Ya Got Yourself a Good Handle on Those Nightmares?

What would you do if you found your hole?

I love creepypasta - if it were actually a real source of food, it might be a good deal of all that I would want to eat. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here is where I've kindly left an introduction to the subject. I plan on putting a lot of my favorites on that pages, so if this piques your interest - maybe keep a look-out on that page. Mind you, the story I am pimping here is a manga and is unlike most creepypasta I like is text based, for the most part. Well, perhaps with the noted exception of Marble Hornets - ah, but I'll be covering that on Video Girl in due time. Yup - this subject matter is a good cross-over between both of my blogs, and while I will not post any more about creepypasta on this one, I felt like this was an appropriate segue point between both my other blog (where I will be posting more on the subject) and the magnum opus of Manga horror - the man, the legend - Junji Ito - and his horror Mona Lisa - Uzumaki.

This particular piece is really uncomfortable for me, and if you don't like yourself some Cronenberg, maybe it's in your best interest if you stay right the fuck away from this piece - hell, if you don't know what Videodrome is... well, go rent it, geez. It's so good. Well, if you like some of that ol' ultra nightmare body horror, that is. I am warning you for your own good - what I will link to below is more than a little discomforting for some, but if you've got a strong stomach and not much of a propensity for nightmares, do click on this link below to read the short piece that introduced Junji Ito to me in the first place -

The Enigma of Amigara Fault (Read right to left, ya dingus!)

Didja read it? Good - I'm not wanting to spoil it for anyone, before I talk at length about it (gush, I suppose, would be the appropriate term here)

Like the absolute best creepypasta (and, likely why it later became synonymous with the whole medium/crossbreed of this horror/urban legend genre), this has an unmistakable nightmare quality to it. The description acts only as a direct boon to the muscular plot structure, so that none of the tension is loosened in the least - the build-up to the mountain side is expertly done, and the sight of those holes still makes me... uncomfortable.

From here, the tension just wraps itself around your throat, mercilessly, ratcheting up as you become invested in the POV of our mutual friend, Owaki.

It may be that the connotations of what those holes - previously buried deep in the Earth and never before revealed - must mean and where they could have possibly come from that remains one of the most discomforting thoughts to me, in terms of this story. Christ.

And the source of what makes people feel compelled to physically insert themselves into said holes - hell, why is it that they can sense their own hole so disturbingly quickly, at times recognizing their own hole in a brief moment in which they see it on the news? - is a disturbing question in itself to consider.

Why these people? I get the feeling that there's no morally righteous reason for the fate that is ensured by these people inserting themselves, fully nude, into the crushing embrace of their hole.

All I am certain of is this - reading Uzumaki puts a lot of all of this into perspective, in the same way that reading a lot of Stephen King makes his writing make more sense, in terms of the laws of the universe that he supposes when he writes. What I can say, without ruining a thing for Uzumaki is that Ito is certainly inspired by Lovecraft. And, that's all I'm going to say about that collection at the moment.

The outcome - I don't think that there is anything that can contend with the end result of this travesty of the human spirit - and, of course, the body. It has become a staple of the horror genre, akin to Slender Man, Cthulhu or a Grunt. I mean, the noise that radiates from the last panel, alone, is haunting enough to make you jump at any scraping sound for a month or so, following reading this short.

And, now, you understand why I have to laugh a bit whenever anybody, with wide-eyed innocence, say that the girl ghost from The Ring is the scariest thing that Japan has to offer.

Well, it's either Junji Ito, or that godforsaken Suicide Forest. Either way, I have never been more scared of nature. So, so scared o . o

(show spoiler)

So, what'd you think? If you like this a whole lot, I reckon that Uzumaki will be right up your alley, in a big way. So, give it a chance!

Source: http://brasscockroach.com/h4ll0w33n2007/manga/Amigara-Full/Amigara.html