Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection

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There were a few stories about Ito's dog that I just didn't get. I think things may have been lost in translation with those stories. The main theme throughout is that of alternate dimensions and inter-dimensional travel. It’s really fun to see how these stories link and see how it all unfolds for Oshikiri and his group of classmates. Frankenstein is the sixteenth volume in the Horror World of Junji Ito series. It is an adaptation of the Mary Shelley novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. It was originally published in Japan in three parts from 1994 to 1998. The collected edition was first published in 1998. To date, it has not been released officially in English, but has been scanlated in its entirety. The Cherished Collection, a re-print from 2000, contains two added chapters: Ito Junji's Dog Diary (detailing Ito's experiences of owning a dog named Lulu), and Fixed Face. I really enjoyed this collection. The Frankenstein section was so good and I loved seeing his visuals with one of my favourite stories of all time. Junji Ito's style lends itself so well to gothic horror! It matched the story so perfectly and his Frankenstein's Monster was genuinely quite hard to look at in some panels. I never really cared to read this one previously. I’ve read Frankenstein, and I’m about hearing new stories, new concepts, etc.

Frankenstein by Junji Ito | Goodreads Frankenstein by Junji Ito | Goodreads

The Walls is my favourite story of the collection. An earthquake opens up some old walls in the house revealing the corpses buried within them - and then his long-missing parents suddenly return from working abroad. Or are they his parents…? Definitely the scariest and most macabre story here. I loved Ito's view of Frankenstein's story, and the art has breathed some new prespective into Mary Shelly's classic. However, some alterations on the story I felt were not the best, even though I can relate to the reason behind them. Its definitely a good read for fans of the original, and for fans of Junji Ito's style of horror and art, though definitely not where you should start your Junji Ito journey, as it doesn't display his true original work and mindset. His longest work, the three-volume Uzumaki, is about a town's obsession with spirals: people become variously fascinated with, terrified of, and consumed by the countless occurrences of the spiral in nature. Apart from the ghastly, convincingly-drawn deaths, the book projects an effective atmosphere of creeping fear as the town's inhabitants become less and less human, and more and more bizarre things begin to happen. The first half of the book is a condensed version of mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Although it is extremely simplified it manages to maintain the philosophy and emotion of the original while being illustrated with Ito's unmatched horror.Hmm, all of these short stories seem to feature Oshikiri in some capacity. Here he meets a girl with no friends and befriends her. Things start going strange as she corresponds with her pen pals. In this graphic version, the story of Frankenstein only stayed true until half of the story. (The other half portrayed Frankenstein’s monster as more vicious and heartless compared to the original version. Henry too found out about what Frankenstein did and was killed in pursuit of the monster. In the book, he was unaware of the monster's existence until the monster killed him. The monster meticulously planned as such that Frankenstein was to be accused as Henry's killer in another town.) I think the majority of society knows the story of Frankenstein at this point, whether through pop culture or actually reading Mary Shelley's novel. This version, Junji Ito's graphic novel telling, is easily one of my favorites. His Frankenstein adaptation takes up more or less half of the book. Although I could see nothing wrong in the technical aspect of the narrative, (on the contrary, it has remained faithful to the original material), the story itself is way off with Ito's trademark manga elements. It doesn't have the usual bizarre obsession over something that almost always spirals down to a horrific and grotesque end. The story does't call for such anyway. His take Frankenstein nonetheless can perhaps be considered as a better graphic adaptation of the novel.

REVIEW: Junji Ito’s FRANKENSTEIN stands as one of the best REVIEW: Junji Ito’s FRANKENSTEIN stands as one of the best

In this story, children have begun falling victim to early onset "doll's disease" which causes them to slowly turn into doll-like structures incapable of movement or speech. When a young girl named Maria falls victim to the disease, her parents try to console themselves with the thought that she will always look like a beautiful doll, and can remain with them forever. They cannot understand why the parents of other victims of the disease throw their children away. However, when Maria continues to grotesquely decay and mutate, including growing tentacles and hideously elongated limbs, her parents are forced to finally lay her to rest.Oshikiri meets some friends who are really into the supernatural. The subject of alternate dimensions comes up and starts playing a part in a lot of these stories. Oshikiri's house is some kind of gateway.

Frankenstein by Junji Ito | Goodreads

He was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself.Also included are six tales of Oshikiri — a high school student who lives in a decaying mansion connected to a haunted parallel world. Uncanny doppelgängers, unfortunately murdered friends, and a whole lot more are in store for him. Junji Ito adapts Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein in this book, which also includes a number of short stories, most of them featuring a creepy kid called Oshikiri. I wasn’t that taken with the Frankenstein adaptation but the short stories were pretty decent.