4.5 - honestly what a treat to get an inside peek of the process of such an iconic horror manga creator—absolutely loved this.

The book starts out sort of autobiographical, which I was pleasantly surprised by. I love reading craft books where the writers detail their own inspirations and explore how they started down the path of writing, and Ito’s look into his childhood and how his interests shaped his writing style was both interesting and comedic. His voice is somewhat unexpected from what you typically see in his manga—he seems both very self-aware and willing to make a joke. (This second part I think is perhaps present in his manga, but perhaps overshadowed by the usual gruesomeness of his stories). While I wasn’t really expecting this autobiographical element, I do think it added a lot to his later discussions about his ideas and creation process, as the insight into his life outside of being a manga writer brought clarity to the way in which certain ideas were born.

The actual “writing advice” section was also really great. Ito broke down his most popular plots, explaining how he got them to their finished products, his most popular characters, and discussed how he got those ideas onto the page, and even if you’re not an artist, even just plain old writers can still learn from his process. For example, I found his tips about applying naturalistic animal traits to humans to give them a new flavor of uncanny (which he revealed is where the idea for Tomie came from) as well as ensuring your horror has a healthy dose of realism to be quite illuminating. His explanations into how he built up the horror of his works was really reminiscent of advice I’ve read from other writers, but his alternate and more visual perspective added new things to think about. I only wish that he’d gone a bit more in depth with some of the creation aspects of his most famous stories. He discussed Tomie somewhat thoroughly, but didn’t reveal as much about Uzumaki for example. Regardless, I still found all the tidbits he did provide to be quite interesting and I really got a sense of how he personally approaches his craft.

The art, as usual, was great and I especially enjoyed looking at some of his older (as in middle school aged) work and the storyboards/idea stages of stories he’s now known for. These inclusions really gave both a flavor of growth as an artist as well as an additional insight into his process that perhaps wasn’t discussed in the actual text. The flip book at the bottom of the pages he included was also very fun and added another layer of charm to the book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this look into such an iconic writer’s head and process. If you’re a fan of Ito’s work, this novel will only make you appreciate it that much more, as well as pick up on some common themes he utilizes that may usually fly under the radar. I also recommend this book for anyone interested in writing horror—even if you’re not an artist, there’s still a lot of solid advice about how to master the nature of suspense and utilize the inherent disgust that unsettles humans. I think Ito is one of the most important horror writers of the contemporary landscape, so I recommend taking a delve into this book to see what you can learn from him. I definitely enjoyed it!