The Enigma of Amigara Fault Manga Analysis Essay Example

đź“ŚCategory: Literature
đź“ŚWords: 1292
đź“ŚPages: 5
đź“ŚPublished: 18 April 2022

In horror stories there are a variety of elements that coalesce into creating something to truly frighten the viewer, both in the immediate reaction and how the elements of the story sit with the reader. A prime example of great storytelling and horror is found in Junji Ito’s manga, The Enigma of Amigara Fault. This Manga centers around a young man who visits a recent and peculiar geological disruption that is. The ground has split and shifted to reveal several human shaped holes in the side of a cliff. The most uncanny thing about these holes is that when a person sees a hole in their size, they are met with an irresistible urge to go into the hole where they will then die. This story is suspenseful and near flawless, but in order to understand what makes this story work one must compare it to other famous Ito stories.  

While horror often tries to disturb through the art of mystery, perhaps being fully aware of one's fate is a more disturbing curse and Ito often foreshadows fate through dreams.. Knowing how and when one is going to die can be maddening and only add to the tragedy of these horror stories. Before the reader learns the fate of those that descend into the holes of Amigara Fault it is foreshadowed through the main characters' dreams. Owakis first dream after seeing the holes is about a man who found his hole and slipped through. He pictures the man getting stuck halfway through the tunnel, as the geological changes in the mountain had shifted the hole just out of place so he could not go further. Owaki somehow knows deep in the pit of his stomach that the man dies of starvation. The audience is supposed to believe this is the actual fate of the man and this shows that like in many other Junji Ito stories dreams have great significance. This is most evident in another famous Junji Ito work, The Long Dream. This story starts with a woman believing she sees death while in the hospital, the woman is petrified with the fear of death and is sure her disease will kill her any day now. The audience later learns that the figure of death she sees is a man who brought himself to the hospital because he has been having “long dreams”. Every night the time the man experiences in his dreams gets longer and longer from months to years, and his body even begins to change and adapt to the time he experienced in the dreams. The time increases exponentially and the man fears he will eventually have an infinitely long dream. His gut feeling is right and one night his dream thrashing becomes so intense that he decays in a beam of light never to wake. The man was certain of his fate and that only made every night more terrifying as it could be his last. This curse of premonition through dream extends into Amigara Fault once more before the stories end, yet even with the knowledge of his dream Owaki cannot escape his designated end.  

To continue the theme of assured destruction, a common theme in Ito’s work is an end tailor made to a victim. With a death perfectly laid out to a character it is hard to imagine any other course. When the visitors of the fault see a hole, they believe resembles them they get an unstoppable urge to enter the hole. This is not mind control or a false sense of what is down there, most people are sure they will die when they go in, but they are compelled to go in. The mere existence of a hole for every person is a great contributor to the horror of the story, there is something almost divinely written that everyone will meet that fate. Another story of Ito's that features this certain demise is The Hanging Balloons. In the world of this manga, floating heads with nooses coming down their necks begin descending on humanity, but each head is only interested in killing the human it resembles. There is an assuredness that comes from these designated ends that bring out the horror of anticipating death.   

However, there may be some fates worse than death, or at least methods of dying more gruesome than the reader expects. Body horror is a very common theme in horror writing and it consists of the most brutal and disturbing things that can happen to the human form. Sometimes it means death but other times it means living long term with one's twisted body. Twisted is that exact word to describe the body horror of Ito’s Uzumaki or spiral. Uzumaki is the story of a town infested by spiral shapes, and when this shape begins to affect the residents of the town it does not take too much imagination to figure how that becomes body horror. The first instance of this is one of the main characters dads who becomes fascinated by the spiral shape. He becomes obsessed and eventually he wishes to turn his body into a spiral. He orders a circular tub and when left alone contorts his body into a spiral in the tube. Later, as this infestation grows larger, other people begin to spiral, including two star crossed lovers who twist their bodies together like snakes. Eventually most of the town extends and warps into spiral beings. This body horror of twisting and stretching is very prevalent in Amigara Fault, as through one of Owakis dreams they learn that as a body inches through the hole the shape of it changes slightly over miles until the victims are stretched beyond recognition. The figures the hole goers turn into is very reminiscent of those warped in Uzumaki. This stretching transforms the human body into something frightening that makes the viewer's skin crawl as they cannot help but picture that terrible feeling.  

Junji Ito is not the man you would imagine him to be from his writing, he is actually an easily frightened sweetheart, but it is this deep-rooted fear that allows him to find horror in everyday life. It is possible that the most influential aspect of his horror is how it twists typically ordinary aspects of life. In Amigara Fault it is the fact that the holes on the other side of the fault are shaped like ordinary cracks that might be found on the side of a mountain. It is almost this deconstructed backwards thought process. This horror philosophy of perverting everyday experience is also explored in Army of One, another Ito masterpiece. The aspects of life that the story turns to horror are radio music and being in groups. The story follows a young man who has secluded himself in his bedroom for several years. The man spends all of his time alone and often listens to the radio, but a recent song has disturbed him and he does not know why. His routine is interrupted when a high school crush visits him to invite him to their high school reunion. While wrestling with the idea the character learns that there are people being found dead in his city that are mysteriously sewn together. This becomes an epidemic as large groups of people begin to disappear without a trace and then are found soon after stitched together. The man expresses concern that the reunion be called off as people only go missing in pairs or groups, but his and others concerns are ignored. He does show up at the event late and the whole class has disappeared except for the girl he knew because he ran into her coming in. After the reunion group is found sewn together in the woods he goes to the girl to express his feelings and finds her singing the song as she sews her and her parents together. It is implied that this song is what drove people to stitch themselves and that the reason the main character never suffered this fate was because he was always alone. Junji Ito’s ability to be creative with turning his own fears into captivating stories. Things that might never seem scary to the average person might appear frightening to him and he translates that fear so effectively his perspective spreads to others.

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