“A woman walks alone at the foot of Mount Sengoku. A man appears, saying he’s been waiting for her, and invites her to a nearby village. Surprisingly, the village is covered in hairlike volcanic glass fibers, and all of it shines a bright gold. At night, when the villagers perform their custom of gazing up at the starry sky, countless unidentified flying objects come raining down on them—the opening act for the terror about to occur!”

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book that I bought.

Thoughts: I have read a lot of Ito books and “Uzumaki” remains my favorite. I also enjoyed “Tomie” but found “Gyo” and “Remina” to be a bit lacking. “Sensor” wasn’t as good as “Uzumaki” or “Tomie” but was still intriguing, if a bit of a mess..

The story revolves around a woman who wanders into a town full of golden angel hair and then gets very weird from there on out. You are dealing with golden fibers attached to heads, weird cults, cosmic horrors, and strange bugs that squish to look liked dead people. It honestly reads more like a bunch of short stories kind of smashed together rather than a cohesive story on its own. And, did I say it is weird..yeah it’s pretty out there.

The above being said I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it. I was honestly intrigued by parts of it and a bit confused by the end. There are some weird ideas in here and I didn’t mind reading about them, I just kind of struggled to figure out what the point was.

I do think this is some of Ito’s most solid artistic work to date. The artwork is intricately detailed, beautiful, unique, and a joy to look at. It lends itself to the tone of the story well and the panels are cohesive and well put together. The book as a package was very nice; I love the rubberized feel of the cover and the blending of the deep maroon and gold tones on the cover.

I didn’t love this book but it also didn’t turn me away from reading more from Ito. His work is just incredibly unique and intriguing, even when it is a bit of a train wreck like it was this time around.

My Summary (3/5): Overall this was a somewhat non-cohesive story about cults and strange cosmic horrors. It was really weird and hard to follow what was going on, more like a collection of ideas than a cohesive story. The artwork was top notch and the book was well put together. It is unique, and although it was a bit of a mess, it didn’t make me hate Ito’s work. I would still recommend “Uzumaki” or “Tomie” over this if you haven’t read Ito. If you are a huge Ito fan and want to pick up some crazy stuff from him this definitely would fit the bill.

Manga Review – Sensor by Junji Ito (3/5 stars)

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