Black Paradox

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Junji Ito's writing style can best be summarized by "literally".

Take a common saying, cliché or play on words and stick to the literal meaning dialed to 11/10. That's the normal plot for any Ito story.

Black Paradox is no exception. A group of people intend to commit group suicide, leaving this world to the next.

Well... guess what...

You can say that the real plot however is the line "The price of progress has been humanity's soul". I'll leave it at that to avoid spoilers.

Over all it's an interesting read with odd visuals. A bit meh compared to his other works though which is why I'm lowering the ... score a little.

Book comes with two bonus stories. The licking woman, which is about a woman that licks... go figure. And Mystery Pavilion which was just two pages.

Black Paradox is one of those manga one has to have a specific taste for to fully enjoy and understand what the author intends to deliver. Junji Ito is a pretty unique manga author, not quite giving me the ero-guro I massively have read but curiously maintaining the crocked art style as one would see out of ambitious authors like Kago Shintaro and Uziga Waita. Junji Ito gave himself a pretty solid name in horror style any kind of horror manga enthusiast should give a chance.

The story starts pretty straight to the point; four different individuals find themselves together, each one having a reason to ... commit suicide. It’s hard to fully give in to the reasons they reached the conclusion to take this terrible decision, since the character development is pretty unique and strongly attached to the plot and how the story will progress. Without giving too much, each one of these characters have an unique situation that brought them to want to quit life. What their own reasons have in common is self-image, being it physical or mentally, their self-image affects them as in making them highly insecure and even neurotic to the point of wanting to die.

Even thought they are pretty decided to commit group suicide, an other-world situation makes their plan go down the drain. It’s hard to explain without giving too much of the story, but the own selfishness of the act of quitting to live is altered as soon as an opportunity of being greedy and gaining a new life purpose who fills the void of being empty and self-aware. Greed is a well-hidden message on the manga itself, opposite to the dementic and irrational nature of the manga, the message appears to be well-thought. Of course, there are many unreal factors, even ironic that end up making the own cliché into a well-thought doubt of what is reality or not.

Besides touching thematic such as greed and selfishness, the object that depicts greed is highly associated with the meaning of life which the protagonists so highly wanted to reject, that object’s origin is from a play of words that ends up to be explored by the author in a literal sense on the progress of the story, that mindset might seem a bit psychotic, but also highly creative and well thought upon. The own insecurities of the characters, that made them consider suicide, become figurative doors, such doors being the true core of their will to live.

Of course, most of the stuff I’m saying makes no sense, but so are the works of Junji Ito and other authors who focus in horror and psychological works, they need to be deeply analyzed for one to understand their true value. It’s also important to have in mind that their might exist a play of words, unspoken superstitions and Japanese folklore integrated in most horror Japanese manga. In this one in particular, there is a play of word that depicts the objects that the main characters will greed upon, so pay attention to that.

The art isn’t the best, It’s ok, which coming from a short horror manga is not that important either way, I take more into consideration in this kind of horror/psychological piece that exists a really detailed, confusing and dimensional art style, which unfortunately the author doesn’t give us.

The entertainment value also depends on the person who reads. Some parts the dialogue seems a bit too overdone and boring, but since it’s a volume long piece it’s pretty easy to keep reading and finish without much boredom involved.

Overall, I would recommend this manga to everyone who wants something short and well-thought off. The art isn’t the most amazing trippy art syle I’ve seen, but the matters that the author makes about the real meaning of life, of human emotion, of the insecurities of self-image (mental and physical), greed and dementic behavior are subjects that will make the reader think a lot about the impact of their own actions.

Junji Ito's Black Paradox is an interesting story concept. A group of suicidal people grouping together to go to the other side and finding themselves wrapped up in a spiritual journey through another world definetly intrigued me when I was beginning to read it. Perhaps there is an important overarching theme or message to all of the supernatural events that occur in the story that require a little bit more digging. But I am not willing to do that digging because of how much it bored me to undeath.

It's very obvious that Ito is a horror director at heart. He is the master of the ... page turn scare and builds tension to such a degree that you want to read through his stories faster to see just how it turns out. There are elements of horror in this Manga, don't get me wrong. It wouldn't be Junji Ito without them. But if anything, this is much more of a weird mishmash of genres that don't really go together. There aren't enough action elements to call it a Shonen action Manga, there isn't enough focus on the relationships between characters to call this a romance, and, most disappointingly, the horror aspects of Black Paradox focus on freaky visuals rather than the horrifying implication that truly makes Ito's best works shine. It really feels like it doesn't know what it wants to accomplish as a Manga.

Not to mention that the pacing is very awkward. There's what's supposed to be the big reveal in the last chapter that is foreshadowed in the first chapter incredibly subtle and no where else. Not to mention that when the reveal drops, it's in multiple pages of lengthy exposition that could have much more interestingly been captured in the actions that we aren't shown. The whole Manga plays out incredibly slowly up until the later chapters, that have a much bigger focus on the moral aspect of what is happening rather than the more interesting dilemma being the actual action in it of itself. Especially since we aren't explicitly given a real reason to doubt the morality of what is happening until too late.

You really aren't presented with a reason to really care about the characters or what they are doing, and it makes for a very boring read once you get over the concept. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone other than those who appreciate Junji Ito's art in other work, as it is the best part of the whole Manga in my opinion. Even then, there are some wonky designs that being to look silly once you've been looking at them for a few chapters.