"Remina" by Junji Ito - Quinn's Curios

My one-sentence summary: “Junji Ito + cosmic horror = a planetary tongue-lashing?!”

Also, here’s a word from the publisher: “An unknown planet emerges from inside a wormhole, and its discoverer, Dr. Oguro, christens the celestial body “Remina” after his own daughter. His finding is met with great fanfare, and Remina herself rises to fame. However, the planet picks up speed as it moves along in its curious orbit, eliminating planets and stars one after another until finally Earth itself faces extinction… Is the girl Remina the true cause of the catastrophe? A masterwork of horror from Junji Ito, unfolding on a universal scale.“

What Worked For Me:

There’s plenty of unnerving imagery on offer. I wouldn’t put it on par with some of Ito’s other work visually (such as Slug Girl or Uzumaki), but it’s still a good choice for spooky season.
I enjoyed the near-future setting. Not only does this allow for the appearance of plenty of fun gadgets (like flying cars and watches that can video-conference), it also means that the story doesn’t lose all verisimilitude when it goes into space.
The ending offers a thin veneer of hope, but is actually quite dark if you think about it for even a moment or two. In other words, its right in line with what I’d expect for a horror manga.

What Didn’t:

Remina (as opposed to “Planet Remina”) felt more like a damsel in distress rather than a fleshed out character in her own right. She was often dragged from scene to scene by other characters, and was even unconscious for a lot of the manga’s run time.
Perhaps this is an unfair comparison, but Remina never grabbed me like The Enigma of Amigara Fault did. In short, it never had a, “This is my hole! It was made for me!” moment, something to really cement the work into my mind for years to come.
The work included a few moments that felt more like a “shonen manga” than anything horror related. The section where Earth is being spun by Planet Remina is the clearest example of this, where characters are jumping from skyscraper to skyscraper, shrugging off buildings falling on them, and traveling at ridiculous speeds. This is all hand-waved away by “changes to Earth’s gravity,” but it still felt a little silly.
I was able to follow the plot of the story without issue, but struggled to find a consistent underlying meaning or message. Is the story about the dangers of stardom or the hysteria of mass group-think? Is it about the fragility of human-kind and their oh-so-small place in the universe? Is it just an opportunity for the author to draw some fucked up shit? It’s hard to say.

Conclusion:

In my mind, the best works of horror are more than excuses for gratuitous violence and gore. They elevate the genre by being thoughtful explorations of the fears, vices, and hypocrisies of the societies that produced them. Perfect Blue by Satoshi Kon comes to mind in this regard: it critiqued the late-90s consumer culture in Japan while also delving into issues of loss of self and the darker corners of the internet well before social media changed the world.

Remina, by comparison, feels quaint. I know Ito is a master of the craft and it’s entirely possible I’ve just missed something in my own analysis. I can’t help but feel like Remina is missing something to truly elevate it to the level of Perfect Blue or even The Enigma of Amigara Fault, however. In the end, I’m glad I read this one, I’m just not sure it’ll live rent-free in my head like other horror anime and manga I’ve read over the years.

Check it out here.