The Window Next Door

[cyberghostface]

Here's another story from Japan courtesy of Junji Ito. Remember to read from right to left.

Hiroshi's family has moved to a new house on account of it being cheap. Their next door's neighbor house is strange; it only has one window and none of the other neighbors have ever seen the lady who apparently lives there. Hiroshi's mother rings the doorbell but no one comes. Hiroshi notices that his bedroom window faces the other house's window.










Hiroshi runs to his parents to tell them. They look out the window and see neither the old woman or the pole. His parents think he's dreaming but they agree to take his room. A while passes and they never have any problems and Hiroshi reluctantly admits it might have been a nightmare. He takes the room again.

That night, he hears the old woman's voice again saying that it's been a long time and that she wants to see him.

Comments

[drexer]

Well, there goes my good night sleep.

Not out the window obviously.

[maseiken]

... There's a tag for Junji Ito...


That right there is a real Thriller. I can't, and yet I must...

If I don't come back... It'll be because I'm made of eyes and legs after entering a hole made for me in a sea serpent.

[darkblade]

That much Junji Ito at once cannot be healthy.

[rainspirit]

This tag! This tag was meant for YOU!

[sindra]

I would have loved to have seen the look on his parent's faces when they saw that the next morning. I hope that talk of moving happens really damn fast.

[slippy]

Really fast. Meanwhile, this dude needs to go stay at a friend's house or sack out on the couch.

[deleonjh]

The real estate agent who sells that house would have to be the slickest mofo ever. I guess you can just call the neighbour's weird window a piece of modernist art that never really worked and tell the potential buyers to store their explosives and barbed wire in that room.

[crinos]

I presume it would just sink back into the house once the people are gone.

Still, I do not envy the realtor when that family comes back.

"So how was the house?"

"Oh it was nice, spacious, and oh yeah, THERE WAS A MONSTER HAG NEXT DOOR WHO TRIED TO GET OUR SON."

"Oooh, did I not mention that? I'm sorry, but its a minor thing..."

"IT SOMEHOW WARPED ITS WINDOW TO TRY AND GET IN HIS ROOM."

"Okay, gonna come clean here. I kinda drew a rude picture of my boss in the bathroom once, and because of that I get stuck selling all the freaky nightmare houses. Among the ones I showed you, three were haunted, four more had serial killers living near them, and another one had Yog Sotoh in the basement. Believe me when I say that the house you picked? Least horrible one of the house."

"WE ARE NEVER DOING BUSINESS WITH YOU AGAIN."

"And you are right to do so."

[md84]

This could just as easily be played for drama and horror too. I could definitely imagine a series of horror stories about an evil demonic realtor luring unsuspecting families to various haunted houses that murder them/steal their children/claim their souls in different and horrible ways.

[flo_nelja]

There's a fairy tale like this in France, in which an agent sells a house for a ridiculously low price. And after the contract is signed...

"But there's a witch haunting the house. If you ever say 'Witch, witch, beware your butt', she'll come and take you.
- Why did you say it? I would never have said such a thing! Now I won't think about anythng else!
- It's on purpose."

[icon_uk]

Sounds like the work of Candlejack, he'd always be hanging arou

[sharky_chan]

Thank you for giving me an excuse to relive 10 minutes of my childhood. It's still so goooooood ;o;.

[crinos]

There's actually a horror anthology movie like that. The name escapes, but the framing device is the Realtor is showing a couple three homes, but is obligated to tell them about the grisly murders that occurred in or near each home. In the end, its shown that EVERYONE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, even the realtor himself (Whose family is being held at gunpoint to force him to sell a home here) are homicidal maniacs, the husband is killed and the wife barely escapes with her life.

[md84]

"MAKE ME AN OFFER!"

[halloweenjack]

That's a great idea; you could call it Amityville Realty.

[skjam]

As mentioned in the Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service manga, Japanese realtors are legally required to tell you if anything bad happened to the previous tenant (murder, suicide, and yes, they have to report hauntings too.)

The loophole is they only have to tell you about the tenant immediately before you. So a character in Kurosagi makes a scrape-by living by living in places where people died just long enough to qualify as a tenant.

[cloudtrader]

That's awful. I want to read it! LOL

You have once again cross through... The Scary Door

[silverzeo]

So the house was trying to get him? ... why? Was it like Monster House? An old woman's ghost IS the house and is after kids? Was she a mother who lost her son, was she a pedo? What?

As for the reveal of her fave... all I thought of what would happen if this story took place in a crowded New York apartment.

"SHUTS UP, THE BOTHS OF YAS!"

Re: You have once again cross through... The Scary Door

[halloweenjack]

I think that it's just riffing off the idea of a next-door neighbor that creeps you out, for whatever reason. I used to be afraid of certain adults when I was a kid for whatever reason--they had warts or bad teeth or they reminded me of an actor that played a villain in some TV show.

[mistygeek]

I haven't been commenting, but I want you to know I love these post. I started picking up Junji Ito stuff as soon as I read that first one. I've gone back and read all of them in the archive too. Great reading.

[espanolbot]

Help, ex-prime minister Thatcher is trying to get him!

[deleonjh]

Well played, good sir.

[md84]

A haunted house story with the twist that it's the house next door that's haunted. Though still capable of warping the protagonist's room.

I like the ambiguity of it all. Makes it all the scarier.

[turtlefu]

Ah, Japanese horror. Where there is plenty of body horror and nothing is ever explained, and everything ends abruptly...

[nezchan]

From what I gather, a lot of Japanese fiction is like that, and a number of older manga are too. Look at the early Urusei Yatsura stories, a lot of them don't have really definitive endings either.

As a friend of mine once put it, "they don't so much end as stop."

[nezchan]

There's gotta be something in the building code against that.

[causticlad]

Are you the one volunteering to give her a ticket?

[nezchan]

...I'll let Bylaw Enforcement handle that.

[sindra]

I always wonder:

What would ever work against the monsters and creepy shit that Junji Ito cooks up? Shinto Priests? Catholic Exorcism? Blowing shit the hell up?

Personally, the third option would come in handy here.

"Sir, we have evidence the place is haunted, but our people can't seem to find the monster in order to banish it. What should be do now?"

"Fuck it. Lets just go Michael Bay on this. Go get some explosives."

[deleonjh]

Love. None of Junji Ito's protagonists have found their true loves. It also works against Hitlers and Wolfmans.

[md84]

Love didn't save the protagonists of Gyro or Uzumaki. Okay, the male lead of Gyro survived but his girlfriend was turned into a horrible fish mutant. And the Uzumaki protagonists are at least able to share their horrible fate together.

[md84]

Sorry, I meant Gyo, not Gyro.

Man, I could really go for a lamb Gyro right now.

[blackruzsa]

Jesus God in heaven

I've had that sort of window moment when I was a kid. Something person-shaped knocking on the window all night when I was in the province. If my aunt wasn't sleeping right beside me (I was very little) I'd have run like hell.