This review is for all of the original Tomie stories. Not just those in the original volume but the second volumehttps://anilist.co/manga/145612/TomieAgain/ as well Tomie Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. Tomie. 500https://i.ur.com/DcW2adm.png Tomies Introduction At this point Ive reviewed more than a few works by Junji Ito. Whether it be the questionable adaptationshttps://anilist.co/anime/10417/GYOTokyoFishAttack/ of his works though while I still really love the Collectionhttps://anilist.co/anime/99940/JunjiItoCollection/ the animation of course leaves a lot to be desired or his manga themselves Ive taken plenty of trips down the Junji Ito well. It was only a matter of time for me to eventually reach Tomie. Before Fragments of Horrorhttps://anilist.co/manga/82435/FragmentsofHorror/ before the Dissolving Classroomhttps://anilist.co/manga/88577/JunjiItosDissolvingClassroom/ before Gyohttps://anilist.co/manga/30909/Gyo/ and before Uzumakihttps://anilist.co/manga/30436/Uzumaki/ there was Tomie. Also probably before Human Chairhttps://anilist.co/manga/68635/NingenIsu/ as well. I incorrectly implied that to be Junji Itos first story in that review because of the date that was set on its Anilist page which since seems to have been removed. Human Chairs still a good starting point to get into Junji Ito though in my opinion. 440https://imagesna.sslimagesamazon.com/images/I/81QDxVfY65L.jpg Tomie was the very first Junji Ito story to be published and it led to his thirty plus year career in horror manga. While the bulk of Junji Itos manga are short stories which have been gathered in various collections over the years Tomie is essentially just one big collection of Junji Ito stories that just happen to be all centered around one character. Tomie 440https://i.ur.com/BrXhKo8.png To be honest in terms of horror characters who have ended up getting entire horror franchises from their original movies/source material Tomies unique in that... she very rarely if ever directly kills anyone herself. A beautiful yet vain and prideful girl who seems to obtain the attention of every single guy all around her... seemingly perfect yet there seems to be something disturbing lurking beneath the surface. And yet no matter what the situation is it seems like the events circling around Tomie always end in bloodied tragedy. 440https://i.ur.com/1U6lj5X.png The first original handful of Tomie stories before Junji Ito actually decided to focus on Tomie with the first of that batch being the Painter story thats also been included in the somewhat recent Shiver collection and also the Collection anime were somewhat connected but mostly Tomie is episodic. After all there is a countless number of Tomies running amok in the world. The very original Tomie story is a simple tale of a class essentially causing the death of a girl named Tomie. Or at least they think shes dead when they begin to take a hacksaw to her corpse... they cut her corpse into a total of forty two pieces and then each class members goes off with a different piece to discard somewhere. But then Tomie returns. Alive as ever. For as it turns out and this is basically the basis for this entire series even if you kill her and cut her corpse into pieces or even take one of her organs and transplant them into someone else... Tomie will either horrifically regenerate into a monstrous form from whatever piece of flesh was left unburned or Tomie will possess and take over the body of whatever hosts her organs have been transplanted into. 440https://i.ur.com/MkrHe9D.png You would think for a horror character that would probably be enough. Instead shes a full on walking femme fatale. Shes capable of using her appearance to initially seduce and then completely psychologically dominate most of the males throughout her stories. However this only works to a certain degree for usually the men that she places underneath of her thumb usually end up snapping and giving in to their violent urges to usually murder Tomie and cut her into pieces... exactly how the Tomie in the original story was first killed. This idea probably should not work as well as it does for a series of twenty short stories. Yet it genuinely just feels as if Junji Ito was just having a blast while thinking of what crazy Tomie story to do next. 440https://i.ur.com/8b9Lr6h.png Because despite the fact that the entire series is about the same character either driving men to madness or suicide or being killed and cut up by the men she was using there actually is a strange variety to it that seems to work. I of course do not view Tomie to be on the same level as Uzumaki. Tomie is basically just straight up Junji Itos version of you know... Freddy Kruger Jason Voorhees the Chucky doll etc. Hence the nine liveaction movies of Tomie. Thats not even to say that there isnt disturbing stuff in Tomie. There certainly is. 440https://i.ur.com/W6YAjf1.png The various monstrous forms Tomie ends up taking on the numerous and quite literal descents into insanity various characters suffer and even Tomie herself is kind of honestly fucked up. As a matter of fact of the three Viz Media hardback editions the other two being Gyo and Uzumaki of course Tomie is easily the largest. 440https://i.ur.com/CHFEW1A.jpg Its over 700 pages of just sick violent and bizarre shit. As Ive already implied overall Im not the biggest fan of Tomie. But there are several individual Tomie stories that I either just found wonderfully fucked up or sick or amazingly weird. 440https://i.ur.com/Q5eI6wR.png Probably without a doubt my favorite flavor of Tomie stories are the ones where there are multiple Tomies in the picture as usually they immediately just fucking hate each other and start plotting the elimination of the other Tomies. Junji Ito takes this specific flavor of Tomie story so far that eventually theres an entire story where its just Tomie wars. A Tomie bewitches a male and sends them off with a knife to murder the other Tomie but he just ends up fucking snapping and starts cutting whoever he sees. 440https://i.ur.com/Zl0fpwJ.png Then theres the Boy story which is just... its arguably one of the most fucked up Tomie stories almost by default. 440https://i.ur.com/yO5YZwI.png ...Actually you know what were not even talking about Boy. My Favorite Tomie My absolute favorite Tomie story by far has to be Little Finger. Not only is Tomies monstrous side and her regeneration abilities clearly and effectively shown but its probably without a doubt one of the cruelest Tomies. 440https://i.ur.com/8kFi0CQ.png Her male prey in this story are four brothers. Notably one out of the four are rather ugly and seemingly all but resistant to Tomies beauty. Since Tomie is horrifically vain shes unable to accept this and focuses all of her attention on the ugly brother causing his brothers to eventually lock him away in the basement. 440https://i.ur.com/sq6ZHz9.png When Tomies usual fate in these stories has played out and the three brothers have finished brutally killing and dismembering her they force the ugly brother to dispose of the body. When a dead Tomie comes back to life during the car drive and spooks the ugly brother he crashes the car and to get away he has to hack off the fingers of one of Tomies hands with a shovel to get away. He begins to live in a cave as his brothers have framed him with Tomies murder but without realizing Tomies severed fingers ended up in his pocket during the struggle with her. ...Upon discovering them he tries to burn them away but apparently... he didnt let them burn quite long enough. 440https://i.ur.com/GqWRUaH.png Without a doubt whenever I think back on Tomie its of the finger Tomies and like how they start bullying the Pinky Tomie because shes the most disfigured. It suddenly takes a strange direction when the ugly brother actually has enough of this scene and actually stands up for and protects the ugliest of the four Tomies. Perhaps even seeing himself in her. This ultimate twist of this story just perfectly demonstrates how just horribly cruel and evil Tomie really is. Tomies regeneration ability as shown in the various other Tomie stories is basically almost absolute. Thus as is revealed the sole reason why the Pinky Tomie remained ugly and disfigured as all the other finger Tomies fully regenerated and left the cave is so she can finally get vengeance on the ugly brother who refused all of Tomies advances. He realizes that beyond just the pity he felt for the Pinky Tomie as she was bullied he felt genuine love for probably one of the ugliest versions of Tomie throughout all of the stories. But the moment he admits this to her she mocks him and then regenerates easily and leaves him to die without even hesitating. 440https://i.ur.com/YC1AzgY.png Thats fucked up. Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie Tomie I give the entire collection of the Tomie stories an overall 7.5 out of 10 or 75 out of 100. Again theres plenty of good stuff packed in there but Tomies not even my favorite recurring Junji Ito character. Though it goes without saying that if youre considering getting heavily into Junji Ito manga Tomie is almost by default a required read. Because again she is essentially what sprung Junji Ito into horror manga and still to this day probably one of his most recognized characters. 500https://i.ur.com/tjTKA6X.png