GYO by Junji Ito

Rating: 3 / 5

I have seen Junji Ito’s manga talked about around the book community and have been very curious, so I used the Japan prompt for #ReadTheWorld21 as an excuse to pick one of the books up!

GYO begins with a bad smell overtaking the island of Okinawa. Soon fish and other sea creatures with mechanical legs begin to emerge from the ocean and overtake the land, filling the world with the smell of death and bringing sickness or death to everyone in their path. The story primarily follows Tadashi, a young man in Okinawa along with his girlfriend Kaori who is especially sensitive to the smell and one of the first to realize something is wrong.

This was an interesting first foray into Junji Ito’s work. I was expecting a bit more of the horror element than the story provided. This is really more about shock value and even a bit of humor at times as the story takes turn after turn taking these creatures to an extreme. I did like the overall art style of this and it was an entertaining read overall, but not one that called me back after I set it down.

I have heard that this is maybe not the best of the author’s work to satisfy my wish for horror manga, so I will definitely check out more in the future!