Statues is one of Junji Ito’s worst story collections. Each of the ten 30-page comics are very weakly conceived and told in an almost comedically contrived, consistently sloppy way, to little or no effect - certainly not one of horror, or even vague interest.
In Red Thread, a girl breaks up with a boy, who then develops red thread on his body. Why? One character comes up with the outlandish theory that it is the Red Thread of Destiny (whatever that is) and guess what? It turns out to be true! Because of course it’s the most bizarre explanation.
In The Giver, the son of a guy who was hypnotised by someone (who? Why are they sneaking into people’s houses - people whom they heard are “evil” - and hypnotising them? What is this?!) into being selfless. So of course then the son wanders around town giving randos wooden dolls. Makes perfect sense.
In The Bridge, a woman visits her grandmother who’s convinced the spirits of the river want to drag her under the water to marry some dead giant man from her youth decades ago. And because it’s the most bizarre and improbable explanation that defies common sense, of course she’s right!
I could go through each of the ten stories like this but you get the idea: the premises are all feeble and the stories are only ever silly. They read like half-remembered dreams Ito had. It really feels like, at this point, he’s completely run out of ideas and is past scraping the bottom of the barrel and is now scraping the ground beneath the barrel.
Junji Ito’s created some decent horror collections that are worth checking out if you’re interested in this author - Moan, Shiver, Frankenstein, Lovesickness - but Statues is definitely not among them.
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