Itou Junji Kyoufu Manga Collection: Souichi no Tanoshii Nikki

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This volume was a brief departure from the one-shots present in the preceding volumes. Instead, there was a constant cast of characters, with each story revolving around the occult-themed antics of Souichi, a troubled boy.

Story, 7: The stories were sorted in chronological order, and though they were mostly self-contained, there was definitely a passage of time. Most of them involved voodoo or other occult themes (curses, premonitions, etc.), which was good for establishing a creepy feeling without being overtly supernatural (aside from the middle chapters).

Art, 7: Given the more subdued nature of the stories, there weren't as many chances for Ito's artistry to shine. ... The characters were well-drawn, but there weren't any grotesquely beautiful images from the previous volumes.

Characters, 7: The big strength of this particular volume was the development of the cast, namely Michina (the young female protagonist for most of the stories). Every character felt unique and was characterized enough that they didn't seem to just be archetypes. Souichi had some interesting development in the later chapters, though the reasons/results of some of his actions were still unclear to me by the end of the volume.

Enjoyment, 7: It was a good read. This volume reminded me a bit of Tomie (one of Ito Junji's earlier works), where a recurring antagonist appears to torment the chapter's protagonist(s) (in this case, the protagonists were mostly the same throughout the volume).

Overall, 7: Aside from some brief transgressions in the middle chapters, the volume did a great job at establishing an eerie atmosphere without being over-the-top. The middle chapters were a bit too blatant with their supernatural elements (which weren't in the other chapters), but the volume as a whole was an entertaining read. I'd recommend it if you're a fan of Ito or simply want a quick and self-contained horror read.

Favorite Chapter: "Souichi's Birthday"; Least Favorite: "Souichi's Home Tutor"

This manga collection take the same formula as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd manga which is a continuous story in one volume. In here we follow a boy named Souichi who may or may not have a supranatural power. Its fun to see the story unfold and guess if the stuff happening is really because ghost or not. The horror aspect isn't that big because they're more focusing to building the characters. I mean the author need to somehow make a good characters just in the span of 6 chapters. And the result is... not that good. For me personally, I kind of dislike this ... kind of story telling because I didn't expect a continuous story like this. And not to mention almost every characters is just one dimensional. They don't show their personality often and that lead to some boring dialogue interaction between characters.

But that is the narrative aspect. The art aspect in this manga is gorgeous. I still love the artsyle and the vibe they bring in to make a good panel. Some of my friends now says manga is boring because it's in white and black. But for me, because of that same reason this manga is famous. If it's full colored or anything like that, I don't think this can be as popular as it is now.

Junji Ito is a master of coming up with great concepts of horror, but his main weakness is uninteresting characters. This is normally not a problem, since short stories of 20 length dont require alot of personality in the cast. But in this collection, the cast remains the same from story to story, and that really makes it obvious that the cast is just not that interesting, with the exception of Souchi. His art is also at its best when drawing really weird and horrifying shit, which the more grounded stories in this collection dont really feature.

TLDR: If youre a Junji Ito fanatic, this is ... worth reading, but he's written much better stuff than this.