Customer Reviews

GYO, Vol. 1 (2nd Edition)

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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Gyo is a horror manga put out by the genius that is Junji Ito (Tomie, Uzumaki). It surrounds a young boy & his very picky girlfriend while they are vacationing at the beach. All goes well (aside from some pickiness & whining from his girl) until they discover an unusual creature that has crawled out of the sea. It has the body of a fish, but with strange legs and tubes sticking into it. Little do the young lovers know that this was the beginning of the end for not only the world, but for their love.

I liked Gyo, but it wasn't my favorite of his works. Like one other reviewer put it, you just can't feel as connected to these characters as you have in his other stuff. Still, the story is compelling and the extras in the books are very creepy. It may not be his best, but it's still something to collect.

I fell in love with Junji Ito's Uzumaki manga, so when I saw the first volume of Gyo, I had to get it, and I don't regret it.
He weaves a good mix of horror and mystery together in the spirit of H.P. Lovecraft, and leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. And the plot summary that got me curious! A mysterious fish-like creature giving off a horrid stench in Okinawa, and the horror spreads further and further, while no one but Tadashi, Kaori and Tadashi's uncle having any idea what's going on initially (mostly Tadashi and his uncle).
Granted, I quickly found Kaori annoying, but as this is from Japan, I take it with a grain of salt. Tadashi is realistic in his way, he wants to know what the heck is going on as much as the next person, but quickly finds himself way in over his head in madness. I don't expect a happy ending for them, but I do want to find out how things come out.

I'm very glad that Viz decided to reprint this staple of the horror manga genre. Junji Ito is a master of what the Japanese called "guro", and with GYO, you get more psychologically satisfying and nasally unsettling horror.

Tadashi and Kaori are visiting Okinawa island when a mysterious smell - and then a mysterious fish - enters Tadashi's uncle's house. When a fish with synthetic legs is found walking on land the couple runs for the mainland to find answers, and from there things only get more interesting - government plots, gaseous lifeforms and, of course, the rotten stench. GYO is another great work from Ito. It's not as epic as UZUMAKI, but it keeps you turning the pages.

A few quibbles. Kaori's character isn't nearly as fleshed out as I would've liked to have seen. And with every frame of her face involving a widening scream, things seem to drag a bit and my sympathy for her character was lessened. Also, I see no reason to not print GYO in one single volume. At just over 400 pages, it would be very easy to do so, and would eliminate the need to wait until February 2008 to find the second volume (though I have the previous printing's second volume).

That said, this is a great release from Viz. A few bonus stories are included (with VOL 2), with THE ENIGMA OF AMIGARA FAULT being the best. It's one of the best pieces included in any Ito release. Truly frightening.

Almost as frightening as a shark attack -- on land!

Highly recommended.

An amazingly fantastic manga, Junji Ito does it every time. Your skin will crawl with this one. You can almost smell the fish, too. It's pretty horrificly wonderful!

Girlfriends problems. Moving. Teeth. Metal legs. Sharks that hunt on land. And the stench. While some of these things sound like they belong in a Manga, a few of them are strange and utterly interesting to watch develop. After reading Ito's works in both short story and in things like the beautiful spiral, I return for the oddity that becomes a great tale. And Gyo I and II deliver this and more, giving people what they need.

As far as Gyo is concerned, there are all the staples that make a great tale. You have the complexity of writing that connects to both framework and audience, you have a horrible blight that becomes odder and more horrific as it develops, and it speaks to the stupidity of man. I enjoy things like that, seeing the stupidity of people in motion as they are blindsided by something they didn't predict, because it has realism twined into portions of some really odd "this can't be true!" horror. I like that, the thinking outside the confines of convention, and Ito has it here. The art is also grand, a thing of impeccable beauty, and these things and a good story makes for something worthwhile.

If you want to read something that is not conventional, a bit pulpy, and smooth when read, you'll want a hit of this. If you are a fan of Ito, this will be something that will keep you keepin' on. If you are not familiar with his work, then you might want to try it out and see how it fits. Ito credits Lovecraft, Argento, Barker, Moore and many other American voices along with a plethora of European and Japanese voices with making him what he is. To me, that explains a lot and perhaps sheds light on why it is that he can make something strangely terrible like he does. It also separates him from others as well, because he knows so much about horror that it allows him to understand the mindset needed to graft new, sometimes funny, things to go bump in the (l)ight.
Recommended.