Ma no Kakera (魔の断片, also titled Shard of Evil or Fragments of Horror), is a series of short stories by Junji Ito.

A new collection of delightfully macabre tales from a master of horror manga. An old wooden mansion that turns on its inhabitants. A dissection class with a most unusual subject. A funeral where the dead are definitely not laid to rest. Ranging from the terrifying to the comedic, from the erotic to the loathsome, these stories showcase Junji Ito’s long-awaited return to the world of horror. (Goodreads)

Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito

Stories

Futon Wooden Spirit
Tomio – Red Turtleneck
Gentle Goodbye
Dissection-chan
Blackbird
Magami Nanakuse
Whispering Woman

Today’s graphic novel feature is Fragments of Horror by Junji Ito. If you have been following my bookstagram for some time, you’d know by now that I love horror and I love comics ♥️ Junji Ito has always been my go-to for both. Whenever I have a new Junji Ito book, I drop everything I’m currently reading to read it 🤣 His books are the only ones I read immediately after buying, I think.

Fragments of Horror is a real page turner but at the same time you’ll be afraid to turn the pages. I thought I could handle anything by now. I was so wrong. 😱 I have read so many of Junji Ito’s stories but as always, there is one story from the collection that just really made me close my eyes and shut the book for a bit. (*whispers* it was Tomio – Red Turtleneck). Another favorite of mine is Gentle Goodbye–I wanted to give it more than 5⭐️s!!

The one thing I love about Junji Ito’s works is that he doesn’t only provide shock and terror. His content also inspires, and his stories can be so unexpectedly heartwarming. It might sound contradicting, but it’s something that is truly special about him. Not everyone can do it.

I’ll be sharing some of my favorite pages below. Don’t worry, I tried not to include the real nasty ones 🙃

That’s it for now! If you enjoyed this, you might also want to check out this post where I talked about another awesome Junji Ito collection: Frankenstein.

Overall Rating: 5/5

About the Author

Junji Itō (伊藤潤二) Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister’s drawing and Kazuo Umezu’s comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner of the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga.

The most common obsessions are with beauty, long hair, and beautiful girls, especially in his Tomie and Flesh-Colored Horror comic collections. For example: A girl’s hair rebels against being cut off and runs off with her head; Girls deliberately catch a disease that makes them beautiful but then murder each other; a woman treats her skin with lotion so she can take it off and look at her muscles, but the skin dissolves and she tries to steal her sister’s skin, etc.

Ito’s universe is also very cruel and capricious; his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.