Black Paradox review

LordSithaniel14
Apr 04, 2021
Black Paradox is one of those manga one has to have a specific taste for to fully enjoy and understand what the author intends to deliver. Junji Ito is a pretty unique manga author, not quite giving me the ero-guro I massively have read but curiously maintaining the crocked art style as one would see out of ambitious authors like Kago Shintaro and Uziga Waita. Junji Ito gave himself a pretty solid name in horror style any kind of horror manga enthusiast should give a chance.

The story starts pretty straight to the point; four different individuals find themselves together, each one having a reason to commit suicide. It’s hard to fully give in to the reasons they reached the conclusion to take this terrible decision, since the character development is pretty unique and strongly attached to the plot and how the story will progress. Without giving too much, each one of these characters have an unique situation that brought them to want to quit life. What their own reasons have in common is self-image, being it physical or mentally, their self-image affects them as in making them highly insecure and even neurotic to the point of wanting to die.

Even thought they are pretty decided to commit group suicide, an other-world situation makes their plan go down the drain. It’s hard to explain without giving too much of the story, but the own selfishness of the act of quitting to live is altered as soon as an opportunity of being greedy and gaining a new life purpose who fills the void of being empty and self-aware. Greed is a well-hidden message on the manga itself, opposite to the dementic and irrational nature of the manga, the message appears to be well-thought. Of course, there are many unreal factors, even ironic that end up making the own cliché into a well-thought doubt of what is reality or not.

Besides touching thematic such as greed and selfishness, the object that depicts greed is highly associated with the meaning of life which the protagonists so highly wanted to reject, that object’s origin is from a play of words that ends up to be explored by the author in a literal sense on the progress of the story, that mindset might seem a bit psychotic, but also highly creative and well thought upon. The own insecurities of the characters, that made them consider suicide, become figurative doors, such doors being the true core of their will to live.

Of course, most of the stuff I’m saying makes no sense, but so are the works of Junji Ito and other authors who focus in horror and psychological works, they need to be deeply analyzed for one to understand their true value. It’s also important to have in mind that their might exist a play of words, unspoken superstitions and Japanese folklore integrated in most horror Japanese manga. In this one in particular, there is a play of word that depicts the objects that the main characters will greed upon, so pay attention to that.

The art isn’t the best, It’s ok, which coming from a short horror manga is not that important either way, I take more into consideration in this kind of horror/psychological piece that exists a really detailed, confusing and dimensional art style, which unfortunately the author doesn’t give us.

The entertainment value also depends on the person who reads. Some parts the dialogue seems a bit too overdone and boring, but since it’s a volume long piece it’s pretty easy to keep reading and finish without much boredom involved.

Overall, I would recommend this manga to everyone who wants something short and well-thought off. The art isn’t the most amazing trippy art syle I’ve seen, but the matters that the author makes about the real meaning of life, of human emotion, of the insecurities of self-image (mental and physical), greed and dementic behavior are subjects that will make the reader think a lot about the impact of their own actions.
Donar
0
0
0

comentarios

Black Paradox
Black Paradox
Autor Ito, Junji
Artista