MOAN - JUNJI ITO — Out Here.

I’m glad we’re getting more and more Ito in English. When I lived in Japan, I got to see a museum retrospective on his work. It was amazing to see the original pages, to see the pencil outlines he made before inking, the crazy detail he puts into the big, horrific splash-pages. I don’t bring that up just to brag, but to point out that several of the stories in this collection seem to have been written from the splash panel backwards. As in, he had a gnarly, disgusting, fucked-up idea for a drawing, and then built a story with that imagine in mind. Which is why some of these stories end really abruptly and the pacing can seem weird. But, these critiques aside, this volume is amazing. Some of the best short stories he’s written are contained in this volume, especially the first 3 stories. There’s some classic Ito freakiness in here, especially Blood Orb Grove, which might be my favorite short story of his ever, and certainly contains one of the greatest images he’s ever drawn. I’m always impressed by the ways that Ito weaves Japanese cultural concerns into his work, there’s stuff that touches on the importance that Japanese folks place on keeping a clean home, there is a story that seems to reference the Shugendō practice of meditating under a waterfall and also includes a kaiju-like creature. And when he riffs on a more Western trope, like the vampire, he gives us such a strange, bizarre version, it’s clear it could have only come from him. I wonder how much more Ito needs to be translated into English. I don’t really read Manga, so I am in no position to evaluate him against his peers, but I will say, from my perspective, he’s a total original, a nasty freak, and someone who’s always worth reading. I would say this volume would be a good starting point if you didn’t want to read one of the classic, longer-form pieces.