Black Paradox - Junji Ito

There's not much that is typical about Junji Ito's manga work, but he certainly had his own style and methods for delving into the dark, the bizarre and the horrific, with no small amount of body horror. That's sounds like it might be somewhat formulaic, but within that genre he often manages to be very creative and surprising. Some of his works are episodic in nature, each chapter revealing a different type of horror that individually culminate in an explosive manner building up to an even more shocking conclusion, and that is very much the style of Black Paradox. Within that however, anything can happen...

Four young people - Taburo, Pii-Tan, Baracchi and Maruso - gather together under unusual circumstances, meeting on the site Black Paradox and agreeing to form a suicide club. Without much preamble, they drive out to a location where they will realise their desire to exit this world. Each has their own motives but there is a common feeling that drives them in some way, a presentiment of 'other selves' where they feel that they no longer have a place in the world. Maruso certainly notices something strange about two of the others - and is struck by the belief that one of them might actually be a robot.

Arriving at the site, there's an escalation of drama that Ito illustrates in his own highly expressive and wavy way, a surprising and shocking change of circumstances that lead the group to put off the idea of a group suicide for a while. Which means there are other chapters and other opportunities to try and for things to go wrong and get very, very strange again. You can count on that, just as you can count on each chapter building on the horror of what has come before. Without giving anything away, the failed suicide attempts have opened the way to what appears to be the spirit world. Of course, how Ito depicts it is nothing like you can imagine. Yes, you know to expect a few familiar elements and body horror, but as ever the artist's imagination and artwork is extraordinary, creative and ever extreme.


Reading notes: Black Paradox by Junji Ito was first published in Japan in 2009 and this first English language edition will be published by Viz Media in eBook format on the 25 October 2022. A hardcover edition will follow on the 24th November 2022. In addition to the complete 200 page, 6 chapter story there is a bonus full colour 4-page bonus story Strange Pavilion, a look at the world beyond Black Paradox, set in the year 2105. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance preview copy.

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