The Enigma of Amigara Fault

[cyberghostface]

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I posted this story last year I think, but thanks to Pict, it's no longer available. So I figured I'd post it again for Halloween. Hopefully, there might be some new readers who haven't experienced it, but if not, it's worth a look again IMO. And yes, this is 1/3 of the original story.

The beginning of the story explains that there was a big earthquake. Following the earthquake, a large fault is discovered near the epicenter of on the north slope of Amigara Mountain.

Two hikers, a boy named Owaki and a girl named Yoshida, meet up near the fault. Both of them had seen the fault on television and knew they had to visit it.

Remember to read right to left.



The holes puzzle the scientist, who can't figure out how they were carved or how deep they go. Nor do they know what purpose it served.

Yoshida believes that one of the holes was made for her, and so do many others. Okawi is skeptical, being that they are thousands of years old, but one man proves it.



A crowd gathers around the hole, but there's no sign of the man. The rescue squad arrives but they are unable to help.



The next morning, Yoshida discovers her hole at the foot of the fault, identical to her.



Meanwhile, more people are discovering their holes in the fault and are walking in.



Owaki fills her hole with rocks to prevent her from entering.






Owaki wakes up from the nightmare and discovers that Yoshida is missing.



Dejected, he sits down in defeat, when something catches his eye...

Comments

[dorksidefiker]

Junji Ito really does do the best horror.

[kamino_neko]

Least frightening sound effect ever....

[icon_uk]

Oh I dunno, imagine it as someone trying to talk through a larynx which isn't human shaped any more.

[whitesycamore]

I love this comic so much. The premise is so simple, but so surreal and nightmarish.

[mab_browne]

This is wonderfully creepy and surreal. Thanks for the peek.

[slippy]

:(

By which I mean that was very, very effective - simple, disturbing, and creepy. And forgive me, but the pun is simply there: Cavepeople really believed in the reformation of criminals, huh.

[drakyndra]

The creepiness of this story was ruined by the fact that all I can think of is that DDR parody.

[icon_uk]

I recall this from the old S_D and it freaked me out then too. Thanks for the refresher course in "ICCCK!"

[ian_karkull]

Oh god oh god this fucking thing oh god..

The inevitability of it all has always been what freaked me out most.
Ito really is a master of the subtle horror.

This is my hole... shudder

[cleome45]

I'll be the big spoilsport and say that I'm having trouble figuring out how the ancients could have devised this punishment without dying themselves in the process.

If I ignore that though, it's a good story.

[icon_uk]

But we don't know that that's what happened, it's only the guys dream which suggests that's the story behind them.

Plus one assumes they did it the same way they could form the outlines of specific modern people hundreds of years before the present.

[bruinsfan]

A wizard did it!

[blackruzsa]

Yeeeeeeeeeeeesh XD I did love this story. I remember. It was a winner.

[highways]

For some reason this comic is so hilarious to me, not scary, and I love showing it to other people just to hear their horrified reactions.

[kamino_neko]

For some reason this comic is so hilarious to me, not scary,

Junji Ito in general is like this for me.

I mean I LOVE his stuff, but a few chapters of Tomie is about all that's actually scared me. (Which reminds me...I recently got ahold of most of the Tomie movies...I need to get around to watching them.)

[whitesycamore]

I love how he is completely ridiculous, and yet creepy at the same time. That panel in Uzumaki of the snail boy slithering into class is a perfect example.

I'm also amazed at how he manages to create that "oh no, I can hardly look, what's going to HAPPEN NEXT" feeling in such a static medium. He manages to create so much momentum that I feel swept along with the narrative. Damn that sounds so gushy, but it's MAGICAL.

[terabient]

D:

oh man. I'd read Uzumaki a few years back and I still get chills thinking about it. This story is just as horrifying, pure nightmare fuel.

Thanks for sharing, even though I probably won't be sleeping tonight because of it. :0

[clemon]

Geez. That's freaky. Eeeh.

[baihu]

I'm highly amused that one of the defining points of your own 'hole' is the shape of your hair.

Can you imagine what Son Goku's hole would be like? Would it be in Saiyan or Super Saiyan mode :D?

[dreams_of_all]

He gets two.

[sir_mikael]

AAAAHHH!
Fuck that is creepy. Though I kept wondering why they didn't send down like a camera on a wire instead of climbing into it, but I suppose the holes had some kind of pull on people.

Also "I'll prove this is my hole right now. Just watch me!" while undressing makes for a wonderful context-is-for-the-weak panel.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

They did try to put a camera on a wire down there (it was one of the cut pages in the story--right after that first guy went into the hole). It only reached thirty meters and the holes were longer--and they already couldn't see the guy.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

I halfway love and halfway hate this story.

Love it because Junji Ito is one of my horror idols and I love nearly everything he puts out.

Hate it because I'm very claustrophobic already and reading it sends me to very bad places in my mind, which is bad enough for me. :(

But that's just proof it's a good story XD If it can make me have a claustrophobia panic in a big wide room like I'm sitting in now, it's good!

[spam-monster.livejournal.com]

To make myself feel better after this, I like to imagine Mr. Fantastic/Plastic Man/Elongated Man diving through one of these holes and coming out the other side like "What's the big deal?" And then the mountain has a nervous breakdown.

[karthzon]

I... I was afraid of this story without having read it for god knows how long. Now that I have read it, I'm actually relieved. Ito has done much, much worse. It may be because one of my formative childhood experiences was reading Clive Barker's Weaveworld but I'm sort of inoculated against body horror. Yes, it's creepy as fuck and the inevitability and the claustrophobic imagery still scares me, but I can only think "Good, at least they'll get out eventually".