That takes us to roughly two-thirds of the way through, Ito gradually increasing the tension and making us aware something is horribly wrong, and he finishes the story in apocalyptic style. The following day more giant floating heads begin appearing, now of people still living, and begin targeting those people with the noose dangling down. Kazuko then arrives just too late to prevent the suicide of Terumi’s boyfriend, but watches as his head inflates and detaches from his hanging corpse to join Terumi’s head in the sky. Ito’s accompanying illustration of what could be a laughable vision is suitably terrifying, with its closed eyes and severed neck.
Several days later people begin seeing a giant inflated version of her head floating above city like a balloon, complete with string dangling down, but tied into a noose. Her mind flashes back to how the nightmare began, with the apparent suicide of her best friend Terumi, found hanging from a power cable, her neck almost severed by the deed. There’s a knocking at the window, and a voice that’s her own telling her she’ll die soon if she doesn’t leave her apartment to have something to eat. Its sixty pages begin with Kazuko crouching fearfully behind her desk. ‘Hanging Blimp’ is demented, yet completely convincing. His art has an attractive precision frequently seen in manga, although he’s the top end of the quality scale, but what really sells Ito’s work is his utterly individual mind, and the best way to convey that is to run through one of the nine stories here. Unfortunately, many of these themes of bodily harm are a major hallmark of the Horror genre, so any Ito collection should be carefully considered to make sure it is good for your collection and your students.For intelligent, unpredictable and offbeat horror there are few people working in comics able to turn out a story like Junji Ito. In "Honored Ancestors", as in the short story of "Venus in the Blind Spot", there is some uncomfortable implied rape in the reveal that isn't dealt with before the ending. Some readers are fine with this, but it can leave some of the stories with really unsettling (not in the intended way) consequences. One of the hallmarks of an Ito scary story is to have the shocking reveal within the last few pages, leaving little room for any sort of closure or resolution. As story collections go, this focuses more on the horror aspect with the people turning into horrific monsters, rather than the psychological horror that was in many of the stories of Venus in the Blind Spot.
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