if you look closely, you can detect worry in this paragraph. i've been a little worried about this anime adaptation the entire time i've known of it, but i always try to give things my good faith, and i'm a big fan of a lot of flawed gems. i'm pretty forgiving as long as there's something there to like but oh no oh no oh nooooooooooooooooo oh dear oh no (sorry for linking to the ex-bird-website it's just where i know of a clip sorry. if you're reading through this in the future after elon musk has finally killed that poor website: it's a clip from Uzumaki episode 2 with some... DEEPLY CURSED bad animation)

i kinda haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. i think the first episode made some admirable swings at being a good adaptation-- but i also think the wild pacing really kills its ability to actually be frightening. i was approaching it from the perspective of someone who's read the manga a few times, but for someone who's new to it??? i have no idea if this would actually scare them or just weird them out a little. i have a feeling "weirded out" is more likely than scared.

seeing this messy adaptation honestly led to some newfound extra respect for Junji Ito. not that he didn't have it before, but like, until i saw the anime truly in action i hadn't thought about just how specifically calculated his work is, and how difficult it would be to adapt for the screen. i think half the problem with adaptations of Ito's work is that they somehow always fall into the hands of incompetent dingdongs (and gossip on the MAL forums confirms that's probably what happened here), but i think it's also just like. extremely difficult, maybe impossible, to take his manga and make it work onscreen.

time flows differently on a comic page than it does when we're watching a movie or a tv show or a video game cutscene. (Scott McCloud explains it much better than i can in Understanding Comics-- warning, this is a PDF link.)

to create suspense, you need to stop and linger on stuff a lot. you need to put people into that cycle of dread → scare → relief → dread, and there's kind of nothing extraneous in his work to stretch out. there's also very little, if any character development and not really much going on outside of the horror, and it's amazing how much suspense and terror he's able to put into his work with characters that in anything else would kinda be... like honestly, and i don't mean this in a derogatory way... cardboard stand-ups. i don't feel like i know much about Kirie or Shuichi, and i don't feel like i see them grow and change so much as just struggle. i think Ito is tapping into your empathy in a different way than most writers do. it's like finding a scary video on the internet out of context, like seeing someone fall into a sinkhole or something. a lot of the time, these characters are almost complete strangers. it's campfire ghost stories, pretty much entirely story-driven. and vibes-driven.

and it is all calculated so specifically for the page. he is the master of making you terrified to turn the page. it's his whole thing. i think where i realized it was not working as well as i hoped was when you first see Shuichi's dad coiled up into a spiral. when i first read the manga, that was the page turn that sold me. it hits like a bus. i was honestly dreading seeing it onscreen because it's so upsetting, and... it just didn't have the same impact. and again i was like, eh, well, i've read the manga and i knew what was coming, i dunno what this would be like for someone who hasn't. but i don't know. probably not nearly as effective.

i think a lot about horror, because i'm working on a visual novel that has some horror elements (obligatory plug). i'm not really out to make something that's consistently scary the whole way through, and i'm not aiming for it to be a test of courage in the way horror games often are. but there are some key scenes that i want to be pretty upsetting, and i adore the horror genre in general, so i'm always thinking: what do i find scary, and why? why does this upset me? when i come across horror that doesn't do it for me, i'm like: why isn't this for me? what about this is not working, and is it a structural problem or is it just not playing to any of my anxieties? (ex. i am very difficult to scare with ghosts; i think they're neat and my reaction to them is usually "that's my new friend. we would be friends". i just empathize with them too much to be horrified-- some people find the mere concept of a lingering spirit horrifying on its own and get the willies about anyplace that might be haunted. i was "hang out in the graveyard and hope ghosts are real" teenager, okay. i'm that weirdo.)

i think horror and romance are like, maybe the two most difficult things to write, because what someone finds upsetting or terrifying or romantic or sexy is going to vary so much between people, and it can flop SO HARD if it doesn't work for you. whatever you do, basically, even if you're really good at your craft, it's probably gonna miss for some section of the audience. i feel like those are also maybe the most potentially embarrassing things to fail at because they're so emotionally vulnerable. you're putting something out there with the intent of creating a really intense emotion and if it doesn't work right it, it might be either be secondhand embarrassing, or funny, or both. that is a terrible feeling, to be like "here's my very big emotion!" and have someone's response be awkward laughter.

so. this is all to say. nothing but respect for Junji Ito, whose work rides such a thin line between horror and absurdity all the time. he's always throwing spaghetti at the wall and it doesn't always stick for me, but i'll always be back for more spaghetti. if we ever see a good adaptation of his work, i'll show up for it, but i don't really long desperately for it. the initial trailers did ignite some hype for me, but i wasn't sitting there like "goddamn why is there no anime adaptation???" before i knew it was happening. this doesn't feel like a tragedy to me in quite the same way as Sailor Moon Crystal (shitshow i'll probably make a youtube video essay about someday) or Berserk 2016 (insult to the medium). it sucks to see it mishandled, i'm disappointed in the people that dropped the ball on it, and i think some genius maybe could pull it off, but i don't need it, because i don't think there's much for animation to add to his work other than bringing it to a wider audience. what he's doing is already exactly what it needs to be.

 

Day 3 & 4 (sketched one day, colored the next): a suggestion by kayin from the request post. and i mean yes obviously Utena Petra. obviously. i'm not sure why i hadn't already done this. princely women...


my very important anime opinions from this week's Anime Day

Dead Dead Demons DeDeDeDe Destruction (completed) - a companion for the manga imo, this adaptation clearly had to make some impossible choices between quality and length, and some of the choices they made were... baffling. "episode zero" covers some of the END of the manga?? but i still liked it overall. finish the manga, then watch the anime lol. content warning for this one if you end up checking it out: a teacher/student relationship is in there; no laws are broken and it's certainly not framed as ideal. Inio Asano is not here to make you comfortable all the time ok

Uzumaki (episode 1) - one of my fav manga and another "that's gonna be hard to adapt" situation, the pacing feels WACK but idk how else you could have done it-- other than maybe splitting it up into 2 chapters at the commercial break, which i think maybe would have felt less confused? the choice to keep it greyscale is A+, and the surreal never-quite-still animation style is working for it.

Dan Da Dan (episode 1) - since this is new... content warning for Relatively Silly Alien Rape Threats in the first episode if you pick this one up this season, which i expect won't be the last time because this is not my first rodeo with Science Saru lol. that aside-- the animation is wild, it's very funny and charming, i like the premise and our two weirdo main characters, hope this one turns out to be a banger

Monster (episodes 13 & 14): Monster is good. i have nothing insightful to say about Monster. it's good as hell. i love Kenzo Tenma with my whole heart and soul

Hellsing Ultimate (episode 2) - high-grade schlock. Alucard is my husband and Integra is my wife; so it has been since my teens. kind of impressed by how well it cleans up the manga's storyline, which i barely remember but which i do remember being A Nonsense Mess a lot of the time lol. content warning for Hellsing is pretty much everything, and you're not allowed to be mad at me if you go watch it because i said i liked it. actually that last part applies to every anime i post about. i'm tired of feeling like i can't mention my favs in public without some people assuming i endorse every sin committed, i already had to put up with that when i was a child trying to enjoy things during the tail end of the Satanic Panic okay. oops sorry this turned into a rant sorta oops i've been thinking about this a lot lately sorry

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (episodes 14 & 15) - i love The Batou Show. i don't have anything insightful to say about GITS that hasn't already been said, at least not yet. i just think Batou is a Type of Guy and i like him. i wish the future still had discs and things that go click. i think i maybe said this all before

No Guns Life (episodes 7 & 8) - i think it has a cool premise and some cool aesthetics/worldbuilding, but i also haven't really been wowed by it yet. i'm hoping it'll show me some teeth. i like when gun man become funny scribble like Alphonse Elric though

Hare + Guu (episodes 17 & 18) - this is a 2000s comedy anime that i don't think most western anime fans have heard of, and it can be pretty hit-or-miss (with the expected Discomforts you'd get from... like i said, 2000s comedy anime) but when it hits it fucking hits, episode 18 was a riot. this would have been the LOLZ TEH RANDOM!!11 anime of my teens had i known of it back then lol

other things that are happening

• i'm attempting to read Hellboy. this is surprisingly difficult because i'm used to shoving manga into my face constantly and i keep reading the pages in the wrong order. i want to absorb the minimalist backgrounds and learn how to incorporate that energy into my own work!!

• Tia jumped from the windowsill onto my boob at 5:45 AM today and it hurt really bad/startled the shit out of me but it also woke me up right in the right part of my sleep cycle to actually feel refreshed upon waking (which simply has not happened the last... 9 months) so i can't even be mad. i will definitely get sore boob tomorrow and be convinced i have cancer (i can't tell you how many times this has happened it's ridiculous)

• it's cold enough to wear sweatshirts again! i'm sad about cohost though. i bought my current crop of big pullover sweatshirts the first winter i was on cohost and i ended up associating them with cozy cohost-and-cat-and-chill-and-draw time BWAAGGHGHGHG COHOST AAAAAAAGHBBHGH BUHUHUHUH HHUHhhh sniff snorf wehhhhhhhh

• in cohost's wake i am posting in All The Places, truly. i've dusted off pillowfort and made a new mastodon account. i had weird times on mastodon.social (people yelling at me for not cwing things like literally mentioning a very small injury... c'mon) and mastodon.art pretty much just ignored me when i was last trying to post there, but i don't want to write off the whole concept because cohost taught me that smaller, quieter spaces are worth something too, and pursuing the Biggest Possible Audience is not only not always great for your mental health, it's not even actually better for your sales if you're like me and you have to hustle online all the time lol. i'm hoping i can find a good balance-- i can't possibly keep up with the feed of every website and discord i have some presence in, but i also don't want to be the person who posts and runs and never interacts.

...and why not also an excerpt from chapter2.rpy

chapter2.rpy

erika "Honestly, I don't see why you don't just ignore him. You're leaving in the morning anyway." sykes "(Good chance we'll keep running into him if we come through here regularly... I want to know what he's up to.)" erika "Eh, that's a good point, I guess." erika "Keep your friends close..." sykes "(...and your enemies within strangling range.)"