There were a few stories which were neither, which was very unusual in a horror book. In other stories, Tomie is the victim and she suffers at the hand of others, and later she comes back to haunt her oppressors and take revenge. In some stories, Tomie does bad things or makes people around her do bad things. I loved stories from each of these categories, but I loved the standalones more. There are other stories which are independent, and which can be read as standalones. Some of them tell new stories with the characters which appeared before. Some of them continue from where the previous story left off. And we have this beautiful, scary, delightful 750+ page horror manga book. Junji Ito being the smart guy, chooses the second one. The second explanation is scary and offers delightful possibilities in the telling of the story. It will probably lead to an old-fashioned revenge thriller. The first explanation is simple and logical.

The second is that Tomie has come back from the dead. One is that the new Tomie is an impostor. So according to them, there can be only two explanations. They are sure that the real Tomie is dead. But other classmates seem to know something that we, the readers, don’t. Everyone looks at the class entrance, and who do they find? It is Tomie! She’s alive and kicking and acts as if nothing has happened! Some classmates feel that the dead person must be a different person and it was a case of mistaken identity. At that point, there is a knock on the door. Their teacher tells them that they have to be careful as the murderer hasn’t been caught yet. After her funeral, the students go back to class. It is later discovered that she is dead, brutally murdered. High school students go on a hike up the mountain, as part of a class trip. So finally decided to read ‘ Tomie‘ which was his first book. I’ve wanted to read a Junji Ito book for a while.

Tomie junji