‘Tomie’ by Junji Ito is my ‘twenty-seventh’ read of the year and my first manga ever.

I’ve used quotations because I’ve been reading ‘Tomie’ for quite some time now. My good friend, Leander, gifted me ‘Tomie’ for Christmas about two years ago, if memory serves. Based on his recommendation, I read ‘Tomie’ in small bites. I alternated between a non-manga novel and a chapter of ‘Tomie’. (Each chapter tells a different story, for the most part. A few follow the previous story arc, but most are self-contained tales.) This way, it took me a while to get to the end, but boy, I enjoyed this way of digesting the material.

I don’t know how to summarise ‘Tomie’ other than it’s about a girl who has power over men. This power drives them mad and leads to them committing unspeakable acts of violence. They perform these deeds, more often than not, against Tomie herself. And herein lies the weird nature of this manga: Tomie cannot die. She returns and multiplies like the proliferation of a metastasized tumour. The twisted tales are pitch-black, the likes of which one rarely comes across in Western media.

I am a massive horror nerd and am okay with gross-out scenes and weird visuals. That might be why Leander gifted this tome—see what I did there?—to me. Ito’s art style is sublime. He shies away from nothing and gives the reader some horrific images. It’s a testament to his mastery that he somehow manages to achieve jump scares, even in the written form.

As someone who had never felt compelled to read a manga before, all I can say is: damn, I was missing out. I’ll check out more in the future—especially the other collections by Junji Ito. You might be like me and love everything creepy but have avoided mangas. If so, do yourself a favour and pick up ‘Tomie’; it’s a great place to start.

But here’s a fair warning: it’s not for the faint of heart.