A story of compulsion, a boy named Owaki and a girl, Yoshida, meet on Amigara Mountain where they make an unsettling discovery: Human-shaped holes are scattered across the mountain. In it, people are being unnaturally drawn into a mountainside fault. If you haven’t heard of “The Enigma of Amigara Fault,” it was originally included in Gyo, another Ito work. But trust me, the other short stories are still worth is. It’s worth picking up Venus in the Blind Spot for this alone. Coming third to last, “The Enigma of Amigara Fault” serves as a climax to the collection and as one of Ito’s most acclaimed stories. However, with it placed near the end of the anthology, it feels like it was built up to by the previous shorts instead of eclipsing them.

But then there are more subtle moments of dread and creeping terror like “An Unhealthy Love” where a man is in love with a doll to his wife’s displeasure or the slow-burning unease of “Venus in the Blind Spot.” There is even a small comedic autobiographic short, “Master Umezz and Me,” which details how Ito became the master of horror we know and fear today and a few adaptations of works by other writers, with my favorite being “Human Chair.”īut above them all is “The Enigma of Amigara Fault.” As one of Ito’s most renown stories, it is crown jewel of the collected stories.

The terror and body horror begins with “Billions Alone” were bodies of couples and groups of people are being sewn together like quilts and left throughout the city and hits an apex with “The Licking Woman” which you can google to see the absolute terrifying images in that one. It’s hard to review this volume of collected stories because each and every story deserves its own spotlight. With 10 short stories, Venus in the Blind Spot is a striking collection that presents some of the most remarkable shorts featuring an adaptation of Rampo Edogawa’s classic horror story “Human Chair” and fan-favorite “The Enigma of Amigara Fault.” In addition to these, the eight other shorts include “Billions Alone,” “An Unhealthy Love,” “Venus in the Blind Spot,” “The Licking Woman,” “Master Umezz and Me,” “How Love Came to Professor Kirida,” “The Sad Tale of the Principal Post,” and “Keepsake.” These 10 stories come as a deluxe presentation, including special color pages and showcasing illustrations from his acclaimed long-form manga No Longer Human.

Venus in the Blind Spot is a “best of” collection of creepy tales from the Eisner award-winning mangaka. Now with Venus in the Blind Spot, published by VIZ Media, English readers get the chance to be reintroduced to Ito’s work. While most Americans see Stephen King as the master of written horror, those of us who follow manga have a different master that we look to: Junji Ito.

Venus in the blind spot