Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens – 08

This was pretty bog your bog standard caper arc, and it ended in pretty predictable fashion.  But that said, I quite enjoyed these last two episodes of Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens.  I don’t think a single character died during this episode (now that has to be a first), and the tone was altogether more restrained that it has been at some of the series’ more absurd moments.

I will say this much – Lin is a pretty good sport to let himself get beat up like that.  I would call Saitou a good sport for allowing himself to be the bait, but he had nothing to say about that – he was just an unwitting dupe, as usual (still kinda wondering when we’re going to see the point to him).  For once Banba was pretty peripheral to the resolution of events here – Enokida (or should I say Chihiro-bochan) pretty much engineered the whole thing, and Banba was just a moving part (and not nearly the most important one of those either – all he did was take out the hacker scumbag).

We got a nice little twist at the end there, as well, with the revelation that Chihiro’s father didn’t in fact order his combat butler to kill his son, but to fake his death.  I much prefer that version of events – in fact, the moment when his dad said “Maybe the best thing to do for him is set him free” was almost beautiful.  Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens can always be breezy and entertaining in a ludicrous way, but it’s demonstrated the ability to tell a decent human story when it wants to (and I hope it wants to more often going forward).

Itou Junji: Collection – 09

Well I must say, those were two of the more creepy – and disgusting – stories in the Itou Junji: Collection so far.  There’s no question that the guy is very good at producing this sort of shock horror – really gross-out physical stuff along with the psychological – but so far I find his more quiet and despairing pieces to be the most impactful.

First off this week is the story of a successful artist and the model named Tomie who systematically destroys him and turns him into a murderer.  What kind of intrigues me about this one is Tomie herself – she’s some sort of youkai, obviously not human.  But what’s her motivation here?  She doesn’t seem to be in it just to wreck these artists lives – I got the sense she genuinely saw herself as beautiful (as opposed to say, hideous) and wanted to find someone who could capture it. As for that ending – wow…

Then we have what I think was the better of the two chapters this week – equally horrific but somehow a lot more unsettling.  The old “broken down car and abandoned village” trope is put to mighty good use here, with a couple of nice twists.  The imagery here is truly disturbing, and the premise equally so – especially the choice that’s revealed to the protagonist in the end.  I don’t know how Itou thinks up this stuff, but I have to wonder if there were a lot of mutilated squirrels and household pets in his neighborhood growing up.