The Wooden Mansion

[cyberghostface]

NSFW for some nudity.

Megumi lives with her divorced father in an old wooden mansion.



Because of its newfound fame, people are coming to visit the house. One day they get a visitor.



Her father, saying its rare that they get visitors, lets her in.



Manami asks for a favor.


Megumi is upset, saying it's too abrupt, and that the woman creeps her out. She finally relents before making her father promise not to start any strange relationships with her.

On her first night Manami makes dinner for them. Megumi says it's too much.



Later, Megumi finds her father looking down. She wonders if he's unhappy with the marriage, but rather, he thinks there is something 'off' with the way the house is. She goes to find Manami in her room and...





She goes to see her father, who is furiously scrubbing at the floor.


The eyes spread and the room begins to distort until the eyes are everywhere.









They flee and Megumi asks her father where the woman went. He says she either fled or was fused to the house. "That woman was sick in the head! She lusted for the buildings and the mansion must have returned her feelings."

The story closes with a statement from Megumi: "The wood mansion had lost its value and due to special reasons, it has been stripped of its title of being a 'national treasure'.

Comments

[alicemacher]

One of my favourite Ito tales. Sexy, too.

[mesmiranda]

' [...] due to special reasons, it has been stripped of its title of being a 'national treasure'.

WOW NO KIDDING.

(Also c'mon, don't burn down the house, it didn't do anything to you. It let you leave without any real fuss! Okay, it's stinky and creepy and covered in eyes and Manami is cheating on you... with it... as a wooden, bug-eyed, puppet-like... thing... but still!)

[mastermahan]

The reason is that the house isn't unique anymore. The house next door is haunted by evil puppeteers, the one beyond that oozes human fat from the walls, the next one is a spiral portal to hell, and then the next three are infested with cyborg fish.

[deh_tommy]

That Tomie girl down the street seems nice enough.

[thanekos]

Neighborhood association meetings are.. actually about as boring any of those are.

[silverhammerman]

I'm delighted by the idea that the house is still standing, it's just been stripped of its national treasure status. So presumably some sort of assessor had to be called in to make that evaluation.

[silverzeo]

Would anybody will hate me if I say that it is hard to tell the difference between general horror and Japanese Folklore/Myths, cause I heard some doozies. So, forgive me for asking: Is there anything based on this outside of sheer horror?

[mastermahan]

I believe this is an original story. Junji Ito often draws from the style of Japanese folklore, and occasionally uses established figures such the Slit Mouth Woman, but the plots are his own.

[leoboiko]

Not directly, but it's probably influenced generically by the common belief in tsukumogami – the idea that old objects may develop sentience, especially if imbued with strong feelings from humans. In this case the house is both old and has "returned her feelings".

I don't know of any house-tsukumogami in traditional legends (they're usually smaller objects, like umbrellas or mosquito nets); nor of lustful absorption of humans into them.

[captainbellman]

...in a year where both Pennywise the Dancing Clown and Venom have been remade as sexual icons, somehow a woman getting off on a creepy house seems...sober and calm.

[deh_tommy]

...I mean, Venom I can see, but... Pennywise? PennyWHY?

[crinos]

Because people are dumb.

Seriously, Pennywise is the personification of small town evil and bigotry. The instance in the novel where he wakes up in modern times because of a Gay couple being attacked and murdered, is based on an event from King's own life where that happened in his own hometown. He is a personification of abuse and bigotry and everything ugly about humanity. STOP TRYING TO FUCK HIM.
(Or at the very least go for the Tim Curry version. I mean damn.)

[cyberghostface]

I don't get the appeal myself but people have always been attracted to villains. Bill's brother Alexander Skarsgard played a consistently horrible person on True Blood and he was #1 bae.

I do think with Pennywise a lot of it is tongue in cheek just as it was with Babadook becoming a gay icon because Netflix accidentally put his film in the LGBT section.

[cyberghostface]

I think most of it comes down to Bill Skarsgard playing him.

[captainbellman]

[captainbellman]

Not To Mention.

[crinos]

Also, this story is the personification of "This is why we can't have nice things."

I mean, we have this beautiful mansion, that's been declared a national treasure, and what happens? A lady comes in and fucks the house, and fucks it so hard the house mutates and comes to life and becomes a monster house. She basically just ruined it for everyone, ruined it for the young lady who grew up in that house, because she wanted to fuck a house.

[rainspirit]

"This is the future objectumsexuals want. "