Books
[Anime Horrors] Exploring the Emotional Heartache of Junji Ito’s ‘No Longer Human’
Happy New Year and welcome to the first installment of 2020’s Anime Horrors!
Before diving into the main focus of this article, I want to share my gratitude once again for all of those who enjoy this column. This month marks the one year anniversary of Anime Horrors; it has been such an awesome experience to write about and share anime with all of you. This year I’m excited to once again explore all kinds of titles; from the classics to contemporary works, I’ll be covering a wide variety of amazing shows, movies, and manga. So without further ado, let’s begin.
I am kicking 2020 off with a really special review – Junji Ito’s No Longer Human.
Anyone who knows me, or who has followed this column, knows I love the work of Junji Ito. His drawings and stories elicit a profound unease; his utilizing of line work, shadowing, as well as his understanding of the manga medium, allows him to lure readers into surreal nightmares. But No Longer Human is a different type of horror – it is existential horror of the mind, of mental illness and dread.
No Longer Human not only makes for another fantastic release from Ito, but also marks another venture into adaptation. For those unaware, this manga is based on the 1948 novel of the same name (written by Osamu Dazai). The novel is considered Dazai’s masterpiece, with some even speculating that it acted as his suicide letter. The novel contains an autobiographical quality, addressing themes of emotional and mental suffering associated with Dazai’s life. With his manga adaption, released this past December, Junji Ito not only translates the emotional brutality of Dazai’s novel, but he even elevates its air of despair.
No Longer Human follows Ōba Yōzō (who may have been a stand-in for Dazai). Yōzō narrates the plot to the reader, describing his struggles with addiction, relationships, and mental health. Yōzō is introduced as a child from a prestigious family; due to the pressures set forth by his father, as well as his own anxieties, Yōzō strives to make people like him. His extraneous efforts to clown around serve his needs for external validation; eventually, his clowning around leads him to risky behavior with horrifying consequences.
The “horrifying” in this sense is not that of gruesome visuals or otherworldly beings (though these are present throughout the manga); instead, the core that makes up No Longer Human’s horror is that of a permeating despair. Through Yōzō’s narration, the reader comes to understand his internal workings and warped sense of reality. Though nothing is officially stated in the plot, Yōzō displays symptoms related to anxiety and depression, further building upon his constant state of suffering. As the story progresses, Yōzō’s mental state fluctuates, his warped notions leading him to commit a number of hurtful acts upon others.
For all his own personal torment, however, Yōzō is not that great of a person. He is flawed, even cruel at times. With each new chapter, Yōzō’s life continues to spiral into an existence of heartache. The consequences of his actions, as well as his mental state, come together to create a somber experience where the prospect of hope gradually disappears.
As I was reading the manga, I could not help but think about Lars Von Trier’s 2018 film The House That Jack Built. While that film’s protagonist and Yōzō are significantly different people with different beliefs, the essence of their stories are similar to a fascinating degree. Along with the flashback structure they embrace, both narratives share a spiritual similarity in how their protagonists analyze the world and themselves. In the way Von Trier’s Jack ruminates on life and the actions of human beings, Yōzō does the same. Yōzō’s narration not only provides context to his character, it also elevates the story’s emotional impact – No Longer Human isn’t a story just to be read, but to be felt.
For an artist so well known for his striking visuals, No Longer Human proves to be one of Ito’s more fascinating works in regards to plot. That said, Ito does provide unique and haunting artwork to convey the agony of Yōzō’s life. Unlike his past works, however, he does not dive that deeply into gory body horror. Much of the art involves Ito emphasizing body language, portraying depressive moods and unease. The manner in which he depicts empty eyes and uses shadows to heighten internal turmoil displays a unique expansion upon his craft – that beyond the brutality of the body, Ito’s illustrations are able to translate emotional pain. Additionally, there are a few pages that include interesting uses of color.
There and then Ito provides chilling imagery to coincide with the narrative’s moments of supernatural horror. As Yōzō’s psyche worsens at certain points, his and the reader’s understanding of what’s real and what’s a hallucination become muddy. With his artwork, Ito makes the everyday life of Yōzō come across as a nightmare.
No Longer Human is a large work, its pages just passing the 600 mark. If one approaches this manga assuming it will be like Ito’s past titles, please be aware it is not like such – this is a more psychological, plot driven work. Ito’s masterful artwork, as well as the fascinating story, allow No Longer Human to be a superb experience of emotional horror.
It’s ironic that one year ago I began Anime Horrors with a review of another Junji Ito adaptation, being that of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I’m very excited about where this column will lead in the new year. I hope you check out Junji Ito’s No Longer Human and I look forward to catching up again next month.
Thanks to Viz Media for providing a review copy of No Longer Human. You can find multiple links to purchase No Longer Human, as well as free preview of the story, here.
Chuck Tingle‘s writing is embedded with a particular tonal trick that makes him perfectly suited to horror. “Propulsive” is the first word that comes to mind when I think of Tingle’s energetic prose, and when his books start wrapping themselves around characters and digging through their various complexities, it’s easy to be pulled along, absorbed in the feeling that an old friend is simply telling you a story.
Then Tingle will drop one of the single creepiest bits of imagery you’ve ever read, and you’re right back in the horror space. It’s not always a jump scare, but it is always a pulsing feeling of dread that keeps you hooked through the rest of the book.
Fabulous Bodies, Tingle’s latest horror novel, carries on these gifts, and the promise Tingle showed on books like Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays. His fiction’s growing ever more confident and precise, and his eye for horrific detail hasn’t dimmed in the least, making this a summer reading delight for horror fans.
Poppy is a single mother determined to make a better life for her daughter, particularly after growing up in group homes and foster systems. By day, she works hard to keep up the flow of upbeat, enthusiastic content as a fashion influencer, and while that’s going well, it’s not yet making ends meet. To make up the difference, she moonlights as a grave robber, lifting bodies from morgues and funeral homes and selling their pieces on the black market. It’s grueling, dangerous work, and it’s about to pay off big. Out of the blue, Poppy gets a call to transport the newly dead body of her musical hero, the legendary Eddie Michaels. It’s a weird gig, but the payout is big enough that she could walk away from her macabre side gig forever. Poppy takes the job, and things get complicated when Eddie turns out to be, well, only mostly dead.
From the moment Eddie’s corpse enters the picture, Fabulous Bodies takes on the vibe of a road novel, as the grave robber and the undead rock star make stop after stop, and Poppy tries again and again to wrap her mind about what she’s gotten herself into, and how she might get herself out. It’s a delightful premise, and Tingle never loses his grip on the fun of it. No matter how dark the novel gets, and it does get quite dark, the narrative keeps barreling forward, delivering macabre laughs and moments of beautifully gruesome invention along the way.
Because he’s set his protagonist up as a fashion influencer, Tingle has lots of room to play in the space of how we view human bodies, both alive and dead, how we use them, and what we value in them. This is the emotional core of Fabulous Bodies, and while it’s sometimes overshadowed by the runaway train of the plot, it remains a potent source of thematic exploration throughout the book, and it gets more complicated when you consider certain gifts Eddie’s been granted in his strange supernatural state.
In essence, we’re looking at a story about a grave robber who discovers a body that not only fights back, but takes control of any given situation. That throws Poppy for repeated loops and keeps the plot moving, but it also makes us consider on a deeper level exactly what we value about our own physical form, and what might happen when we lose our grip on it entirely.
The book’s themes and emotional concerns hum through the whole narrative, but the overwhelming impression I got while reading Fabulous Bodies was just how much damn fun this book is. I couldn’t stop reading it, not just because it’s so filled with sudden swerves and ghoulish setpieces, but because Tingle has honed his horror storytelling down to a fine, very sharp point. Fabulous Bodies moves like a roller coaster, complete with a tension-filled ramp-up and a finale that’ll leave you breathless by the time the ride is over.
If you haven’t been reading Chuck Tingle’s horror work up to this point, it’s time to get on board, because he’s just getting started, and he’s already mastered the art of the scary page-turner.
Fabulous Bodies is available now.
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