English Dub Review: Junji Ito Collection “Collection No. 068: Souichi’s Convenient Curses / Collection No. 090: Hellish Doll Funeral”

Have you ever wanted to curse your classmates?

Overview:

A young boy terrorizes his classmates with curses. In a different story, a couple’s daughter is afflicted with a horrible disease that turns her into a doll.

Our Take:

I never thought that Junji Ito would ever get an anime— not because of the content of his works, but because his stuff is really hard to adapt. If you look at any page of Ito’s work, it heavily relies on negative space and shadow, and so it requires a ton of ink. Check out Naoki Urasawa no Manben‘s episode on him– the detail he puts into his art is amazing. It really helps the creepy atmosphere, but the particular mood is hard to translate to animation. Overall, Studio DEEN is not an ideal studio, but they did a decent job.

The first installment in the series is a familiar one, beating the infamous nail-chewing boy, Souichi. Souchi is a recurring character in Ito’s stories, often popping up to make trouble with his curses. This time is no different, where he terrorizes his classmates as his grudges accumulate. Souichi cycles between menacing and pathetic. He cowers in the face of consequences and is quick to run away. Even though he despises his normal family, they have more power than him, and he runs away whenever they confront him. He is quick to imagine the conflict between his classmates, even ones that don’t exist. Even when he is saved by his older brother, he refuses to be thankful. However, his ability to make curses is real, and whatever torment he inflicts upon his dolls comes true to the people in real life. The story constantly cycles between Souichi’s attacks on his classmates and him cowering in the background.

This is one of Ito’s more comedic stories, which is a strange way to open the series. Granted, starting out too strong with say, Tomie or Amigara Fault, would make the rest of the stories pale in comparison. Considering that Ito is known for his gruesome horror, starting out with a more lighthearted segment doesn’t really reflect all of Ito’s work. It definitely nabs the uneasiness though.

The second installment, featuring a doll-creating disease, is much more attune with Ito’s general ideology, aka body horror. Nothing says Junji Ito more than degenerating flesh and gruesome corpses!

Altogether, a strange start, but I’m still looking forward to more.