This is my first Junji Ito book and also the first horror book I've ever read so I have a clean slate here. I haven't heard very much about Sensor as I have Ito's more popular works like Uzumaki and Gyo, other than this one being different.
Sensor deals alot in cosmic mythology and some religious imagery, which I think is one of the stronger aspects of this manga. The entire thing has a strange mythical and almost culty sort of vibe surrounding the events and horror. It's pretty cool.
The characters are just alright, which is a little disappointing because they become a pretty large focus of the book as it goes on. Wataru Tsuchiyado, a no-name reporter, is the character we primarily follow throughout the book, but really in terms of personality or motivations I feel more could've been done. He initially looks into Kyoko Byakuya for as a scoop yes, but after all the trouble and general crazy stuff he goes through chasing her I think his motivations for doing so should've been expanded on. A part of me thinks I shouldn't care this much about characters in a horror book, but the characters play a pretty important role in the story. Especially Kyoko Byakuya who is the essentially the crux of the story, she is the goddess-like figure with the golden hair, the mystery that survived the eruption of the volcano who's name I don't remember.
Kyoko is easily the most interesting part of the manga, she doesn't speak very much when she is present, which builds her entire appeal to me. She has this psychic third eye that drives people mad, what does she know? What powers does she have? Why did she survive?
Sensors downfall is it's disjointed story. It really feels more like mini stories surrounding Kyoko than a cohesive start-to-finish narrative. We get scenes with Kyoko interacting with some characters in the past during a flashback, then Kyoko is suddenly back and strange things start occurring again, only for her to disappear once more, basically leaving Wataru with no real purpose for like half a chapter (introducing some stalker-chick instead who I just did not care about). Kyoko really just comes and goes in the storyline, which leaves the rest of the characters to meander until she returns again.
This makes for a really inconsistent book, some parts are really creepy, like the suicide bugs from chapter 4, or the Hypnotherapy in chapter 3, but sometimes the manga feels directionless, like during chapter 5.
Real mixed bag here, I wouldn't say this isn't worth reading, but it didn't wow me personally too much.
