Youkai Kyoushitsu
Junji Ito's Dissolving Classroom

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I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I was given this manga. The front depicts a pale boy, and a fiendish looking girl beside him standing in a classroom of what appears to be melted bodies. Being a fan of horror manga, the cover made me even more enticed to start it ASAP. Because even if a horror manga doesn’t manage to make me wet myself, I can always appreciate the art, or sheer absurdity of the story. With that said, was Dissolving Classroom as scary as the cover depicted?

The story is created by Junji Ito, a famous horror mangaka mostly ... known for his series Tomie. A series I’ve yet to read as of writing this, but have heard nothing but great things about. Recognizing the name did make me more excited to see what was in store. So what was in store?

A story involving a brother and sister, both of whom are odd, must keep moving place to place after leaving behind a trail of peculiar instances. The boy, Yuuma, constantly apologizes to everyone on account of his sister causing mischief for everyone they encounter. Though apologizing is actually his way of communicating with the devil. Anyone he apologizes to gets caught between him and the devil in a sea of electromagnetic waves that slowly causes them to melt. When he praises someone’s beauty, he’s actually praising the devil and thus anyone he directs his compliment towards turns more and more hideous. His sister, Chizumi, has a much more sadistic appearance and goes out of her way to torment anyone unlucky enough to cross her path and enjoys devouring the bodies that her brother melts. The manga is an amalgamation of all their misadventures, culminating into one book.

As usual, the art is amazing. Aside from the attention to detail on the deformed victims, melted bodies, or even the normal humans themselves, Ito is able to convey such an uncanny and uncomfortable feeling through the expressions of the character's facial reactions. Sure, I won’t lie, before we see anything gory our first encounter with something out of the ordinary is Chizumi. And I thought she looked hilarious, maybe that was intentional but she did not freak me out in the slightest, at first that is. While her design was nothing too frightening, the way she interacted with others, aside from being an edgelord saying she wants to eat their brains, was off-putting and awkward. Her ugly appearance only enhanced her disturbing nature, which was much scarier than her physical appearance alone.

Though I’d say the same applies to her brother as well. Chizumi is constantly telling the people who they encounter that her brother is a freak who performs these rituals as a way to get closer to the devil. He gets off to both apologizing and complimenting others. He also enjoys bringing his abusive parents from back to the dead to beat him. Disturbing stuff I know, but his normal appearance juxtaposed with what he does behind closed doors makes him more intimidating than his sister. Both siblings constantly point the finger at each other for who’s to blame for all this wicked stuff happening. Yuuma tells people that his sister is possessed by the devil as a punishment for him killing animals as a kid, hence all the terrible happenings surrounding them. While Chizumi tells others that her brother killed animals as a ritual to appease Satan and that he’s the one creating all this madness as a means to get closer with the devil.

And the craziest part about all of this, is that by the end of the story, it’s still unclear who was telling the truth. Though there’s no doubt in my mind that Chizumi is possessed by a demon at the very least, I believe her story over her brothers. Though there’s validity to what he says as well. I think that as a kid he wished death upon his abusive parents so much that he wanted to send them to hell. And what better way to do that than to befriend the devil himself to give him the ability to do so? The devil making a demon possess his sister only makes his apologizing ritual easier to pull off, and whoever’s the demon inside Chizumi gets their payment through eating Yuuma’s victims. The final arc reveals that a detective that was using one of Yuuma’s victims, who managed to survive despite incurring brain damage as a result, to find the truth behind the siblings was, satan all along? Or did Satan just possess him as the siblings attended a press conference? Again, it’s unclear and up to the reader’s interpretation. Mine is that he possessed the detective spontaneously at the end, as Yuuma had performed the ritual enough times to bring Satan as close to him as he could. And the series ends with the author saying that nobody knows what happened to everyone who watched that press conference through their TV’s and that it’s up to the reader to decide what happened.

My only gripe with the series is of no fault of the story itself, but rather the translations. There were times where I had an inkling that something was supposed to be scary or conveyed in a different way than intended. Sometimes the dialogue felt very literal with zero subtly. For example, seeing a panel with text along the lines of, “Yes, I am chizumi and I love to suck brains. Muwahah.” was very common and lacked the same punch that the rest of the page had. Maybe it’s stilted on purpose and that’s just Ito’s unique style of writing. Who knows, but I personally felt it detracted from the horror aspect and made it more comedical at times. Which isn’t a bad thing necessarily, but I’m not sure if that was the intended effect.

Getting this book filled me with joy and confusion, and seeing Junji Ito’s name on it only made my craving for a spooky comic that much more voracious. Did I get what I wanted? Most definitely, I got much more than I expected. The combination of the art, grotesque imagery, and disturbing nature of their situations caught my intrigue and held it long enough that it only took me two sittings to complete. If you’ve yet to read this then please do yourself a favor and read it, especially if you love body horror, and guro.

This was okay. A bit disappointing, but it was some silly fun. Junji Ito tends to have some amazing concepts, but unfortunately this is not one of them. This is essentially a collection of connected short stories, each with a similar premise, and all of the them ending the same way - with melting. The formula got tiresome quickly, but at least it was a fast read and the ending made it all worth it. Art wasn't as creative as Junji Ito normally is. Just lots of melting, and that's it. The characters were pretty memorable though, and now whenever someone apologizes profusely to me, ... I recall this book. I'd say it's worth a read if you're a Junji Ito fan and have read everything else, but I would recommend any other of his manga before this.

Dissolving Classroom – Spoiler Free – Not Recommended

TLDR
Overall: 4/10

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.

Are there really words enough to describe the mess that Dissolving Classroom is? Dissolving Classroom is a collection of Junji Ito’s short stories with a common thread.
The story wasn’t scary. Actually, neither of the stories was; there was no gore, no anxiety, no suspense, no eerie visuals, no atmosphere. In essence, no elements that can make this story horror. It ... is just a bizarre couple of stories with a bizarre premise.
Part of the story is about a character who is always saying sorry because he summoned the devil, and his sister, who loves to eat melted brain. As a result, almost all stories end in the same way: melted brains. Moreover, this has led rise to some of the funniest panels in a horror manga. However, this isn't surprising taking into account the rest of Junji Ito’s work, where a dimension of comedy is always present.
Nevertheless, there is no comparison between some of his better works – such as Tomie or Uzumaki – and Dissolving Classroom. Dissolving Classroom looks like a watered version mixture of both, but for the worse.
The art, is obviously, quite good, being typical of Junji Ito. Nevertheless, between his works the characters all look the same. The story is also very easy to follow along, because of the good cadence of the panels.
Although this was nevertheless a quick read, lessening our suffering, one cannot recommend in any shape or form Dissolving Classroom as a good horror manga, not only because it is not scary and there's not even any element that turns it into actual horror, but because the stories are bad; moreover, it does not deserve to enter in the pantheon of Junji Ito’s. For all these reasons, it is not recommended.