Itou's 'Uzumaki' around two years ago and was impressed by his creativity at horror storytelling because it actually made me freak out (which rarely happens to me while reading horror manga). And that was one reason why I picked up 'Tomie' nearly two years later. The other reason was, well, I wanted to pass my time. When I read the plot, I was excited and expected it to be as scary and thrilling as 'Uzumaki' was, or if possible, more than that. However, it turned out to be a bit of disappoint for me by the time I reached the 6thchapter. Why? Because, there is basically one common plot for every chapter with different settings and different set of characters. The story basically goes like this: There is a pretty, attractive girl named Tomie who can make almost every man fall for her, and then due to some absolutely out-of-the-blue circumstance, she is beheaded or cut into pieces (how scary and ridiculous does that sound?), and then she regenerates herself in an utterly pathetic manner to spread havoc and shed gallons of blood! Each chapter portrays Tomie as the antagonist who never dies. None of the chapters mentions or gives at least a subtle hint about her past or why she is like that. Is she a witch? A monster? Or perhaps an alien with the power of regeneration?! No one really knows. The mangaka uses this as a frame for each chapter. When I began to read the manga, I honestly enjoyed reading the first few chapters but gradually it became boring and I lost interest, mainly due to the use of the same plot again and again for every chapter. The art is quite good because it has realistic human figures unlike the mainstream manga art styles with the characters having large eyes and abnormally long limbs! It is perfect for portraying horror and gore. The characters are nothing special. They are not likable but not unlikable either. This is mainly due to the fact that every chapter has different characters who play their roles and when the particular chapter is over, their roles are over as well. This way we don't get to know the characters properly. Tomie is of course an exception as she is the primary character but I feel that the mangaka's purpose to create her character is only to scare the readers. You hardly get to know anything else about her. To conclude my review, I'd say that you may pick this one if you're looking for something scary and freaky to read but most probably you'll end up losing interest in it after reading the first few chapters like it happened in my case. Story: 7 | Art: 8 | Character: 6 | Enjoyment: 7 | Overall: 7

The story started out great, and I was really engaged in who and what the main character, Tomie, was. There is constant dread and disturbing imagery as one can expect from a Junji Ito story. Unfortunately, the story became very repetitive about halfway through, and I felt like my patience didn't pay off by the time I got to the ending. The fact that most if not all of the characters were unlikable did not really help. Without spoiling it, I can say that it does a good job of providing commentary on certain issues like victim blaming and jealousy for example. It's definitely notjust a gory and shallow manga, but it ran a little too long for me, only to end when things became slightly more interesting again. I love a lot of Junji Ito's works but I struggled with this one.

Tomie is one of my favorite manga, so ill try not to be as biased. Now before you start reading Tomie, beware that its intended for adults only since it depicts extremely graphic scenes. There isnt really a main Story, there are some minor and major arcs, there is one character, Tomie, that always reappears in each of the different stories though. Each story has something that makes it interesting in its own with different kinds of side-characters being impacted differently by the main character. It's hard trying to explain the story without spoiling so if this review wakes your interest you should definitely check itout. The art-style is pretty unusual from what you normally see, personally I actually quite like the more depressing, realistic approach from Junji Ito. Considering the age of the manga it's quite impressing. It might be a bit off-putting for those who have only read the more usual stuff but you should definitely give the arstyle a chance. As i said before there is one reoccuring character throughout the story and that is Tomie. So ill warn you now there might be some spoilers ahead! Tomie isnt quite like other main character, throughout the story her actions and personality is similar, but the character is never actually the same person, she lives on forever basically. She also has the special ability to seduce any man she wants and make said man do a certain thing. Again if you want to know more definitely read the manga. I greatly enjoyed Tomie from the beginning to the end, it was different, it was special and it sometimes scared the living shit out of me. A great combination in my opinion 9/10