First exposure to Junji Ito ˎˊ˗ 

07/20/25

❛ Venus in the Blind Spot ❜ 

Includes mild spoilers

I've been wanting to read a Junji Ito manga for awhile now. Every time I pass by the manga section at my local Indigo, I always see a book by him, whether it's Uzumaki or Tomie. My classmate even once wrote a review on No Longer Human in my school press. As a fan of slice-of-life, and more milder books, horror is not quite my cup of tea, especially in reads. However, in case you haven't read my review on Kill Bill Vol. 1, I am someone who becomes increasingly inclined to consume media the more exposure I receive to it. Needless to say, I decided that I had to read something by him. Fortunately, a book caught my eye yesterday. Venus in the Blind Spot (Venus). Upon seeing its colourful cover, and "short stories" plastered on the cover, I was ecstatic. It seemed like an easy entry point to Junji Ito's works. The truth is, I had previously tried reading some of his works. However, No Longer Human seemed too heavy and overall too absurd for me to continue past 20 pages. Venus was a lot easier on the eyes, especially given that several chapters started with coloured pages (they were like little treats! Good encouragement...).

I throughly liked his art. I loved the fact that he established a balance of "conventional" and uncanny and bizarre art. For example, in "Master Umezz and Me", he used an unusually large amount of bizarre art, with the bug-out eyes and all-too-wide grin on himself. I found this usage intentional — I interpreted it as a way to show the absurdly and insatiable passion Ito held in Umezz's works and in kyōfu manga. His passion grew way beyond a hobby, and it almost seemed as though it was fetish-like, in the sense that it was portrayed so unsettling, beyond our comfort zone. I thought that was pretty dope!

To expand on that "grotesque" style that Ito seems to use so much in Venus (and also in the first 20 pages of No Longer Human, which was what pushed me away), he seems to do the same with the concepts of his stories as well. With the story of the man cheating with the doll, "An Unearthly Love", it reminded me of the fact that so many people have childhood toys and blankets that they cherish dearly. This applies to me as well. When these people grow up, they often find it difficult to let go of their plushies and dolls, not only because of the built up emotional significance over the years (and the feeling of having grown up with those items), but also because of underlying fact that it would mean having to let go of their childhoods and youth (since those items are significant symbols that become so deeply integrated in those idyllic memories. Ito takes this idea to an extreme — the human inability to let go of the past. The man naturally grew up with his awakened libido, but was unable to let go of the creepy ass doll, and thus...yeah. I kid you not, I had a live jaw drop at that scene, in the public book store, and that's what really drawn me deeper into the book. Ito goes out of the norm, and really puts the societal boundaries of comfortable topics to the test. It's quite insane and brilliant; the fact that his mind could come up with this. I had a visceral reaction to this, and this story really stuck in my brain (unfortunately).

the wife's (also my) reaction to the man and his doll.

All in all, I really enjoyed this new experience. Ito touched upon some very interesting topics, and some very real phenomena in real life. I both hate and love his style; but one thing for sure is that I definitely learned from this manga, and that it expanded my reading palette. Though some of his stories, like the very first one, seem to be extreme and utterly dystopian, I found that many of them were (on a milder extent) applicable to real life scenarios. The shut-in losing societal mannerisms, the unfortunate stockholm syndrome in the human chair story (also the fact that the handsome chair vendor was revealed to be a complete freak), and...yeah, I can't think of anything for the gross lady with the ginormous tongue; idk pop off I guess...just not anywhere near me. But overall, I give this book a 4.3/5. It's definitely quite the read, and I'm inclined to read another Ito book sometime, after some mental prep!

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