Venus in the Blind Spot, by Junji Ito (Viz Media) | review by Stephen Theaker

An extraordinarily creepy collection of short stories by writer and artist Junjo Ito, translated by Jocelyne Allen and Yuji Oniki. It presents the reader with one horrifying image after another, while reflecting on themes of loneliness, misogyny and obsession. “Billions Alone”, for example, gives us a world where anyone gathering in a group is mysteriously stitched together, naked, in increasingly bizarre patterns.

Two stories are adapted from the work of Edogawa Ranpo (a Japanese writer whose name is a play on Edgar Allen Poe). “The Human Chair” is the disturbing story of a writer who comes to suspect that there might be a pervert hidden inside her armchair, while “An Unearthly Love” is about a newlywed who discovers her husband has another, less human sweetheart.

The title story, about a beautiful woman who cannot be seen except from a distance, was my least favourite, and the most shocking, for exactly the same reason: the sexual violence at its conclusion is so much more real than the supernatural elements that predominate elsewhere. “The Licking Woman” is the most revolting of the stories: she licks people at night with a grotesque tongue, her spit dooming them to a painful death.

“How Love Came to Professor Kirida” is about a man plagued by the sexual attentions of an obsessive ghost, based upon a story by Robert Hichens. “The Sad Tale of the Principal Post” is about a dad who finds himself in a tight spot, a metaphor perhaps for the pressures faced by an old-fashioned “man of the house”. “Keepsake” is about a baby found in a coffin, nine months after a woman was buried by her adulterous husband.

The endings aren’t always satisfying; in fact, rather than stories, it might be more accurate to think of these as nightmares. They have the logic of dreams, and their vividness. But “Master Umezz and Me” is a change of pace, a memoir of the author’s love of Kazuo Umezz’s comics and cartoons, though even that finds room for a handful of horrific images (Junjo Ito makes his younger self as alarmingly obsessive as any of his characters).

“The Enigma of Amigara Fault” is the story that will stay with me longest: an earthquake leaves people-shaped holes exposed in the side of a mountain, and people are drawn to those holes. Every aspect of this story felt like it had been dragged from my worst fears. I wish I hadn’t looked through it again while writing this review: doing so can only increase the likelihood of having nightmares that draw upon it.

The copyright page offers an alternative title, “Ito Junji Tanpenshu Best of Best”. Although I loved the film Uzumaki, based on his book, I haven’t read his work before, so I can’t say if these truly are the best of his best, as claimed, but given how good these stories are, it would be highly impressive if his other work was even better. ****