The Winter 2021 Manga Guide

Deserter: Junji Ito Story Collection

What's It About? 

An ever-increasing malice. A mind-numbing terror. The seeds of horror are sown in this collection of the renowned mangaka's early works.

Viz is scheduled to release Deserter: Junji Ito Story Collection on December 21

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Every time we do the manga guide, there's a new Junji Ito title to include. Mostly that's a good thing – his brand of horror is so unsettling that even things I previously found innocuous become things of abject terror. This volume, however, crosses a few lines for me that brings it down from my usual enjoyment of Ito's work. Mostly that's in the final two stories in the book, the eponymous “Deserter” and its predecessor, “Bullied.” Technically speaking, “Deserter” falls more into the “terror” (psychological horror) category than the rest of the pieces in the book; it's about a young man who deserted during World War Two and asked a friend to hide him at their farm. When one of the friend's sisters dies during his stay – through no fault of the deserter – the rest of the family determines to not tell the man when the war ends, and nine years later, they're still pretending the war is on. The reveal at the end makes it clear that they're not the only ones who can hold a grudge, and there is a satisfying symmetry to that. But the casual cruelty on display for most of the story is the sort of distasteful that can ruin a story for me. The same goes for “Bullied,” which also features a revenge element, but the scenes of a girl tormenting a younger boy cross a line. I'm perfectly fine with gore, but the torture of a child is a step too far for me.

Beyond those two pieces, the book is the usual slightly uneven mix of grim and scary. The more psychological “A Father's Love” stands out as a highlight of the volume, featuring a father who was forced to work for his entire childhood attempts to relive it by possessing his children; his predation is presaged by the kids getting migraines, which absolutely hit me where I live. Likewise “The Long Hair in the Attic” is just the right kind of terrifying as it plays with both the ideas of a woman growing her hair out for a man and the torment of having been dumped by someone you changed yourself for. Again there's a vengeance element to this one, but it feels wholly deserved and isn't tempered by the mutual cruelty of “Deserter” and “Bullied,” which I think makes it more effective as a horror piece. Also it gave me a fear of rats getting tangled in my long hair, so thanks for that, Junji Ito.

As always, Ito's art is detailed and dark, both elements that help to keep the stories working in their genre. There is a fair amount of body horror present in the tales, with “Where the Sandman Lives” being the stand out in the arena, followed closely by “Bio House.” One story, “Village of the Siren,” involves copious amounts of murdered infants, so if that's a button for you, be aware that that story may be one to skip. On the whole this is another good collection, more strong than not, and very much in touch with the things that make us scream or shiver.

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Christopher Farris

Rating:

Junji Ito needs no introduction, though I do get the sense that some people who are aware of his work make an assumption or two about what it all encompasses. I know folks averse to horror media who have avoided the man's manga on account of that, his reputation for profound terror being too concerning an element to take the plunge on. So I feel it's important to note that Ito's experienced storytelling sensibilities, while naturally swinging towards the creepy end of things a lot of the time, really aren't always delivering the kind of paralyzing, pants-wetting scary times you might expect from a known master of the genre. Rather, Ito is actually more about conducting odd thought experiments about potential spins on our own reality, following bizarre logical jumps to their own conclusion, or most often, just drawing some really weird shit because he has the ideas and artistic capabilities to do so. More than anything, that appeal to the askew is the tone that comes through in the anthology that is Deserter.

One of my favorite things about Ito as a storyteller is his extremely palpable understanding of the intertwining sensibilities of horror and comedy storytelling. So many of his chapters, including much of what's present in Deserter, are all about setting up situations to simply deliver some sort of imaginatively macabre 'punch line', and then end. No full resolution is needed, because the real point of the story is simply landing on that impactful image. The best of the stories in this collection pull that off even with fairly lengthy setup phases, with favorites of mine being ones like 'Scripted Love' and 'Bullied'. These entries actually eschew any supernatural elements, relying on drawing us in with messed-up people who get involved in messed-up situations, and seeing the effect that ultimately has on them as payoff. But even the more fantastical pieces simply put some of Ito's other strengths on display, namely his scarily strong grasp of depicting dream logic and highlighting its oddities for a waking mind.

The anthology format (and Ito's general wide net of efforts) does mean some of these entries are necessarily going to be hit or miss, and several of them feel distinctly undercooked or B-tier. In particular, 'Village of the Siren' spends what feels like a needlessly long amount of setup before delivering a conclusion that even the story itself notes as 'abrupt'. A few of the other longer chapters have similar issues with dragging things out, but at least the overall presentation and atmosphere remain as tight as you expect from Ito, and I do appreciate the sense of seeing him experiment a bit. Deserter, I think, might make a good choice to pick up for someone curious about Ito, but not yet wanting to steel themselves for some of his more well-known utterly scary works.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

There really isn't a way to describe Junji Ito without underselling his contributions to modern-day Japanese horror. There's a part of me that wishes I could explore the inner machinations of his mind but there is also a part of me that would be worried I wouldn't be able to escape. Deserter is a collection of some of his stories and a lot of them are framed like Twilight Zone episodes where there is some random unexplained frightening supernatural force that ends up impacting people's lives in a usually bloody or body-horror inducing fashion. So obviously it goes without saying that if you are not a fan of gore or body mutilation of any kind, then I highly recommend staying far away from this collection and reading something much lighter.

However, even if this isn't your cup of tea, it's hard to deny the artistry that is on display with some of these earlier works of his. I have personally not read a lot of Ito's works so it's hard to see exactly how the stories selected for this collection shape up compared to his later works. However, there were a few standouts that tickled my imagination, like a body folding into itself for the sake of escaping a dream and I'm a sucker for those general abstract concepts. My biggest complaint regarding the collection kind of stems from the fact that every story feels like it could almost justify its own manga and while I'm sure this was the intention, some do just end a little bit too abruptly. Maybe this stems from the fact that at the time, Ito had not yet fully fleshed out his ability to weave narrative into his striking imagery but that's a rather large presumption on my part. If you are a fan of horror, specifically Japanese horror, and have never heard of Ito then this is probably a great place to start, but if you're already a fan of his then let's face it – this is probably already in your shopping cart.