English Dub Review: Junji Ito Collection “Collection No. 041: Fashion Model / Collection No. 084: Long Dreams”

People of all shapes and sizes.

Overview:

A highly unusual fashion model is invited to a movie set. Elsewhere, a man suffers from dreams so long that they are rapidly changing him.

Our Take:

The favorite model from hell is back. We never really get an explanation of what exactly Fuchi is, but she is a monster of some sort. She has rows of fangs, looks too strange to be perfectly human, and consumes the flesh of those she finds to be rivals or instigators. It was a bit surprising to hear that Fuchi has a relatively normal voice, but it makes sense. She can pass for something human, as long as you don’t see her or meet her face to face.

Fuchi of course, can’t be reasoned with. She is the idea of consuming beauty to become more beautiful yourself taken to the extreme. She gets jealous that she isn’t in front of the camera, so she takes her revenge on her castmates and the film crew. Her hearing that Iwasaki is fond of her (even though it’s a lie) made her happy, and so she does whatever she can to get them alone together. While everyone has jealousy and obsessions, Fuchi takes her emotions to the highest level.

By contrast, the second story is much more toned-down. Tetsurou suffers from long dreams, enough that his body begins to age to reflect how long he’s dreamed. His body begins to degenerate, or rather, change into something that more reflects his mental state. It’s implied that the creature he transforms into is where human evolution is heading, which is a terrifying thought. His fellow patient, Mami, suffers from heightened intuition and a severe fear of death, and the doctor realizes that the only way to cure her is to trap her in her own dreams. She ends up transforming just like Tetsurou, so whether it was worth it or not is questionable.

Of course, the anime is not the same without Junji Ito’s signature style. While the studio is no doubt trying, the images seem a lot more flat without the heavy shadows that Ito usually relies on. Still, they definitely get the mood right, of incomprehensible monsters or phenomena escalating in danger, and the inability to communicate with them.

Score
8.0/10