This chilly breezing night with raindrops heard from my window pane sets my mood to trigger my solitude time. Let’s start writing working fellas! I’ve just finished reading two Japanese Manga compilation of horror stories by Junji Ito this week. Isn’t that obvious how much I loved them enabling me to completely read the books in three days to be exact. Crazy Manga fan reader, I am!
A co-Cebuano and a Filipino nurse I recently gotten to know with happened to post his new purchased book online. Without any sense of hesitation, I asked Joseph questions as to where he bought it. You got to start the conversation well before letting them know what you really wanted to ask, right?LOL
After a short exchange of conversation I then tried my luck to query if he could possibly lend me some of his collections. Whoah, he said yes! Yey, thank you Bro. I have been wanting all my life to read these type of book genre but I’m too stingy to spend my money to get them. They aren’t cheap as expected. Through online Webtoon I managed to still have a free reading access to my favorite stories. Here’s the link of one of my completed Webtoon series.
How I made my reading time even better.
Like any other Japanese Manga book, page one usually starts at the back which means you’ll be reading from right to left.
Fragments of Horror and Shiver are both created by the same author. I’m completely amazed on how someone can both write and express his writing for the readers via drawing the image to them not just creating a mental picture of what he wanted the readers to see. I’m blessed to be part of the blogging world because I can use photos instead of drawing (which I don’t have the talent) to let my readers have a good grasp about my post.
Which of the stories really captured my attention? All of them to be honest. Joseph suggested me to read the book at night with minimal light from my bedside table while the world is sleeping silently and on the other hand, I am enjoying the taunting fear of screaming photos of the inevitable character’s demise. Kind of effective to me if you want to get the in depth feeling on what you’re reading. I switched on my light for the entire night after I read it. Tell me now who got frightened so badly for the whole evening?
My favorite among the short stories is this, Whispering Woman, a psychological thriller. It focused on the delusional psychological state of the main character having a difficulty to function normally without someone telling her a detailed instructions on what to do. Can I sit? How should I sit?” “Should I cross my leg or not?” “Should I touch the arm chair with my hands?” “Should I lean backward or forward?”
Those some sort of basic questions she had. Very disturbed child, if I am to describe her. Her dad found a personal paid carer who could manage to calm her by giving specific commands in everything she does. I thought my job is one of the tedious work but no. While reading how the carer pacified her I felt her exhaustion at the end of the day. She deserved to be paid with millions in the real world.
What’s the twist in the story? The carer had her on share of life burden in her personal life. She was a battered wife. I am terribly sorry for her. How can a husband hit his fragile wife working for him to get his vices satisfied? The battered wife/carer died because of the abusive partner.
So, what will happen to the mentally challenged protagonist? Although, the carer perished but her spirit lingered with the kid. She continued to function normally like just when the carer was still alive. One day, the father of the kid noticed something unusual with her daughter. She was as if practicing how to stab someone on the ground with a knife on her hand. And yes, I was right with my hunch. The spirit of the carer was using the child to get even with her partner by killing him. The child went home to his daddy one night with bloody hands and stained clothes holding a knife still dripping with fresh blood happily telling him she successfully killed the abusive man as instructed to her.
“Kill him for me,” she whispers to me everyday.
The shiver run down my spine every flip of the page of this book. Pretty impressive. All his stories here were associated to his life experiences and he incorporated them to the plot, the characters or sometimes to the event of the story. The author has his commentary at the end of the page to explain how he came up with the idea of it. Genius!
I can’t wait to read another collection of Manga horror collection. Bro don’t forget to let me borrow again.
Scary evening folks.
Mich
