Tomie

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Story - All I knew when I started this manga was that 'Tomie' was a woman who could make men fall madly in love with her at first sight. As you can imagine, I wasn't really expecting much and was very impressed by what I read. I loved every chapter and felt they were all very original and well thought out to how each 'Tomie' manipulated and charmed each character in the manga which eventually ends in her own demise.

Art - As the other review has mentioned, the one strength to this anime is that Tomie is truely beautifully drawn in the manga with her ... beautiful eyes and shiny hair and there is a lot of attention to detail, especially when her beautiful form is distorted by the 'monster' beneath.

Character - The smaller characters are simply prop to the many 'Tomies' that prop up in all the stories. It is especially unkind to the men who fall madly for Tomie in each arc. Not much is known about Tomie except for her supernatural abilities and as you get more and more used to her character, the stories seem to get more complicated and baffling. Great! And a real challenge for the mind!

Enjoyment - I throughly enoyed 'Tomie' and despite it not being as 'terrifying' as I thought it could be, I found it was a very interesting concept about a strange multiplying girl with no purpose but to make people love her as much as she loves herself.

Overall - Definitely an interesting manga if you like different story arcs and strange characters and plotlines. It can be a little gory/strange in places but hey - what can you do?!

STORY: 6/ART:6/CHARACTERS:5/ENJOYMENT:6/OVERALL:6

I would consider Tomie to be an interesting mange to read when you are waiting for another mange chapter to be released. It it definitely good to pass the time but it isn't anything to write home about.

STORY: The story is very simple. There is a succubus (Tomie) that has immense beauty and charm. She goes around seducing men and driving them to murder and driving women to insanity. The victim of the aggravated violence is usually Tomie herself. When she gets murdered she spawns more of herself and regenerates, continuing her curse. It is even alluded to towards the end of the manga ... that "Tomie" has been on Earth long before the time represented in the manga. Every chapter is episodic leading to a different group of people being effected every chapter. The first couple of chapters were really interesting but after maybe chapter 9, things started to get really repetitive.

ART: This is Junji Ito's first manga so in the beginning the art wasn't that great but as it progressed there was a huge improvement in style and it looks more like what everyone else is familiar with if you have read his other works. At moments Tomie was drawn very beautifully and a lot of the gore scenes were really well drawn out and they were very powerful moments but again the manga itself isnt totally outstanding.

CHARACTERS: as far as art goes, some where unique enough to temporarily remember. most of the high school boys look practically identical. because the story is episodic, the characters in each chapter switch so there really is no importance in knowing who they are anyways except for obviously Tomie and her teacher Mr. Tagaki as he often comes back to forward the plot.

ENJOYMENT: There were some chapters that were genuinely interesting and i was very invested in the plot, other chapters barely had me engaged because of the very flat story arc. It will tend to get flat towards the end because you can predict how to chapters are going to play out.

OVERALL 6: it wasnt awful but it wasnt amazing. Junji Ito definitely found his niche in horror manga and continued with it in his later years. If you read any of this other works (which i highly recommend) you can see the amount of improvement he underwent as a artist and a story teller. It's a good intro into Ito's other works and it passed the time but I wouldnt put it as my favorites

I started reading Junji Ito from here, and I frankly feel like I should have just skipped this...
It's all undoubtedly very mediocre for a J-Horror saga.

Tomie seems to be a horror creature flimsily assembled from the discarded pieces of several other works, taking some bits of gothic horror, slasher flics, ghost stories, cosmic horror...
A patchwork of mismatched influences all centering on the character of Tomie, a monster with a human figure, but as irresistible as she's indestructible, a ''waifu'' Michael Myers.

For the length of its three volumes, this all remains very repetitive. The art, especially from the earlier chapters, is subpar. Every character is so ... inconsistent between pages, or even sometimes panels, that I've had trouble telling who is supposed to be who and what the horrible Ito wants us to see in their nonsensical actions. Tomie appears as a monster without explanation or purpose. All Tomie wants is to seduce her victims, but this inevitably leads her to be killed...

The temporality is nonexistent, some stories last for too long, where each non-recurring character tries to stop Tomie, and all inevitably fail because the narrative is too poor to allow for any development, Ito seems unable to write any humane character. The disposable victims are on a level only ever reached by b-grade ''so bad it's good'' schlock, except none of it is funny, just boring. These people stand there, encounter Tomie, try to stop her or fuck her, and get absorbed...

Tomie kills a child, Tomie vs Tomie, Tomie goes to school, Tomie on the moon...
If we think about it, it could have been worse, Ito could have given Tomie alien origins!


I think I will take my leave before I decide to tackle Uzumaki.