Gyo: Volume 1, Chapter 1: The Death-Stench of the South

Welcome to Geek Girl Reads Manga! For my first title, I'm reading Gyo, by Junji Ito (full title: Gyo Ugomeku Bukimi, or Fish: Eerie to Wiggle). I started this once a long time ago and never got very far into it before I forgot about it, so I'm starting it over from the beginning as my inaugural title. I've read other titles by Ito, particularly Uzumaki and Tomie, and in between the weirdness and the gore, I've found his work to be overall creepy as shit.

An interesting translation note before we start: the title Gyo is generally translated from Japanese as Fish, which works just fine as far as that goes, but the syllable gyo can't be used by itself to just mean fish. That would be sakana or gyorui. Instead, gyo is usually used in combination with other kanji to make other words dealing with fish, Depending on the kanji used, gyo can also be Japanese onomatopeia indicating a sudden glare, or a sound of shock or surprise. So many meanings for three letters, huh?

But enough Japanese language nerdery--on with the J-horror!

Volume 1, Chapter 1: The Death-Stench of the South

The low-level dread is established early on, as protagonist Tadashi has a close encounter of the vaguely sharky kind while scuba diving off the coast of Okinawa. He is vacationing with his girlfriend Kaori, whose response to his tale of the encounter is to complain that the smell of the sea is making her sick. Okay, fine. Some people have sensitive noses. Then when they get back to Tadashi's uncle's beach home Kaori decides that Tadashi's breath bothers her, too, so she wants him to brush his teeth before he kisses her. Like, every time. He already brushes twice a day, so his oral health isn't in doubt. She hadn't complained before, but she can't take it anymore.

Naturally, Tadashi flips his shit a little bit, and she accuses him of being selfish. I'm left with the impression that Tadashi is a freaking saint for putting up with her and her neuroses for this long.

During the course of their fight, they both leave the house, and notice a foul smell permeating the air, and encounter something unknown in the underbrush Tadashi coaxes her back inside, only to discover that the foul smell has followed them. Kaori is flipping out harder now, taking repeated showers to try to get rid of the smell, and she sends Tadashi out to get some air freshener, whereupon he discovers that the smell outside is gone, while she discovers that the smell inside is getting stronger. She investigates, and finds something that hisses at her. She screams.

Tadashi hears her scream, and he bolts back inside like a good boyfriend to find Kaori passed out on the floor, and the foul smell is overpowering. He makes sure she's okay (though I imagine she won't be when she wakes up and discovers the whole house smells like rotten garbage), and then investigates a tok-tok-tok noise from upstairs. When he gets up there, he sees something dart past at about ankle height, and gives chase.

Personally, at this point I would be thinking big freaking rat and calling an exterminator, but Tadashi is not me.

He chases the thing around a bit without getting a good look at it until he finally squishes it behind a dresser. It's a rotten fish, attached to some sort of apparatus with mechanical legs like a spider. Tadashi's reaction fairly closely mirrors my own: "What the hell is this!?" Welcome to Junji Ito's world, Tadashi, where weird shit like this happens more often than not.

So far Tadashi strikes me as the sort of seinen everyman that would star in whatever the Japanese equivalent of the ‪The Twilight Zone‬ is, and Kaori... I would feel more sympathetic towards her if coming to Okinawa weren't her idea in the first place. Instead she comes off as neurotic and bitchy and I just want to slap her. Other than that, the premise sounds intriguing, and this should prove to be delightfully horrifying.

Next up: Volume 1: Chapter 2: The Death-Stench in the Air!