Rating: 2/5
Part of the reason that I even bought this book was because 1. I was on a Junji Ito high and 2. because it matches my copies of Uzumaki and Tomie. But I must say, this has been the worst one to date. Between the lackluster premise and the unlikable characters, it missed the mark. Of course, the drawings were all top-notch. This book at least characterized Ito's talent as a horror artist and his ability to invent something creepy out of nothing. Just, a book with walking fish that are walking because of gassy germs that have fused with bio-metal legs and are now overrunning Japan/stinking up the place, is such a weird concept. It's the kind of weird that slips into bad territory very quickly. There were so many butt tubes and so many farting characters that I don't know how I was supposed to take any of this seriously. I was really just cringing through two thirds of the book. I will give Ito this, he gave us some exposition. After the complete lack of explanation in Tomie, I thought this one might end up in a similar fashion. Luckily, the backstory that he created was believable enough to explain the weird mechanically invaded fish population. Though I'm still not sure if they are gassy gems or gassy germs/ghosts, he kind of doubled back on that. I'm not going to lie, I was more interested in the two bonus short stories at the end than I was in Gyo in general. At a certain point, I was just waiting for it to end so that I could read something else. Of all of Ito's works that I've read to date, this one is the most skippable. I recommend saving your money and just buying Uzumaki instead. Uzumaki has been the best in terms of long-form content.
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