Voices in the Dark is a collection of horror shorts from Junji Ito, published in 2003. The stories themselves were previously published in bimonthly serials in magazines from Asahi Sonorama.

Chapter four, SECRET OF THE HAUNTED MANSION, and the very gross Junji Ito that we know and love is back.

The story is about two boys sneaking into a haunted mansion themed attraction that they suspect is actually haunted.

I hope you’re not expecting puppies and free hugs in there.

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As tends to happen with about half his short stories, the ending is kind of tacked on here. And as tends to happen with the other half, the shock value is mostly contingent on the villain rearing his head for the first time in a disgusting way. So I’d put this story right in the middle of his short works.

Click the VOICES IN THE DARK tag to read previous chapters. Like last time, I’ll be collecting all the stories into one file when it’s fully done. Unlike last time, these stories are completely independent and it makes no difference if you read them together or not.

Questions, comments, welcome below.

When I first began, I really didn’t expect to be doing this many scanlations. Frankenstein I did just to see if I could. Now I do it because I kind of like it.

With Heroes of the H-Mansion finishing with the next update, I wouldn’t mind starting another project. Voices in the Dark will keep me busy for a while, so I don’t want to double down on Ito. I’m open to suggestions in the comments section of this post, with the caveat that it be scanned somewhere, since I don’t have a scanner.

The one thing I promise for the next six months of this blog is more of something that nobody ever asked for – original writing from me. I have a short novel that’s rearing to go but probably won’t see release until next year due to pesky administrative issues. The translations won’t stop, but they will probably slow down when this happens.

Anyway, for whatever reason, thanks for reading.

I kicked it all off with a cat video, and this one I’m sure you’ll agree is much better.

New Voices in the Dark chapter tomorrow, and this one would’ve been far more fitting for Halloween.

Well, this is pretty much the end. A big four parter this week, including another Byclops trilogy of strips.

No real translation notes for these!

I feel it would’ve been a strong note to end on, though. A variety of generally well-intentioned Marvel analogues make Byclops’ life a living hell.

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The next and final installment will complete all the remaining strips for Heroes of the H-Mansion. It’ll be another unconnected grab-bag of cameos, and stops in the middle of nowhere. But maybe I’ll work up a page collecting all the character entries and strips, and also zip it all up into a downloadable. So it’ll end on at least a slightly special note.

Comments and corrections welcome below.

Flyer for Comitia 90

Comitia is a quarterly comics convention at the Tokyo Big Sight convention center. It differs from the twice yearly Comiket in focus, in that it only allows original work, and in scope, as Comiket fills the entire convention center and Comitia only one of ten halls. In August, there was a ham radio convention blasting away at the same time as Comitia 89. This time there was a job fair. Guess which one I probably should have gone to!

My second time at Comitia, and this time I went with a mission. I wanted to find somebody to do a bit of illustration work for me. As always there was no shortage of talent, even at the end of the day I only got around to about half the artists I wanted to (and missed the entire Pixiv Market section). There was however a shortage of Japanese ability on my part, and lord was I well beyond my level here. I’m hoping that should I ever make myself understood, that there’ll be no shortage of funds, either …

A non-Japanese contingent is obligatory at Comiket, but this was my first time seeing one at Comitia. They seemed pretty well organised, with their own bilingual anthology ready to go, and many working professionals among them too. Special thanks to Becky Cloonan who threw in a free sketchbook with the anthology I bought, and Queenie Chan, who told me a lot about her career in what I thought was revealing detail. I hope they had a great experience and that our paths will cross at Comitia again someday.

Again I was able to do at Comitia what I found very difficult to do at Comiket – fill my backpack full of interesting comics. I’d love to scan and translate some of them but I don’t have a scanner and probably wouldn’t know what to do with one if I did. If there are any people who know how to scan in the Tokyo area and would like to see some of this stuff translated, drop me a comment. There’s actually loads of stuff I’d love to translate but can’t find scans for.

Been two weeks since the last installment!

Another bunch of new characters. Sometimes I wish they would do a few more strips about the characters they’ve already introduced.

So very near the end now …

Translation notes for #19:
Galactic Robo is an amalgum of Galactus and Tetsujin 28, hence the 28. Tetsujin literally means “Iron Man”.
In the original dialogue he cries オタケさん、おはよー over and over again. I’ve no idea what this means, so if you know go ahead and tell me.

Translation notes for #20:
The Silver Surfer analogue speaks entirely in katakana, which is manga shorthand for people speaking strange languages.

Translation notes for #21:
And I thought Byclops and Jeanie ended on a good note when last we saw them, but here he is macking it up …

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Comments and corrections below. Really into the home stretch now.

And welcome to any visitors from the new Scans Daily. I’ll crosspost this there as soon as I’m allowed.

Voices in the Dark is a collection of horror shorts from Junji Ito, published in 2003. The stories themselves were previously published in bimonthly serials in magazines from Asahi Sonorama.

Chapter three this time, ROAR OF AGES. Another surprisingly safe for work entry. That makes two of three in this collection so far!

Fans might find this story about a mysterious flood kind of dull, departing as it does from the usual formula of gross schlock villain. But I liked it, and I’m grateful to the short story format that Ito can experiment with something more sad and earnest.

Plus he draws a pretty mean looking flood.

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Click the VOICES IN THE DARK tag to read previous chapters. Like last time, I’ll be collecting all the stories into one file when it’s fully done. Unlike last time, these stories are completely independent and it makes no difference if you read them together or not.

Questions, comments, welcome below.

Voices in the Dark is a collection of horror shorts from Junji Ito, published in 2003. The stories themselves were previously published in bimonthly serials in magazines from Asahi Sonorama.

Here’s chapter two, THE GHOSTS OF GOLDEN TIME which as far as I know has never been translated. There was really no way to faithfully translate this one, though. It’s about a creepy Japanese comedy duo, and almost everything they say is an awful pun that only works in Japanese. At least it wasn’t supposed to be funny, then I’d really be in trouble. Bad comedy I can do.

It kinda dies instead of finishing with a bang, but as in chapter one, Ito has made another great villain gimmick here.

Choose a download location:

Megaupload

Mediafire

Click the VOICES IN THE DARK tag to read previous chapters. Like last time, I’ll be collecting all the stories into one file when it’s fully done. Unlike last time, these stories are completely independent and it makes no difference if you read them together or not.

Questions, comments, welcome below.

Tuesday, 3rd November
Bunkamura, Shibuya

I caught a performance of William Goldman’s THE MIRACLE WORKER (奇跡の人) on Tuesday. Apparently everybody knows this but me, but it’s a biographical account of the childhood of Helen Keller, who became blind and deaf at a very young age.

Although everything in the play revolves around her, the main character is her governess and mentor, Anne Sullivan. She teaches the blind and deaf Keller how to communicate, finally connecting her to a world that had written her off as an incomprensible animal. Anne Sullivan is the eponymous miracle worker, played here by Anne Suzuki (pictured above).

She’s best known to western audiences from the strangely great HANA AND ALICE, the pretty bad RETURNER, and the brake screechingly bad INITIAL D.

For me to properly introduce this most recent Japanese take on the play, we should take a look at probably the most widely known version of the play – the 1962 Hollywood film, featuring the original stage actors. In this scene Annie has finally got her wish, to be sequestered alone with Helen at home. As well-meaning as her parents might be, they are ultimately a bad influence, for they have no faith that Helen can learn and aspire to anything more than a pet. The things Helen has learnt take some serious unlearning. Here, Annie tries to teach Helen the simplest of civilised tasks – sitting still at the table and eating with a spoon, rather than running around and inhaling from your hands. It turns out to be a physical tour de force -

While that scene’s got intensity to spare, almost to comical excess, I wouldn’t say it was trying to be funny. This version was, at turns, an intentional comedy! Helen’s behaviour is sometimes given a slapstick quality and played for laughs. Sometimes I wonder, given what she and her family went through, if this doesn’t border on disrespect. I suppose as tough as it was there must’ve been some light in the dark, and the production doesn’t pull any emotional punches where it counts.

As for the biggest emotional punch in the climax, the one that elicited sobs from every woman in the audience … the play took a little too much time getting there. There was too much before it and not enough after it. Helen seems to realise all in the same instant what language actually is, its utility, and that her mentor and parents were forcing it on her out of love. That’s a lot to take in even for a the audience, let alone a young child who has perhaps for the first time made any sense of her world.

The play pretty much ends at this point, and I couldn’t help but want to know more about what became of Helen as an adult. Anyone who knows as shamefully little as I do about Helen Keller may be left feeling the same. Perhaps when the play was first performed, she was famous enough that it was common knowledge, which would explain the “and the rest was history” feel of the ending.

But this was nothing that this latest staging of the play could’ve changed, and anyway these are small nitpicks on what was generally a great time. The acting was uniformly terrific, although not being much of a theater-goer I was a little thrown by how theatrical it was. Everyone seemed to move and speak with an energy that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Disney animation. If finances allow, I’d love to see more plays like this, and I’m sorry that finances probably won’t allow me to see the performance of TWELVE ANGRY MEN at Bunkamura next month.

A big three parter, as we head into the tail end of the series.

This is my favourite bit.

Again if you find my blog template is squishing the images here, so you might want to open them manually -

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Translation notes for #18:

The H-Mansion gang were playing a traditional Japanese card game, but it wasn’t important to get into so I changed it to something more recognisable.

The wall hangings near Byclops’ desk say “Pass” (as in exams) and “Certain Victory”, typical test taker sentiments.

The room Mangato was showing Byclops was a 3LDK.

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Lots of new characters, but no new character entries. They ended as of last week.

To be honest this is kind of the high point of the series and it’s kind of downhill from here. It would have made a fine ending, but it seems to stop abruptly and most likely Gurihiru didn’t know that they’d be ending it.

Leave your comments and corrections below. Even some plain ol’ encouragement wouldn’t go astray, as we head into the home stretch.