The previously mentioned Tomie omnibus and 2015 collection Fragments of Horror are both strong if uneven, while recent creation Dissolving Classroom is a dud, and Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu is exactly as quirky as it sounds. Uzumaki, about a town slowly going mad due to omnipresent spirals, and Gyo, Ito’s walking-zombie-fish epic, are all-but-untouchable landmarks of horror storytelling. Ito, whose name is synonymous with horror manga both within and outside of his native Japan, has a relatively small amount of work currently in print in English. Nine of these, including a slight short original to this collection, have never before received official American releases (Ito’s work is, unfortunately, widely pirated in the U.S.), while one can also be found in the absolutely massive Tomie omnibus published in 2016. Published late last year by VIZ Media, the American home for most of Ito’s work, Shiver translates a 2015 Japanese volume of 10 short stories curated by the horror-manga master himself. Paste’s comic crew has always worn its Junji Ito fandom on its spiral-covered sleeve, so we’d be remiss not to take a step back and discuss Shiver: Junji Ito Selected Stories before fully embracing what 2018 has in store for us. One of the joys of media journalism in January is making sure spotlight-worthy December releases aren’t forgotten in the haze of year-end lists.
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