Manga Recs: Gyo by Junji Ito

 Gyo is not Ito's best work, but it is one of his most interesting. While most of his stories are surreal and dread filled, Gyo is a full on creature feature. It hits differently than a lot of his stuff, while still keeping with his wonderful, creepy visuals. 

The plot is straight out of a SyFy original movie, with robotic legged fish coming from the ocean and invading the land. You have a whole bevy of killer sea creatures on robotic legs, a virus that has some very nasty side effects, and even a mad scientist. This one is like Ito is playing out a love for B-movies that you don't see in some of his better loved works like Uzumaki. The closest I can think of in comparison is Remina maybe?

Gyo kind of got buried when it first got released. Uzumaki had made such a splash, but when Gyo hit, it was so different that I remember critics not being as warm to it. It didn't get bad reviews by any means, but it for sure was considered lesser than. I guess it is, as this one hits the ground running much faster, and the story is much less developed due to a shorter length. It is plenty memorable though. There are panels from this manga that are burned into my brain. 

I think part of the reason I have such love for Gyo is because this came out before people really latched on to Junji Ito's work. We really only had this and Uzumaki. There were a few story collections released by Dark Horse and a few other publishers, but it took a few years before he really caught on. Horror manga in general always seemed to have a hard time making a break into the American market back in the early 2000's. I think there was really just this, and a bunch of Hideshi Hino stories that got released by Cocoro Books under their Hino Horror line. It hasn't really been until recently that I have noticed horror finding more solid footing in the manga market. 

This is going to be a shorter post, but I thought I would end it mentioning that the anime adaptation of this one is actually really fun. If you can find it. It for sure leans harder into the B-movie sleaze than the manga does, and shuffles the story around a bit to keep things fresh, but it really brings the horror vibes. The animation was pretty solid, if not the prettiest, and the creatures looked plenty creepy. 

Gyo is a classic. It is made by a master of the genre, and while it isn't his best work, it is probably one of his most fun works. If you love Junji Ito, you owe it to yourself to read Gyo if you haven't yet.