Manga Review: Shiver by Junji Ito (Horror Stories Collection)

This is a review that has been long overdue since I got this Junji Ito book since about 3 months ago, but I was just busy and I didn't have time to read it until a couple of weeks ago. The book Shiver is essentially a compilation of stories from the Horror World of Junji Ito's Collection, and there is also an unpublished chapter that's about 10 pages long that is related to one of the chapters in Shiver called Fashion Model. Personally Shiver is an excellent compilation of some of Junji Ito's best chapters/stories, and its attempt to make you shiver is decent. A lot of the chapters involve phobias, so I'm not surprised if someone who reads this book may feel a bit creeped out. For me, I find it fascinating and interesting in how Juni Ito presents these phobias in picture form.

The list of chapters in the Shiver compilation

The quality of the book is also exceptional. It's a hardcover book that contains 392 pages. I got it at a bargain of $22.34 AUD with free international shipping from BookDepository (and that's considering Australia's 10% GST on overseas products), so that's a pretty good deal if you are an Aussie like me. Even if you ain't Aussie, $22.34 AUD is a really good price for a hardcover book that has 392 pages. That's basically 2 volumes worth of content, coming from an author that doesn't publish often (usually monthly authors's mangas are at least $15 AUD after discounts). Aside

from that, the pages are not your typically flimsy and cheap pages; there are high quality pages, which really make you feel like you are holding a page.

Overall, if you are a Junji Ito fan, like me, you should definitely get Shiver (when it's a good price of course) because it has a compilation of some of his best stories for a decent price. I can't wait for more Junji Ito collections to be released. There was one involving the Frankenstein stories being released recently, but I didn't purchase that since I wasn't really fond of that story. However, there is another compilation called Smashed being released next year, and the stories compiled seem like good ones too. I'll have to research a bit more on that to see whether that is true.

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Story: 9/10

Characters: 7/10

Art: 8/10

Enjoyment: 10/10