Manga Review – Remina by Junji Ito (3/5 stars)
Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Manga/Horror
Length: 256 pages
Publisher: VIZ Media LLC
Release Date: December 15, 2020
ISBN-13 : 978-1974717477
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Christmas Gift
Rating: 3/5 stars
“An unknown planet emerges from inside a wormhole, and its discoverer, Dr. Oguro, christens the body “Remina” after his own daughter. His finding is met with great fanfare, and Remina herself rises to fame. However, the object picks up speed as it moves along in its curious course, eliminating planets and stars one after another, until finally Earth itself faces extinction… Is the girl Remina the true cause of the catastrophe? A masterwork of horror from Junji Ito, unfolding on a universal scale.”
Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone graphic novel. I got this as a Christmas gift.
Story (3/5): Dr. Oguro discovers an previously unknown planet that emerges from a wormhole and names it Remina after his daughter. This discovery launches both Dr. Oguro and his daughter into fame. That is until the planet Remina starts to devour everything and head straight towards Earth…and Remina (the daughter) is blamed. This was an okay story, there just isn’t much to it and it was pretty light from a psychological terror viewpoint…it just wasn’t that scary.
Characters (3/5): The characters are fine but we don’t spend much time with any of them. Remina (the daughter) comes off as fairly shallow and naive. Almost everyone else dies before we get any page space with them.
Setting (3/5): The landscape on planet Remina is interesting but we get very little time on it and very little explanation. Most of the story takes place on a Earth plagued by fear and riots (oh, wait does this take place in 2020?). It’s fine but nothing special.
Writing/Drawing Style (3/5): I continue to really love Ito’s illustration style, he does an amazing job putting in lots of horrifying detail. The story this time around was fairly simple and a bit lackluster, I definitely didn’t enjoy it as much as Uzumaki or as much as Tomie. This story didn’t have as much irony and mind-bending craziness as some of his other books.
My Summary (3/5): Overall I didn’t hate this but I was also somewhat disappointed. This is okay but I just expected more. The drawing is still really well done with lots of detail but the story was very lackluster and this wasn’t nearly as mind bending as Uzumaki was.
