The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

Black Paradox

What's It About? 

Marusō meets up with three others for a group suicide, but immediately, something seems off about the entire situation. After a series of strange, supernatural close calls threatens to end the foursome's lives before they can kill themselves, they're led to another bizarre discovery about what may actually wait for them in the Great Beyond— and what they can bring back from there.

Black Paradox has story and art by Junji Ito, with English translation by Jocelyne Allen and lettering by Eric Erbes, and Viz will release the volume both digitally and physically on October 25.



Content Warning: Suicide ideation

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Is It Worth Reading?

Christopher Farris

Rating:

Being the obligatory Junji Ito inclusion for this season's Manga Guide, I don't know if Black Paradox is one that makes the best introduction to the author for the still-uninitiated. It's a bit too aside and uneven compared to the works that define his appeal and legacy in the manga landscape. Depending on how familiar you actually are with Ito's repertoire, it can come off like a 'hybrid' or 'experimental' work. Opening with a conceptual story that wouldn't be out of place as one of the one-shots in the author's anthologies, it climaxes with a sequence of revelatory 'punchlines' that exemplifies the tightrope between horror and comedy that Ito has always reveled in walking. In fact, Black Paradox adheres so closely to Ito's signature short story structure that you'd almost be forgiven for thinking this whole book was going to be another short-story collection, before the following chapter rolls up and that initially-introduced plot just…keeps going. It provides a unique appeal for those who might have gotten into Ito through those aforementioned anthologies: the chance to see one of his wild little campfire stories continue past its odd, esoteric initial stopping point.

It results in some interestingly interior idea-based escalations as Black Paradox goes on. Characters rotate in and out of focal points as their relation to death and the afterlife – and their expectations regarding arrival to it – are explored. This can create a strong, gnawing sense of unease and existential dread in the book's best moments. But at the same time, that switching-around approach means some chapters of the story are going to come off more effective than others. Points like that are exemplified in parts like the last stretch of the book, wherein Marusō, ostensibly the main character, gets indisposed for a stretch so another character introduced only a little earlier can swerve into antagonism and initiate the last couple of major story escalations. It can feel uneven if you're here to read this story's arcs as more insight into Ito's ideas on humanity and personal interiority, as they mostly end up working as plot devices to move pieces of the story around, and wrap by extolling some of what we're supposed to have learned from this experience. As well, honing in so much on that sort of experimental meditation means Black Paradox doesn't really come off as 'scary' in the traditional sense either.

Even without a lot of page-turn jump-scares, Ito's art is still reliably solid. His knack for sequential storytelling gets some appreciated breathing room with the larger page count, and the sheer strangeness of plenty of the visual punch-lines still land with their audacious shocks. It lacks some of the mind-invading memorability of Ito's other more infamous images, but it's no less effective for the clear effort that's been put in and the consistency that results for a book that is overall an experimental curiosity.

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Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Trust Junji Ito to take something that's already upsetting and make it even more so. Black Paradox follows four people who meet on a group suicide website (the eponymous Black Paradox) and agree to die together. On the way there, they discover that three of the four are more or less fleeing their doppelgangers, and then suddenly things get really weird when one of their number dies but is revived and begins barfing up beautiful, black opal-like stones. Before too long, greed takes over suicide ideation, and the terror of the stones' beauty and power takes on a life of its own.

Whether you agree with it or not, it is sometimes said that suicide is a selfish act. (I'm not agreeing or disagreeing here, just repeating.) Ito seems to take that idea and run with it, tracing the characters' desire to die and mixing it with their later greed for the wealth the stones can bring them, even as it costs lives, livelihoods, and free will. The trajectory of the story is that poor choices lead to even worse ones, with the fate of humanity eventually tied to the power the stones have over people's desire and imaginations growing to dangerous proportions. It's an interesting route for the story to take, because it essentially is turning tragedy into horror. It's also perhaps one of Ito's more upsetting story paths, because the base subject matter, suicide, isn't handled with anything remotely like empathy, sympathy, or anything else psychologically appropriate. This is a horror manga, after all, so that does give him some leeway, but do be aware that if this is a sensitive or triggering topic for you, you may want to give this book a pass.

It's also not quite as well put-together as some of Ito's other works, although some of that seems like a deliberate attempt to confuse readers with questions of who and what is real. The fact the stones come from “the other side” (as in the land of the dead) certainly raises some interesting questions about perceptions of paradise, especially since none of the souls seem all that happy in their gem form. There's also an interesting connection between two specific words that begin with “para”: “paradise” and “parasite.” Although Ito doesn't explicitly spell this similarity out, it still seems as if he's deliberately relying upon it, and that's one of the strongest and most interesting elements of the story.

Even if Ito is an insta-buy for you, Black Paradox may be more of a library book than one you need to own. It's good, but not quite as good as some of his other works – although it does nothing that risks dethroning him as the reigning king of horror manga.