Ju-On / The Grudge Manga

Please excuse all terrible pics, I took them of my own copies on camera so.. yeah.

[2006]

The two manga follow the book/movie loosely but the two stories are very different and the families that suffer and the deaths are a whole new thing. If your a fan of the franchise this manga is a very good new story to go with it. I read the book and I've seen the movies tho, ages ago and I didn't make many connections.

The art in the first one is more typical of the genre manga but it's cute and nice to look at and it stills does gore very well. You have not read a manga till you've read one where a girl gets her face broke off by cats stuffing themselves into her gob. Legend.

[2006]

Follows on from the first one with an actress who's doing well in life until she goes on one of those 'most haunted' type shows. This art work is more ..pretty and a little more enticing to a reader who isn't all about Japan.

The story is a little more mature then the first one and the gore is still present just with images that make you jump when you turn the page. Best bits about this one is a woman giving birth to hair, a man being killed by a shit load of hair.. and an odd naked child running around all over the place.

DAMN bitch must use alot of shampoo...  L'Oréal because even bitter dead woman are worth it!

From what I have seen online and the fact I needed to take my OWN pictures your best bet of reading this is to buy it. My suggestion used from AMAZON your looking at about £4 per book? cheap for manga and it's very worth a read and nice to have on your shelf if your an avid fan of Asian horror.

Art: 5/5

Gore: 4/5

Scares: 3.5/5

Overall enjoyment: 4.5/5

X6XJigsawX6X

Ju-On

Ju-On

Ju-On novel by Kei Ohishi published in 2003

Based off of a very large franchise in Japan spanning two manga adaptions and 5 Japanese movie tittles and three American re-makes with a tba 4th this year , a game for the Wii and two shorts.  More commonly known as 'The Grudge'

So unlike RING or DARK WATER the book did not come first and then the movies but the book is a going into the plot more. And let me tell you what a fantastic read this book is.

The style is pretty different from alot of things I have read, the start of every piece will have someones name and it'll be third person on them, this also means there is alot of the same scene but from another person's angle each time and there is ALOT that gets re-told over and over with just a few things changed each time.

There is also some very lazy writing inside, it looks like he used copy paste alot to achieve this book but it still seems to work, it's cool seeing something from an attackers POV followed by the victims POV all the different thoughts and feelings that go through that persons head as it happens.

The gore is fantastically described and again unlike some other Asian horror's I have read the action starts pretty much on the second page of the book! and it doesn't seem to lapse, the pacing is amazing and I finished the book under a week where I was so gripped with the story telling and could not put it down! there are some bits that stay in your mind after and you can't help but feel nervous in dark.

Our main lady Kayako who all the bad shit happens too, you feel sorry for her at the start and by the end you just think she is a selfish bitch, that sort of character switch from thinking poor girl to fucking fruit cake is good writing. The book even explains the Japanese suffix's used in the book and each chapter tends to have a neat ghost story referenced from other people's work before it.

All in all this has been my favourite horror book to date. Kei Ohishi needs to do more, I liked his lazy but on edge writing.

Scares: 5/5

Gore: 5/5

Pacing: 5/5

Style: 3.5/5

Overall score 5/5

Off to re-watch all the Japanese and piss poor American versions now!

X6XJigsawX6X