| My ranking of the stories animated in Maniac: 1. Hanging Balloon 2. Headless Statue 3. Long Hair in the Attic 4. Library Vision 5. Mold 6. Whispering Woman 7. Tomie's Photos 8. The Sandman's Lair 9. The Bully 10. Layers of Terror 11. Tomb Town 12. Alley 13. Mysterious Tunnel 14. Intruder 15. Ice Cream Bus 16. The Strange Hikizuri Siblings 17. Souichi's Beloved Pet 18. Four x Four Walls 19. The Thing That Drifted Ashore 20. Unendurable Labyrinth |
| hanging balloons is the best one so far |
mason_blackJan 26, 2023 3:13 PM
| "Tits don't make the woman. It's the ass." - Darx |
| Only one I could not forget was Tomie. Such a mesmerising story. |
When someone asks me why I like anime, I'd say Just Because. |
| I'll just rank my top 5. 1. The Bully 2. The Strange Hikizuri Siblings 3. Alley 4. Tomb Town 5. Unendurable Labyrinth I really loved the humor and voice acting in the first episode The Strange Hikizuri Siblings. Souichi's Beloved Pet was great too. My least favorite is probably The Thing That Drifted Ashore. That one wasn't spooky, unsettling, or funny. |
| (9-10 favorites) 01. Hanging Balloon 02. Whispering Woman 03. The Bully (7-8 greats) 04. Mold 05. Tomb Town 06. Layers of Terror 07. Alley 08. The Sandman's Lair 09. Mysterious Tunnel (5-6 decent) 10. Long Hair in the Attic 11. Ice Cream Bus 12. Headless Statue 13. Tomie's Photos 14. Library Vision 15. The Thing That Drifted Ashore 16. Souichi's Beloved Pet (1-4 meh) 17. Intruder 18. The Strange Hikizuri Siblings 19. Four x Four Walls 20. Unendurable Labyrinth BTW, I love how none of the women portrayed were needlessly sexualized :) all the women were appropriate and weren't taken advantage of because of their sex. Thank you Junji Ito for not being a weird man. |
 |
|
L01MKApr 12, 2023 12:26 PM
| (9-10 favorites) 01. Hanging Balloon - easily the best of all of the stories, simple concept yet a very effective one. Dense, creepy atmosphere and storytelling. A winner in my book 02. Tomb Town - another one of those longer stories. Cool concept with a decent conclusion. A spooky twist on the crime and punishment. 03. Layers of Terror - bizarre and terryfying. Dreadful stuff about obsessions. Top notch body horror. 04. Whispering Woman - holy hell, this is very good idea for a horror movie. We often hear about people complaing about voices in their heads but so far I havent seen an interpretation as good as this one. This could have been turned into an A class movie horror. (7-8 greats) 05. Mold - not a lot is happening or even said but the atmosphere was top notch. Good depiction of a contagious disease. 06. Alley - a typical horror story done well. Curiosity killed the cat. 07. Long Hair in the Attic - interesting twist on the typical j-horror concept of a lady with long black hair. But Itou`s story predates all those Rings and Grudges so he gonna get some points for it. 08. The Sandman's Lair - a body horror one. Sleep deprivation might be devastating, dont try it kids. 09. Headless Statue - now that is a concept I have not seen yet, so I get glued on from the start. Did not disappoint. (5-6 decent) 10. The Bully - I was expecting that the bully gonna get a well deserved punishment but once again Itou Junji made me realise that life is not fair and the bully not only went unpunished, he even found a new victim. 11. Tomie's Photos - typical Tomie story, more structured and complex than those other stories. Still I think that an entire series devoted only to Tomie would be a much better choice. 12. Mysterious Tunnel - okay i guess? Expected something more. Its like unfinished missing the final punch. 13. Library Vision - very artsy but also vague and amorphous. Beautiful yet empty - style over substance. 14. The Thing That Drifted Ashore - grotesque and nothing else. Might be effective for people phobia about the ocean and its depths but for me it was just decent. 15. Souichi's Beloved Pet - Typical Souichi`s story but a little bit better than the other one cause he is trying to annoy others in a different way than usual. (1-4 meh) 16. Intruder - I had to check what this one is about, cause i totally forgot! A good horror compilation always has a one about multidimensional travel so I guess this is the one? 17. Ice Cream Bus - meh, there are worse thing that a unknown creepy ice cream guy can do to you. Being melted into an icecream is one of the better. 18. The Strange Hikizuri Siblings - bizarrely grotesque and offputing. Especially those screams from the young abomination. Not my type of horror story. 19. Four x Four Walls - another one of those Souichi`s cliches. Very annoying guy you want to hit in the face. 20. Unendurable Labyrinth - easily the worst story. Nothing of importance happens, the character are flat and the conclusion was lackluster - there is no moral to this story afaik. A final verdict - I am giving this a 7, maybe a 7+ cause the great stories are really memorable and show some sings of brilliance. I can easily avoid the meh stories without much effort. |
tearofmankindMay 18, 2023 7:36 AM
| 1- Layers of Terror Really disturbing, it’s the story that really worked the most on me. The ending is truly terrifying, poor girls, the mom was horrible and everything is her fault tbh. 2- Hanging Balloon Such a creepy story, it’s almost like a zombie apocalypse but with balloons, I really liked it. The dad and the brother were really dumb tho. I felt sorry for the poor girl at the end, she must have been so lonely and scared so I can’t blame her for not noticing the trap. 3- Ice Cream Bus I know that it may not be the best but I somehow found this story truly disturbing. Junji Ito is truly the only person who can make ice cream scary. 4- Tomie's Photos I was not familiar with Junji’s work before but I heard of Tomie and I was glad to finally know more about it. It was an interesting story, I liked the plot a lot. 5- Whispering Woman I felt really sorry for Mitsu, it sad that she wasn’t rescued. I’m glad she at least had her revenge. 6- Alley I liked the idea of the hidden window. Shinobu was a real monster and i’m just a little sad that we don’t see what happens to her at the end because she deserved it so much. I laugh so hard when the rope cut off! 7- The Thing That Drifted Ashore The CGI was really ugly but I liked the story, it was really creepy to imagine something like this happening in the reality, I felt sorry for the people trapped inside. 8- Tomb Town I liked the story but thank god we don’t have to do something like this in the reality because tu would be horrible to have tomb everywhere lmao. Poor Ayumi and her family deserved better but i’m glad that the brother had the karma back at the end. 9- Long Hair in the Attic I have not much to say but poor family, I liked the plot. I don’t know why hair horror work so well but it always does. 10- The Sandman's Lair Not much to say to, I felt sorry for both of the characters, the plot was interesting. 11- Headless Statue It was really creepy, I liked the story. 12- Intruder It must have been so awkward for the characters to know that in the alternative world they have been killed by their friends. Good story. 13- The Bully This story made me uncomfortable, I felt really sorry for the poor little Nao who only wanted to be friend, he was so sweet and the scene with the dog really made me disgusted. Kid can be mean to each other but this girl is something else, she is a true psycho who need to be stopped tbh, she was really creepy at the end when she put on some make up. Poor little Hiroshi, I hope that someone will notice the abuse and save him. 14- Mysterious Tunnel Good story overall, not too much to say about it. 15- Mold I don’t have much to say, it could have been better, I wish there was more details about the weird family. 16- Unendurable Labyrinth Interesting plot but not well executed imo. 17- Library Vision Maybe i’m dumb, maybe it’s because it was in Japanese with English subs and that i’m french but god, I didn’t understand anything in this story, welp. (The guy was annoying af) 18- The Strange Hikizuri Siblings This story made me drop the anime once. I wasn’t excepting something like this when I started to watch it and it was kinda bad imo. 19- Four x Four Walls Soichi’s story = shitty story imo, sorry not sorry. 20- Souichi's Beloved Pet Soichi story + animal abuse, not for me. |
 Sorry, my english may not be the best, I am french. |
| My personal ranking: 1. Tomie: hands down the best story in the series 2. Hanging Balloon: it merged horror and comedy very well 3. Layers of Terror: I love curse plots about people being punished for disrespecting the dead. What can I say? 🤷♀️ 4. Tomb Town: similar reason to 3 5. Long Hair in the Attic: I like body horrors where beauty is flipped as bad. It's the reason I liked Tomie 6. The Bully: childhood bullying leading to a cycle of child abuse 7. Mold: it was gross and creepy in all the great ways. 8. Library Vision: I really liked this story as well. 9. Four x Four Walls: apparently Soichi isn't very loved, but I liked him! 10. Unendurable Labyrinth: the eyes of judgement along with the creepy atmosphere won me over. 11. Whispering Woman: two co-dependent girlies with one being a mass murderer to avenge the other. 12. Soichi's Beloved Pet: once again, I like Soichi. His episodes were funny because he tried so hard to be evil and malicious, and it blows up in his face. 😂 13. Alley 14. Headless Statue: both were sort of equal to me, tbh. Alley had a more satisfying ending though. 15. Ice Cream Bus: it was okay. From this point on, I didn't like the episodes... 16. Intruder: decent plot bunny, but too short 17. Sandman's Lair: it was just meh. 18. The Strange Hikizuri Siblings: it had a few good plot bunnies, but too little focus on the interesting stuff and too much focus on the BS 19. The Story of the Mysterious Tunnel: what even was this??? 20. The Thing that Drifted Ashore: this was the weakest episode for me. It happened to come after one of my favorites. |
More topics from this board
Poll: » Itou Junji: Maniac Episode 10 DiscussionTsushimaMartin - Jan 19, 2023 |
28 |
by dyegreenluke
»»
Jan 21, 4:09 AM |
|
Poll: » Itou Junji: Maniac Episode 12 DiscussionTsushimaMartin - Jan 19, 2023 |
39 |
by Tobber44
»»
Jan 8, 11:40 AM |
|
Poll: » Itou Junji: Maniac Episode 11 DiscussionTsushimaMartin - Jan 19, 2023 |
23 |
by ReaperCreeper
»»
Oct 18, 2024 9:59 PM |
|
Poll: » Itou Junji: Maniac Episode 9 DiscussionJayPatel1304 - Jan 19, 2023 |
28 |
by ReaperCreeper
»»
Oct 17, 2024 8:10 PM |
|
Poll: » Itou Junji: Maniac Episode 8 DiscussionTsushimaMartin - Jan 19, 2023 |
28 |
by ReaperCreeper
»»
Oct 17, 2024 5:27 PM |