Dr. M: Day 21--A manga that deserves more recognition

Dear Readers, I am not an easy person to scare. I mean, yes, I jump at surprises, but everyone does. But to truly scare me you something a little more significant than jumping out of the shrubbery. I am a huge horror movie fan, and maybe that's affected my evil little brain on some level, but there are only a handful of horror movies that I admit scare me. Usually they are darkly twisted stories about human nature...or stories that are just so disturbing on a sort of primal level that they haunt me forever. Or, admittedly, they contain clowns or tight underground spaces (cave-diving is not for me, in fact, I'll stay topside, thank you). I can avoid those things in real life.

Horror fiction, although it always seems like a good idea, is a little more effective than films I suppose, but not always. I can't think of the last time a horror story, or novel actually scared me. The closest Stephen King ever got was Gerald's Game, which wasn't so much scary as just panic inducing. His work isn't scary.

So, when something really, really scares me...it deserves some recognition.

Junji Ito has written some scary things. He is the author of the manga/stories that led to the Ringu/Ring series (which I found pretty frightening actually), and Tomie (which was not scary, but has I believe, about 9 sequels, making it the Japanese equivalent of Friday the 13th, maybe?). He's written some scary things. The scariest thing I've ever read of his absolutely haunts me to this day. Sometimes the story will just pop into my head randomly and I won't be able to get it out of my brain all day. It's that scary!

Oh, the horror of stank-fish!
Actually, rotting fish is a pretty horrible smell.
I might run too. 

Ito's series Gyo (fish) isn't actually one of my favorite reads. It's a series about a weaponized death stench (yup). Basically there are these spindly-legged robots wandering around carrying stinky corpses. Meh. Not his best work, however in the second volume, as a bonus story, I found the scariest story I've ever read:
"The Enigma of the Amagara Fault."

The story begins simply enough, with an earthquake and a fault, but then it gets significantly more horrifying as it progresses.

Okay, that's simple enough. Nothing scary yet.

After the earthquake two women find themselves separately drawn to the fault, and meet one another as they hike into the mountains. The earthquake revealed something interesting, thousands and thousands of human shaped holes carved into the side of the mountain.

Okay, that's creepy. 

I will not tell you what happens next, except to say that it is HORRIBLE! This manga deserves more recognition for being the product of a truly effed up mind and having the ability to haunt you for the rest of your days. Enjoy!