First Sight, Manga Chapter 1's: Gyo

First Let's get the information out of the way, to inform you good people about this thing. Gyo is a Horror manga created by Junji Ito, It was released from 2001 - 2002 and is two volumes long. It was published by Shogakukan and ViZ Media.

Too sum up the plot quickly i'll take an quote from MangaReader's Plot summary,

"Something is rotten in Okinawa...the floating stench of death hangs over the island..What is it? A strange, legged fish appears on the scene...so begins Tadashi and Kaori's spiral into the horror (and stench) of the sea. "

Already you're intrigued, am i right? So was i, that's why i decided to read it, luckily it's a pretty quick read in comparison to long running manga, at just twenty chapters long (including bonus chapters). We'll be taking a look at the first chapter of this manga, to see if it succeeds in making you want to read on, or simply fails at it.

The manga starts out with a shot of Tadashi swimming in scuba gear under the water, a battleship is seen in the murky distance and he heads towards it, he spots a shark and obviously attempts to swim away, because he's not an idiot. Suddenly a jet of water goes swimming past him, whatever it was, it was too fast for him to see. The sharks catch sight or scent of Tadashi and go for him, but he manages to make it back to the boat where we first meet Kaori and see how their relationship to one another is. Tadashi also throws an awesome line at the Sharks:

Tadashi VS. Sharks

Kaori complains that the sea air is making her feel ill, which we then learn a plot point, Kaori has a sensitive nose, this later comes into play, and is nicely slipped into the dialogue. Next we see Tadashi and Kaori walking on the docks, conversing about things like how she feels, the fish market near them and the smell. We then see them at 'the house', Kaori took a shower and Tadashi is lying on the bed, once again Kaori complains about a smell, this time his breath. Which then leads to a 'couples' arguement over kissing and teeth brushing. Tadashi accuses her of being selfish which leads to Kaori storming out of the house saying she's leaving for Toyko, Tadashi becomes worried and goes looking for her, eventually coming across a strange smell:

Do i even need to make a fart joke here?

Tadashi wades through the stench and then hear's a scream, he finds the origin of the scream and finds Kaori, who looks scared at something over the grass:

It's either the dinosaur's from Jurassic Park 2 or Ninja's.

Suddenly, whatever the thing is it zooms past them like the roadrunner. They run back to the house, Kaori's showers but says she can't get the smell off of her. She basically orders Tadashi to go and buy air freshener, which of course gets Tadashi out of the house, Classic Horror movie move. Tadashi, upon exiting the house, sniffs the air, realizing that it doesn't smell outside and he thinks the wind possibly blew the smell away. Of course it didn't, It's a horror manga, just like a horror movie the killer can only ever be close to one thing, Naked Women. As Kaori showers she hears a noise from inside the room, (It looks like a walk-in shower, common in japan i believe). She looks to the corner to hear many different sounds, one of them apparently being FSSSSSSH. Then we get a brief glimpse of our monster:

SEVEN DAYSSSS, Also boobs.

Tadashi returns and notices the overbearing smell and battles it with his patented AIR FRESHENER. He finds Kaori laying face down, nude, obviously, and attempts to wake her up, then he hears a familiar noise. FSSSSSH. FSSSSSH. He then proceeds to find whatever it is, and attempts to Trap it, OR KILL IT. He manages to slam a set of drawers into it, splattering whatever it was. What was it you ask? Well i'll tell you.....


IT WAS JESUS.

....Okay i lied about that one. It was actually this.

Why Yes, it does look like a Spider mated with a fish.


So yeah, Tadashi just squashed the crap out of this thing. Which was awesome. Also that was the end of chapter 1! Holy crap, was it good or bad?

My verdict? Really good. Why? Simple. It had a lot of good moments and things that would be set up later in the series, such as the sunken battleship, Kaori's sense of smell and others. Also to end the chapter, they show that thing, which is awesome, because you totally want to see what the fuck that thing is, and you do find out. In my opinion this is a good manga to read through, i've read through it all, but this first chapter really shows of the horror aspect of the Gyo manga, suspense, nice artwork and a genuine creepy atmosphere, also look at that fish. That. Is. Creepy.

Definately recommend checking this out. And i'll give you one reason for checking this out.



Good night everbody :D!, or morning or afternoon, or whatever the hell time you read this!