With recent collected volumes of Junji Ito’s work Venus in the Blind Spot and Remina showcasing his science fiction endeavours over traditional fright works, one would be forgiven for thinking that the mangaka has changed direction of late.
However, galactic terror has always been prevelant in some small creeping way in Ito’s work dating back to Uzumaki. Yet there’s no denying that Junji Ito’s lifelong love of Lovecraft has been running rampant these last few years. Viz Signature’s 2019 anthology Sensor is the ultimate pinnacle of that admiration and inspiration.
While there may be more things in heaven and earth than in my dreamt philosophy, with Sensor, Junji Ito has eschewed earthly horrors and is focusing solely on heaven’s.
Originally titled Travelogue of the Succubus, Sensor starts off with a striking young woman, Kyoko Byakuya, alone at the foot of the dormant volcano Mount Sengoku.
Surrounded by masses of ethereal floating strands of golden volcanic debris known as “Angel Hair” (also referred to outside the manga as “Pele’s Hair”, after the Hawaiian volcano goddess) Kyoko is approached by a mysterious man. This stranger not only knows her name, but claims that he and his fellow villagers of Kiyomi have been awaiting her arrival.
Despite Kyoko being evidently weirded out by this man’s bizarre claims, she can’t ignore that she herself is unsure why she was “drawn” to this desolate region.
Acquiescing to the man’s request, Kyoko visits the archaic and Angel Hair laden village of Kiyomi, meets the star gazing locals and inadvertently starts an interstellar chain of colossally, cosmically devastating events.
Not content with just spinning a yarn about a space based apocalypse, Sensor evolves into a genre defying manga.
From UFOs, ESP, Akashic records, astral projection, pre-destiny, time travel, immaculately detailed historical period piece chapters about the 16th century Shogunate’s persecution of Christianity practising Japanese all the way to stalkers, the damned souls of suicide victims and an intrepid reporter hot on the heels of a scoop bigger than the unvierse.
While oftentimes confusing and disappointing, this is quintessentially Ito, yet Ito outside the box.
Content wise, Sensor is indeed a sensory overload. Not every plotline pays off and certain concepts were too high-falutin for this astrologically challenged ignoramus to fully follow (to the detriment of my overall enjoyment). I’d feel confident that other readers might share my opinion.
I say that from a science point of view and not from a storytelling point of view. Two story arcs in Sensor were exquisitely thought-provoking and world class examples of Ito’s literary mastery.
The aforementioned historical time travel chapter “Light and Dark” depicting in grim detail the tragic fates of the poor Christian Kiyomi villagers after they are discovered by the perverse guards of the Christian hating Shogunate is fascinating. It’s also all the more poignant and down-right shocking as it is a scenario lifted directly from real life.
“Battle at Bishagaura” is a harrowing ordeal for the reader. The cliffs of Bishaguara are a suicide hotspot and it’s certainly hotting up. Despite suffering an infestation of grotesque, pulsating bugs, amiable local cafe workers endeavour to dissuade visitors to the notorious cliffs from carrying out their darkest thoughts. However, akin to the conversational taboo that is suicide, some things - and bugs - just become too damn hard to ignore.
While no one can fault Junji Ito’s stunning, and at times sickening, art work, I feel the art is far too sanitized in Sensor. Ito is known for his unique, dark, cross hatched hand drawn style manga, in this it’s almost completely absent and even the most violent of visuals feels watered down.
This dilution trickles down to the flimsy character development. Coupled with the confusing scientific jargon, there wasn’t enough there to make me emotionally invest in the characters and their ordeals or, honestly? Care. At. all.
Overall, Sensor provides a scrappy, plodding enjoyment with body horror imagery that is technically “out there” but at the same time textbook Ito. Ito’s own lacklustre ambivalence towards his own book is tangible in the anthology’s afterword.
I adore Junji Ito and appreciate that he’s a creator who keeps striving for new ways to completely ruin your peace with the world around you (everything is a malevolent sentient villain sent to destroy mankind!!!) but I do much prefer his more grounded, slice-of-life horrors.
That being said, as it is about the angels triumphing over an evil force in the name of Christianity, and a lovely star in the sky - Sensor is useful fodder for reviewers looking for a Christmas blog post.
Feliz Navidad.
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