I will say this in every single review I do of Junji Itos stuff. The man draws whatever the fuck he wants whenever the fuck he wants. When you have the urge to just draw a bunch of people melting horrifically into gigantic liquid piles of fleshy ooze then you may as well as just follow that urge. Thats how Junji Itos Dissolving Classroom came into existence.
Junji Ito felt like drawing people melting and there are apparently people out in the world me who apparently sometimes just feel like reading something where just a bunch of people melt.
Who fucking knew that would be the effect that ALL MIGHTY LORD SATANS ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES would have on the human body?
...Wait what?
My Dissolving Brain
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Our face has melted. But we do not need a face. The ooze people can exist in peace without burden of outward appearance. Gospel of the Ooze 6:19.
Can I just say I dont know why that we in the US got a physical copy of this but NOT of literally any of Junji Itos other short manga collections. You know all the ones with the real good stuff though the new Junji Ito manga were getting in a few month seems to be a best of selection of those storieshttps://www.amazon.com/ShiverJunjiItoSelectedStories/dp/1421596938/. Not to say I didnt enjoy this because I did and I would probably buy it again because so far all of Junji Itos mangas physical forms have been neat. Like with this on the cover the sibling characters actually come out of the cover a little bit which is a neat little thing. Then you have Fragments of Horrorhttps://imagesna.sslimagesamazon.com/images/I/A1yWhrWyRQL.jpg which is like this Junji Ito version of that ONE PAINTINGhttp://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/ahh.png?resize=1100x740 but like if the light hits the cover or the back just right you can see like fucking typical Junji Ito nightmare creatures beneath of both sides.
Not to mention all three of Junji Itos long series are matching hardbacks and everyone knows that hardbacks are superior to paperbacks. THEYRE SUPERIOR.
Manga/book nerdery aside this is one of the exceptions of Junji Itos collections. All chapters are connected and/or there are at least one or two key central characters that are throughout all chapters. You have this weird pair of siblings that move from house to house after shit goes down in each chapter. The older brother is tall and wears glasses and the younger sister asks a girl to let her suck her brains like within the first ten pages.
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The sister just shows up and stares at the girl for three pages and then bam on the fourth page were right into it. The brother has done nothing but apologize whereas the sister just chases a girl out into the street to get hit by a truck and oh the brother shows up and apologizes because the girl with a creepy face is his sister and he blames his sister taking on an evil streak on him killing small animals because of his parents arguing and SHE IS POSSESSED BY ONE OF THE SNAKES HE KILLED WITH A ROCK.
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Then the girl is like okay Im gonna go befriend your sister because apart from the creepy face shes probably not all bad. But then the sister is like no you got it all wrong my brother is actually a Satanist and he keeps our parents partially melted heads in a closet and his apologies are in fact to Satan or a demon and they cause other people to melt basically.
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EXCUSE ME MISS DO YOU HAVE A TISSUE? OUR BRAINS SEEM TO BE COMING OUT OF OUR NOSES MOUTHS EYES AND OUR EARS. ITS A SERIOUS FUCKING PROBLEM.
Then the girl becomes selfaware of the fact that she is in a Junji Ito manga and that both siblings are fucking completely out of their fucking gourds so she does the smart thing and just fucking runs away but it turns out everyone in the entire school has already melted. But the guy is still chasing her because he really wants her to accept his heartfelt apologies that for some reason seems to melt everyones brains. She manages to escape total brain melting but apparently her brain still melted enough to where while shes still alive shes basically brain dead. And her parents who met the brother before and were thus apologized to are also dead.
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I own the actual physical copy of this and the dialogue is translated differently. In the official translation its actually more insane? My brothers apologies make peoples brains melt. It must be the evil electromagnetic waves passing between him and the Devil
Electromagnetic... waves? What???
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So the first chapter or story with these fucked up siblings ends with an entire school of peoples brains melted and our first protagonist is left braindead and alone. The siblings move away to melt innocent peoples brains for another day. Actually they move to another location literally after almost every chapter.
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Conclusion
Not my favorite Junji Ito manga but it was fun overall. A 6 out of 10 There is a little bit more that happens than literally just people melting but Ill leave that to your imaginations. I just wanted to review this one because out of all of the ones Ive read this is the one where Junji Ito was the loosest as far as plot went. And also Satans electromagnetic waves aside it IS pretty weird to just do a manga where people melting is the entire thing.
Oh the creepy sister is evil and possessed by a snake the brother killed. Oh the brother is actually a Satanist and for some reason if he apologizes to people their brains melt. Oh the brother and sister are now fighting maybe theyll end up turning on each otheroh no that didnt happen. Oh the brother is still denying everything his sister is saying and is instead blaming it all on the sister... oh its over. WHOOPS THE ENDING LITERALLY JUST SAID OKAY YOU DECIDE WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SIBLINGS IN THE END SO NO RESOLUTION. Granted given all the chaos at the end Id probably say theyre dead.
Weird nasty disgusting and ugly. My type of Junji Ito manga. To conclude this review heres a parting sneak peek at one of the other chapters of this. Sorry
Dont worry your brain will be fine. Because Im not actually sorry. Also I dont worship the Devil so I dont have access to his brain melting electromagnetic waves.
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60
/100