The Enigma of Amigara Fault by Junji Ito
Strange human shaped holes appear in a mountainside.


I found this manga yesterday courtesy of fandomsecrets.

Now I'm sharing it here in the hope that someone will understand and give me a virtual hug. See, it's an extra from volume 2 of some other horror manga - it's a short story. It's 32 pages long. You can read it if you want to, but you might not want to.

Gah. WHY DO I ALWAYS CLICK. Has fandom wank taught me nothing? You never click. You certainly do not click when almost everyone who has, with a few notable exceptions, clicked and read it is reporting back serious brainbreakage and terror of the 'ohmygod I WILL NEVER SLEEP AGAIN' variety. But I clicked. And I read it. And then I needed emergency boysmut. I shall never sleep again. Or at least not with any great ease. Ohgod.

*stares suspiciously at her living room walls*

... yes, I know it's probably an allegory about Japanese society or something, but I don't much care. I don't much care about the plot holes (ohgod holes) or the fact that the more I think about it the more problems there are with the premise. As Yoshida-san says, it doesn't have to make sense - that's not really what it was trying to do. It was trying to scare me, and in that it managed.

Yeah. I am not afraid to admit that this thing scared the wits out of me. Thank God I don't live in the mountains. Or anywhere near them.

Yeah, silly though this manga was, it just effectively hit a good number of my buttons. Not all of them, because nobody caught fire, but a good few of them anyway. If I ever see a human-shaped hole in anything (and God knows how they got there, but I am trying not to even think about this thing still less to pull it apart plotwise, thanks, brain) I am going to RUN THE FUCK AWAY VERY FAST.

Only macros can make this better.

This is my favorite. Kitties in night vision make everything much better. Though one of the Spongebob Squarepants ones makes me laugh as well, as does the one with Wil E. Coyote. I link to all these for my poor traumatized brain needs them. Spoilers abound, but if you never read The Enigma of Amigara Fault you'll - well, you'll probably sleep better or something?

DRR DRR DRR.

And I've been going round saying that all day. I want to say it to small children.

Help.