Shiver is a collection of manga horror stories written by the mangaka Junji Ito and published in 2017. It is a thrilling illustrated collection, for its fantastic and disturbing visuals never cease to unnerve and frighten the readers.
Shiver begins with the story “Used Record.” In this tale, the protagonist comes across a used record when she visits her friend. It is strangely entrancing, and it causes whoever listens to it to become obsessed. The protagonist herself becomes so enamored with the tune that she steals it from her friend and is subsequently pursued. She then murders her friend by accident in an attempt to protect the record, and struggles to find a place with the necessary technology that can play the record. When the record is finally played in a restaurant, one of the guests tells the protagonist the story of the used record. The singer of the record was not famous, only singing at a nightclub, and hoped to make a debut. When the day finally came, she was struck by a car. Although she was grievously injured and near death, she asked to be carried into the studio. She quickly died, and after her death, she began to sing a haunting tune. Those at the scene were dumbfounded, as she had no heartbeat, but they recorded it nonetheless. As the protagonist left the restaurant, the person who told her the story began chasing her, having fallen under the spell of the record. He causes the protagonist to accidentally fall to her death. After she is dead, she and the friend she previously murdered start singing the same song the record played, and the new owner of the record murmurs that the melody belongs to the other world.
The next story which is told directly connects to the title of the book, for it is titled “The Chill.” In this story, the protagonist recollects the past, noting how the house next to him seemed to house a mentally unstable girl, Rina, who almost never went outside. The one time she was outside, she laughed as she pointed at a place in her backyard, and the protagonist noted that she had holes in her arms. He then remembered how his grandfather, before his death, was completely covered with similar holes that stretched from head to toe. After telling his friend of this bizarre event, they investigate his grandfather’s death by looking at his diary. In the diary, his grandfather wrote that as he wrote it at that point in time, he met his friend Yonezu, who fought in a war with him thirty years ago. Strangely, Yonezu was covered with a coat which covered most of his body despite it being summer, and he seemed to be suffering from malaise. Yonezu then showed the protagonist’s grandfather a slab that was made of green jade. It was found by Yoshimura, a fellow soldier, in the mountains of Java during the war, and he later died after contracting a fever which caused him to feel cold. Yonezu gave him the jade slab, and the protagonist’s grandfather’s diary recorded that over the course of two weeks, his health worsened. On September 21st, he had a chill. On September 24th, there were spots on his skin. The next day, a doctor appeared and gave him an injection. On September 27th, he found that holes had begun to appear all over his body. On October 1st, he began to suffer from extreme hallucinations in which he saw swarms of bugs that appeared to be like the statue. He eventually came to the realization that the jade is inherently cursed, and that anyone who owns it will get holes all over their body and die. He threw the jade out the window to get rid of it, and it fell in the neighbor’s garden. When the protagonist went to check on the jade, he found that it had disappeared, and that a strange doctor was visiting Rina. Rina, upon seeing the doctor, screamed and locked the door. Later, when he next saw her, Rina had gone outside of her own accord, and all the holes on her body had disappeared. That same night, the protagonist saw his friend, or what was left of him. To be specific, massive holes had formed all over his body, and he explained that the same day they looked at the journal, he went to investigate where Rina was pointing. He found the jade, and he became obsessed with it, seen in how he tried to throw it into the river to free himself of its curse but couldn’t bring himself to. He then tells the protagonist that he tried to consult him because the doctor was coming for him, and that he isn’t a human, but the messenger of the curse. Because of his supernatural nature, he appears where the jade is. The protagonist’s friend then saw the doctor and shrieked, running off. The next day, his corpse was found on the riverbank, but the jade had disappeared.
In “Fashion Model,” the protagonist, an aspiring filmmaker, was greatly disturbed after flipping through a fashion model book, seeing how one of the women was extremely tall, thin, and had reptilian features. He was so scared that he couldn’t get her out of his head for days, but he eventually got over it. Later, when he and his friends were preparing to film a movie and put an ad in the newspaper, the freaky woman showed up. One of his friends, seeing his fear, thought it would be a good idea to make the situation awkward by telling the fashion model that the protagonist admired her. Later, the entire crew went into a forested area to take the film. The fashion model asked them when she would be filmed (they were primarily featuring the other girl, who was normal-looking), and they told her to be patient. Later, one of the film crew began screaming, running to meet the others. He told them that the fashion model was devouring the normal-looking girl. When they went to investigate (which is never recommended in a horror movie or story), they found that it was true. They proceeded to try to escape, and one member of the film crew, Miyake, was grabbed by the fashion member and partially eaten. The protagonist then accidentally tripped. The story ends by showing the fashion model looking at the injured narrator, remarking that it was just the two of them now, implying that the narrator was next on the menu.
The next story is “Hanging Blimp.” In this story, a celebrity, Terumi, has hung herself, leading to some copycat suicides. There were then reports that her head (which was amplified to a very large size) was floating around town, which are promptly dismissed as being false. The protagonist soon comes across the celebrity’s boyfriend, Shiroishi, who claims that he has been seeing her head around. They met at a certain place after dark, and the protagonist indeed saw the head of Shirumi. Terumi accidentally hung himself as he climbed a tree to reach Shirumi - the rope his neck fell into was attached to the tail of a balloon that appeared to be his head, only larger. Later, as the protagonist was walking home with her friends, balloons with ropes attached to their ends began to chase them. Two of her friends were hung outright, and the other survived long enough to learn something: if the balloons are damaged in any way, the person with its face would suffer the same fate. To be specific, the protagonist’s friend received help from a stranger who used a crossbow to puncture the balloon, deflating it. Her face then began shrivelling at a massive speed, reflecting the damage being done to the balloon. The narrator was able to escape into her house, and a live broadcast was made, informing the population of Japan that strange hanging balloons have appeared out of nowhere - there is no reason for their existence. The news broadcaster then informs everyone to not harm the balloons and to stay inside (he himself was inside a building), since the balloons are there to only hang people. The narrator’s father, right after watching the announcement, told his family that he was going to work, and that he would remain safe by safeguarding his neck. Unfortunately, right after he left the house, his balloon snagged him. The protagonist’s brother then decided to get food, throwing an umbrella at his balloon when it tried to hang him. The protagonist and her mother didn't know what happened to him, but it wasn’t long before the mother, desperate to find her son, went outside. She was then caught by her balloon. The narrator, after barricading herself in a room for days, then saw her brother’s figure asking to be let in from the window. Upon opening the window, she was horrified to find his mangled corpse: it is then revealed that his “voice” was made by the balloon, and that the balloon with her face was utilizing the open window to catch her with its noose. Some say that the balloons in this tale are meant to symbolize death, as it is completely unavoidable.
In “Marionette Mansion,” the protagonist belongs to a family which constantly travels due to their source of revenue: puppet shows. After the death of his father, the protagonist’s older brother ran off. After caring for his sister for some years, the protagonist eventually was reunited with a girl whom he had a good relationship with some years prior. Eventually receiving a letter from his brother through her, he went to his house with his sister. His brother apparently had struck it rich, as he lived in a mansion. However, he, his wife, and his son were controlled via strings that were attached to the ceiling. His brother states that he owes all his wealth and luck to the Jean Pierre puppet which he ran off with. He offers the protagonist and his sister to live in the house with him, but they refuse. They eventually come back, and his sister changes her mind. The protagonist, still concerned about the procedure, continues to deny the offer. His girlfriend becomes concerned after he refuses to tell her the specific circumstances of his visits to his brother, thinking that the said “visits” were just excuses for cheating on her. She goes to the marionette mansion herself and bumps into Jean Pierre, who proceeds to brutally murder her. The narrator, after denying Jean Pierre’s offer to become a puppet, is attacked by other puppets. Angry, he climbs the ceiling to see who was controlling everyone, to find that the puppeteers were not fully sentient anymore, seen in their blank stares. Everyone controlled by Jean Pierre’s strings begin to make sporadic, wild movements, causing the protagonist to investigate. He eventually finds his girlfriend’s corpse (also attached to strings) and is attacked by Jean Pierre. Although he was stabbed in the arm, he was able to destroy the puppet, causing all the strings to become loose. His sister, who had only recently attached strings to herself, was fine, but everyone else wasn’t: the puppeteers had stopped moving entirely, and the family of the protagonist’s brother were puppets. The protagonist remarks that they either transformed into puppets or that they were like that from the beginning.
The sixth story is aptly titled “Painter,” and it features Tomie, one of Junji Ito’s most popular and frightening characters. Tomie appears as an extremely beautiful young woman who has the ability to make any male fall in love with her. However, this love is extremely obsessive and psychotic in nature, which will eventually cause those enamored with her to brutally murder her in due time to keep her to themselves. Afterwards, every separate piece of Tomie (ex. arms, legs, heads) will grow to become a whole new Tomie in a matter of days. Each copy will then begin the cycle anew, causing even more mayhem. In this story, a famous painter who does popular art comes into contact with Tomie. Tomie tells him that he wants someone to capture her beauty perfectly, and that she wants him to do it. Obsessed with her like everyone else, the painter agrees. He paints a portrait of her, which he calls his “masterpiece.” The portrait, however, is disturbing - it shows her true form (which can also be captured with photographs, hence why she wants a painting to be done of her). To specify, Tomie’s actual appearance is that of a humanoid face with projections coming out of it, and a second face attached to the side which is dismembered. When the painter shows Tomie the portrait, she becomes angry, saying that it was an utter failure. The painter then strangles her in a fit of fury. He then took a cleaver, possessed by a fit of manic energy, and cut her into small pieces. He then sat down in a trance-like state for days, and noted that he could see the remainders of her body regenerating into a whole new multitude of Tomies.
The next story is “The Long Dream.” In this story, a doctor has a patient whose dreams have become increasingly long. While he was fine with it in the beginning, he eventually becomes increasingly disturbed, for the nightmares are almost unbearable. At the beginning, his dreams lasted for days. In a short time period, they began to last years. The patient says that one night, he dreamed that he was running from enemy soldiers for years, and in another, he was trying to find a bathroom for a few years. He asks the doctor to help him, and the doctor, upon conducting medical research, finds that the patient’s dreams would take place in our reality for only a few seconds (seen in the patient’s extremely rapid eye movement and brain waves), although it would seem to be years for the patient. The patient, after waking from each dream, has a different accent, which shows that he is indeed telling the truth. Even more concerningly, the patient’s physical appearance begins changing, as he loses his human appearance fairly rapidly and appears to look like a Martian. After a dream which lasted for many centuries, he wakes up and screams for his “wife,” who was a patient he happened to see the day before - his dreams were so long, vivid, and realistic that he had trouble telling reality from fiction. Upon finding his supposed wife, she screams in horror at his unearthly complexion. He is taken away by the doctors, and not long after, he has a dream that lasts for an eternity. After that dream, his body crumbles to dust, leaving behind a few crystals. The doctor believes that the crystals were the culprits for his symptoms, and he uses it on the patient who was frightened by him before, seeing that she was afraid of death. Upon revealing his actions to a colleague, he explains that what he is doing is the right thing, for if a person has a dream that lasts forever, they would, from their perspective, live forever, conquering the phenomenon of death.
The eighth story is “Honored Ancestors.” In this story, a girl has suffered from amnesia after going to her boyfriend’s house. The doctor said that she had suffered from an emotional shock, and that she requires some time to regain her memory. She has nightmares of a giant caterpillar, and her boyfriend, who is very possessive, demands her to spend time with him. They eventually go to his house, where they saw that his father was physically sick, and was close to death; her boyfriend’s father crawled out of his room to see them together, and she saw everything except for the top of his head. Some time after she went home, her boyfriend called for her to see his father, as he was dying. Although she was scared, she agreed, and was terrified to see that her boyfriend’s father’s head was connected to something that appeared to be a giant caterpillar. Her boyfriend then revealed that the scalps and brains of his ancestors were what composed the caterpillar, and that they lived on by attaching themselves to a living host - the cause of her amnesia a while ago was seeing the remains of his ancestors. Now that his father was about to die, he would be the new recipient. Furthermore, to ensure that there would be another host after his own death, he needs to make a child with the protagonist to ensure that the family line will continue (which is stupid in and of itself, for all species, including humans, are doomed to extinction sooner or later - the dinosaurs, for instance, survived for more than 100 million years, yet even they disappeared). The narrator, horrified, runs away. Her boyfriend chases her, but then collapses to the ground, clutching his head in pain. He runs back to his father, and she, being a complete idiot, follows. She finds that her boyfriend’s father had died, and her boyfriend had attached the scalps and brains of his ancestors to his head. He then proceeds to chase her in a way akin to that of the possessed girl in The Exorcist, and she becomes so terrified that she suffers from amnesia yet again and collapses. The voices of her boyfriend’s ancestors congratulate him on finding a wife, and urges him to start a wedding immediately and to make sure that he sires an heir. I find this story to be obviously symbolic of the potentially negative effects of past traditions on those who are living, which is encapsulated very well in practices such as genital mutilation. This story also shows the stupidity of the ancestor’s beliefs (natalism), for the story makes it clear that they only view the protagonist as a baby machine, a means to an end, stripping her of all her other qualities (seen very well in the end, as she didn't consent to get married/trapped with her boyfriend, implying that she was probably sexually assaulted by him in a vain attempt to please his ancestors). This story also portrays life as being a Ponzi scheme, for the boyfriend’s family are only concerned with their continued existence and legacy, and require new people to be brought into existence to satisfy their own selfish, narrow needs. Out of all the stories in Shiver, I find this one to have the biggest implication for society, for it critiques the stripping of women’s rights, the exploitation of future human beings, and pure, unadulterated selfishness.
The last story in this collection is “Greased,” and it is easily the most nauseating one. The protagonist is a teenage girl whose living conditions are terrible: her father runs a barbeque restaurant in her house. The restaurant is on the first floor while the living quarters are on the second floor. The restaurant has no proper ventilation, so after years of the fumes of barbeques pervading the house, the entire surface of the house and everything in it is coated with a thick layer of oily grease. The narrator is so troubled by the presence of said grease that she leaves the house whenever she can, and she enjoys looking at Mount Fuji. However, her living conditions still continue to disturb her, for she frequently has nightmares of Mount Fuji erupting, causing massive amounts of grease to land everywhere. Aside from her terrible quality of life, her brother is sadistic and cruel, and enjoys physically assaulting her. While her behavior is largely normal, her brother picked up a strange habit: he began to drink bottles of grease in just a single sitting. This appears to be an addiction, for he drank so much that his face was entirely covered with pimples. One day, he accidentally popped some of his pimples, and when the pus hit his sister, she screamed in disgust. Upon hearing her exclamation that his acne was disgusting, he was so enraged that he pinned her to the ground and proceeded to pop all of his pimples onto her face in a few extremely nauseating panels. Their father then hit him on the head with a pan, killing him. He says that his son left him with no choice, and asks for the protagonist’s help to move his body downstairs. It soon becomes apparent that he was serving his son to his customers, seeing that his shop became very popular overnight, seeing that many people enjoyed the meat which had suddenly been introduced. One night, the narrator woke up to find that her father was forcing her to drink grease. She is outrightly disgusted, and asks him whether he was trying to turn her into her brother. He denies it, but she continues to distrust him, trying to stay awake for as long as possible to prevent him from feeding her grease. Her suspicion is proven to be correct, as his numerous attempts to force her to drink grease have been foiled by her vigilance. In exasperation, he turns to himself to provide the meat which his customers want - the protagonist saw that he had cut one of his legs off, and that instead of blood, grease was pouring out of his body.
Personal thoughts:
Shiver by Junji Ito is an enthralling, entertaining, disturbing, and novel collection of manga horror stories. They vary in topic, discussing many of society’s problems and fantastically illustrate bizarre, frightening scenarios. The art is truly phenomenal, which can be expected of Junji Ito. I highly recommend Shiver to anyone interested in manga, horror, and satire.
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