Haruto Ryo

How do you feel about gore in horror fiction? I think that is an important question to take into consideration for the prospective reader of Ibitsu. Some may prefer purely cosmic dread. Personally, I do not give gore priority, but grisliness does not have to be a dealbreaker. The main question for me is if the gory bits make me feel nauseous rather than scared. When it comes to this manga I am sitting on the fence.

If you prefer cute monsters in gothic lolita garb, like, say, Shalltear Bloodfallen, this is not for you. There is nothing cute at all about the Demon Lolita that the art student Kazuki has the misfortune to encounter when he takes out the trash and who wants to be his little sister. It is not a far-fetched assumption that Ryo wants to turn the adorable-little-sister trope on its head. In this case the monster has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, though we are lead to believe something else for a little while by a fake backstory. In fact, in a side story about an ill-fated test of courage in an abandoned building it is at least suggested that she is not human at all.

Any man who gives any kind of answer to her question “imouto iru” is bound to die horribly. Ibitsu is quite successful when it comes to conveying a sense of growing and suffocating despair. Kazuki’s grisly fate is sealed at the very beginning of the story. He is doomed – along with his family and friends – completely at the mercy of something inhuman and malicious. From the rest of the world he can expect only indifference. The Demon Lolita is not open to any form of reasoning. It does not help to beg for mercy or forgiveness. Windows of false hope are opened now and then only to be nailed shut. At the very end, Kazuki still grasps at a desperate hope that he alone will be spared, just moments before his sickening demise.

Nor is there any justice in this world. Kazuki and his family have done nothing to deserve what is happening to them, while the monster keeps telling her victims that it is she who is the wronged party. To drive the point home, it is Kazuki who gets the posthumous blame for many of the murders.

This is a bleak story indeed.… (plus d'informations)

Kazuki walks towards the dumpster by his building one night and encounters a young woman in a dirty lolita style outfit. She asks him if he would have a sister and he says yes, as in he has one. Then this girl follows him and even breaks into his house, insisting she is his little sister and generally freaking everyone out. How far will she go to fulfill this delusion? Why is she doing all this?

Ibitsu is a horror manga centered around an urban legend. A demon lolita asks passersby a question and if they answer at all, she will either kill their little sister to assume her role or act as their little sister with the end goal of eventually killing them. The lolita herself appears pretty monstrous with a deranged smile, hastily sewn slashed wrists, filthy clothing, and an equally dirty stuffed rabbit. Kazuki had never heard of this legend before and has no idea what he got himself into. It starts out with relatively small things like the girl shoving her way into his apartment and washing her filthy stuffed animal, taking the master key to his apartment, eating his sister's makeup, and following him around everywhere to recite everything he's done or bought recently. Her actions escalate past anything I expected. The plot is pretty standard for any horror story where he investigates her past to try to find a way for him and his sister to survive and get her to move on. The lolita is half Samara from The Ring and half Tomie with a splash of urban legend.

I fully expected to like Ibitsu, but one particular aspect really bothered me. The violence towards women took a rather sexual bent for no reason at all. The positions were very suggestive with upskirt poses. The lolita rips open Kazuki's sister's shirt so her breast is exposed and almost presses a hot iron to her crotch, which pushed that act to genital mutilation or female circumcision. That has a whole plethora of connotations that have nothing to do with urban legends or Japan in general. I found that part particularly extreme for no real reason. On the other hand, a death by sledgehammer, which didn't have any sexual connotations, seemed rather censored in comparison to all the other deaths. I found these choices odd. I see the sexualized women and deaths sometimes in manga, but this example is the worst. It simply doesn't belong in this story and should have a good reason for being there. There is a whole genre of manga that people can read if they want sexual content and it felt very forced into this story.

Ibitsu had real promise. Even though it adhered to horror tropes, it managed to set itself apart with the backstory of the lolita and her method of infiltrating the family. The ending was well done, satisfying, and open for continuation. The sexual violence really put me off the story and didn't belong there. There are two small other unrelated stories. One is amazing. It involves another urban legend where couples will be happy forever if they write their name on a particular wall of an abandoned building. The reveal of what's actually happening is so chilling and creepy. The second story is frankly a slight changed rip-off of Stephen King's Misery except with a manga writer. The ending is quite predictable. Overall, Ryo has real promise, but I was a bit disappointed by this story.… (plus d'informations)