The Hanging Balloons

[cyberghostface]

It's October... time for some spooky stuff.

Warning for suicide

The story opens with the young protagonist shut in her house. She has been there for a week and has ran out of food.





Terumi was a celebrity and model but was also best friends with Kazuko. She left no suicide note but she had expressed to her parents misgivings about her celebrity life.

Kazuko later sees Terumi's ex-boyfriend Shiroshi being hounded by a group of Terumi's fans, blaming him for her suicide. Kazuko breaks it up. He later tells her that he feels guilty for what happened, saying that his nagging drove her to kill herself.





These are quickly deduced as mass hallucinations.





Shiroshi later tells Kazuko that he's seen the floating head outside of his house. He later calls her to see for herself.















She goes to the police but no one believes her.

The next day, her friends don't believe her either when they all notice shapes floating in the sky.





















Inside the house, the news reporter on the TV says that these floating heads are attacking Japan. He warns all viewers to stay inside their homes.

The father decides to leave for work, saying he'll safeguard his neck.





Yosuke, Kazuko's brother, says he needs to get food or else they'll starve. He brings an umbrella with him to ward off the heads.

Comments

[forestcatdreams]

I was hoping to see some Junji Ito here for October. :D Thank you!

[thenicochan]

Weird and freaky and wonderful. It's perfect.

(Gah, the image of Chiharu's face deflating like a balloon will haunt my nightmares.)

[alicemacher]

Once again, Ito seizes upon something from Japanese culture (sadly, a real-life phenomenon: copycatting of celebrity suicides) and extracts its full potential for horror. Brilliant work.

[cyberghostface]

Thanks for pointing that out, it makes a little more sense knowing the symbolism that Ito was going for.

[sadoeuphemist]

That's not really Japanese culture in particular, suicide rates go up pretty much everywhere a high-profile suicide case makes the news.

The dad braving the suicide balloons just so he can go to work is pretty morbidly funny, though.

[alicemacher]

True, the phenomenon isn't unique to Japan (thus for example the term "Werther effect" in Western academic literature). However, in 1986 -- eight years before the original publication of "The Hanging Balloons" in Gekkan Halloween -- the suicide of Tokyo idol singer Yukiko Okada was followed by thirty-six suicides in Japan in less than a month, nearly all of them teenagers who emulated her method. The incidence of adolescent suicides remained atypically high through the rest of the year, according to police reports, and media sources gave the phenomenon the name "Yukiko syndrome."

So it's very likely this specific series of tragedies was on Ito's mind when he thought up this story.

[lissa_quon]

Sounds like the sort of thing that also inspired Suicide Club. Which sure is a movie that...people kill themselves in. Can't actually say what else the point of that movie was.

[superfangirl1]

You can say that are having fun hanging out with each other in the afterlife. Okay bad joke aside. I enjoy Junji Ito stories, which are insanely creepy and disturbing weird.