Ma no Kakera
Fragments of Horror

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Fragments of Horror – Spoiler Free – Recommended

TLDR
Futon: 1/10
Wooden Spirit: 5/10
Tomio – Red Turtleneck: 9/10
Gentle Goodbye: 7/10
Dissection-chan: 8/10
Blackbird: 4/10
Magami Nanakuse: 2/10
... Whispering Woman: 2/10
Overall: 6/10

Disclaimer: due to the nature of this work – a collection of short stories –, my normal parameters of Story, Art, Characters and Enjoyment with a weighted average won’t be applied. Instead, a global overview will be offered.

Fragments of Horror is a collection of eight individual short stories made by Junji Ito with no common thread. Their quality ranges from very good, such as Tomio – Red Turtleneck and Dissection-chan, to bad – Magami Nanakuse and Whispering Woman –, or being too being too short to be even noticeable – Futon. There are also some stories which are average, such as Wooden Spirit or Blackbird. Verily, this compilation collects some of Ito's best stories in his repertoire. However, one should not expect all stories to be scary; as a matter of fact, some of them are quite funny and have funny panels. With the exception of two stories, Tomio – Red Turtleneck and Dissection-chan – stories aren’t scary or add anything to the genre. It is still, however, a collection of memorable stories that should be regarded in good light.
The art in Fragments of Horror isn't bad at all, for the panels have good fluency and cadence. There are very few memorable panels – maybe only in Wooden Spirit. The rest of the art style is functional, and it is done in typical Junji Ito fashion.
Characters are void and simply play a role as dialogue placeholders.
Although not all stories are good, there are some that make it worth your while to read this, and it is, nevertheless, a quick read. Although there are some weak stories, one must not ignore the quality of the middle chapters, which sustains the overall rating. All these reasons make Fragments of Horror worthy of a recommendation.

This is the second manga by Junji Ito that I've read, the first one being Uzumaki. This is actually a collection of eight short stories, each being an anthology. The stories in this one are quite short but impactful and unique. Some of them are good while others, not so much. Maybe the ones I didn't enjoy were probably not my cup of tea. The art style is beautiful yet creepy as expected by Junji Ito. The art style heavily compliments the story. The only reason I picked "Mixed Feelings" in the recommended section is because I didn't like all of the stories.

TLDR: pretty boring but has some promising moments

Right, so I didn't like this very much. I've heard over the years how Ito is this supposedly amazing horror artist and writes these creepy stories. I picked up this copy of short stories and was exited to finally enjoy some horror as its been a while since I've read any.

The story's are quite boring besides two, maybe three of them, the art is great, but the story's are quite frankly not creepy or uncomfortable to me. The further I got into the manga the more I enjoyed them I assume this is because, as ITO explains in ... the afterword, its the first collection of horror he wrote in 8 years. Boi is he rusty but the later stories get interesting and have a very creepy atmosphere. (I completely agree with his editor about the futon story)

Some left me chilly! I want to read more but this being my first dive into his work has left me intrigued but un impressed.