Kyoufu no Juusou

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Layers of Fear is another simple, not as short (forty-ish pages) one-shot by guro author Junji Ito and made it onto my reading list tonight simply for being a one-shot.
At first, I was attracted to this after recognising the name from the 2016, psychological horror game of the same name (it's an amazing game, I recommend watching a gameplay of it). I believed the game may have taken inspiration from this one-shot, but quickly found this is not the case, although vaguely similar.

As with many other Ito stories, it comes down to the artwork within this story, for me. The story is intriguing; a father ... breaks a curse on a tomb, similar to the theories of many Egyptian tombs, and the curse is passed onto his daughters. With the idea of mental instability, you can kind of guess which direction this story heads.

Again, the artwork. When the storylines are, to a degree, guessable as an avid horror fan, it doesn't surprise me when the stories go the way they do. The artwork within goru manga can sometimes be a letdown and honestly is the reason I left the genre for a brief period - too many badly drawn or weakly drawn / not shocking enough artwork to go with it. This is what fascinates me about Ito. Somehow, no matter what the story (so far in my readings so far), Ito manages to draw an image that shocks you and gives you chills. Goosebumps raise and you swallow a little as your eyes widen. It's chilling stuff - Google Image search his name and take a look at some of his artwork and you'll see what I mean.

This story? It didn't get ten stars for the storyline alone. If this was a novel or short story, I probably would have only given it 3 stars. Again, it's all down to the artwork, and the work in this is utterly stunning. Visual horror fans, I recommend giving this one a flick through for sure.

Layers of Fear is an amazing horror manga. It's one of the scariest mangas I've read by master writer Junji Ito himself, and that's a lot to say considering he is one of the best (if not the best) horror manga writers and illustrators of this age. It's a really mesmerizing experience of seeing the imposible unfold, it's a surprise box of creepiness. And this is not like usual horror media, with jumpscare, the horror is the unknown and not knowing the answer to questions. And when these questions are answered, getting a horrible horrible image stuck in your head. Seriously the ending of this ... story still has me shivering. The art is terrific as expected (in both amazing and horror sense) and the way the story unfolds is really good as well. The characters are exaggerated as always in Ito's work, but it works. Amazing manga.
I give Kyoufu no Juusou a 9/10