A schoolgirl runs away from home, to a town where there are no roads or streets.
Even in 1992, Ito was finding stories where other people might not think to look – in the fear that you are always exposed and there is nowhere to hide.
I think this might be the most hotly anticipated release on this site since HELLSTAR REMINA. This is Junji Ito at his absolute best and worst, with an amazing, atmospheric idea told well … that frustratingly leaves us starving for more. Even at seventy pages, it wasn’t enough. More than any of his short stories so far, this one deserved to be an entire volume.
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Tell us what you thought. My review in the first comment.
This story, this story.
Good: The idea, the atmosphere, in both Saiko’s home and the town itself.
Bad: Aristotle, Jack the Ripper, the strange ones, all seeming like tacked-on ideas that only unfocused the story.
Another near-classic from Ito. He seems to be really good at those.
Thanks for the chapter ^^
Thank you so much!!!!
I was going crazy without my Junji Ito fix
Hi Daniel,
I am popochip, a member of HorrorFC from http://group.acc.vn/horrorfc
I’d love to ask for permission to translate this manga into Vietnamese. I wanna share it to my friends who do not know English.
Of course, I will keep all your credits.
If possible, I’d like to have your permission for all of your projects, just in case I would like to translate them , I won’t have to bother you again. I apologize for any inconvenience.
And thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to read those marvelous translated manga.
Really good read
Thanks a lot for translating this chapter
Hi popochip,
Thanks for reading, you’re very welcome.
I really recommend against any translations done from a translation. You don’t need my permission to do it, but if you’re going ahead with it I’d rather not be credited as being involved in any way.
Hi and thank you for continuing scanlating this manga!
In BakaBT I have uploaded a torrent that contains all translated volumes/chapters of this manga. Some of the chapters can only be found there since they came from one of the “Museum of Terror” volumes that I scanlated, so you might want to check it out just so you which chapters are still untranslated.
Also, in case you ever need a cleaner/ts’er for this series I would be glad to help.
Hi Dille,
You’re welcome. I think if you had a quick look at this page -
http://www.daniel-lau.com/?page_id=934
- and told me if I didn’t list any of the ones you scanlated, that would be a lot faster than me downloading the entire torrent and checking that way. Thanks.
My torrent has the fallowing oneshot that you don’t have in your list:
Bio-House
Unbearable Maze
Sword of the Reanimator
The Devil’s Logic
Village of the Siren
Den of the Sleep Demon
The Bully
A Deserter in the House
Heart of a Father
The Back Alley
Love as Scripted
But if I remember correctly all of them are form Museum of Terror, so I guess you won’t approve of sharing them on your site…
Anyway here’s the torrent and a comprehensible list of stories that are avalibel online:
(edit: link contained licensed material -daniel)
The story was surprisingly heavy on theme, which is the reason why I think it worked so well. I agree that the addition of the Aristotle Incident and Jack the Ripper does diminish the impact of the story; however, the Strange Ones did not feel out of place. They were just very poorly underused—Ito should have made them the antagonists instead of the generic and thematically-irrelevant Jack the Ripper character.
The main thing holding back the story is the Jack the Ripper subplot, which was clumsy and was obviously used to “incite” the main story; while the odd love story in the beginning felt like a separate (yet still intriguing) Ito story altogether. The entire story could have easily started with her family members acting like weirdos. Ito did not need a realistic motive to compel them to spy on her. They were so strange and the situation was so surreal that it should have been clear he was no longer in the realm of dramatic realism.
Agreed. Near-classic Ito, but oddly constructed out of spare parts from the idea factory.
I agree with Peter. I liked the Strange Ones, and wish Ito would have done something more with them. And the Jack the Ripper part was really random and out of sync with the rest of the story.
Thank you for the translation!
Peter: I agree with pretty much everything. Great analysis. As I read through more of his stories, I find that he comes too close to being a genuinely great storyteller for me to stomach many more of his stories that are just excuses for gory punchlines. This may be reflected in the next poll.
Dille: Yeah, Viz did those stories, nobody scanlated them. Thanks anyway.
This was a really different story by Ito Junji , quite interesting too!!
Thanks a lot for translating this manga for us
Good story, thanks for translating. I seriously got a chill when I saw the ‘strange ones’. Yes, the Aristotle thing and Jack the Ripper seemed to slow the story down a bit. It’s scary enough that she’s wandering in a maze to rescue her aunt, a slasher just doesn’t seem necessary. Great atmosphere though.
Thank you for the translation!
Like Peter said.
The story looks like to be compiled from three more urban legends.
The Jack the Ripper part will deserve stand-alone comic, perhaps.
But in fact this is one of new adaptations of ancient legend probably from Oriental origin. Love of knight to princess and wise-man method of gentle dream manipulation and sword-fight with intruder. It is good how in this adaptation the suspension is used to create the horror atmosphere. By the way, is believed the “whispering of love” really works. The story continues like the legend, but instead of guardians and the emperor the poor girl is being spied by her own family. Until she became sick from the constant intrusion to her privacy…
Then Junji Ito decided to make the environment more and more absurd and the story more and more twisted. Even inhuman creatures hungry for spying appears. Like something tried to punish the poor girl for being loved by unknown boyfriend or for disobedience to her paranoic family…I was afraid this will turn to mere moral story.
Astonishingly, the ending is rather happy. But the girl has nowhere to go ._.
The town without streets remembered me my experiences when I worked for company doing some works on “brownfield” while employees of another company responsible for demolition of old industrial buildings decided for strike, leaving all the place blocked with temporary facilities, scaffolds and machines >.<
My rating:
Meh.
Thanks to you and whoever for the time and effort in bringing this to us! Been waiting for the scans/translation since reading the raws 2 years ago
!
It begins like Ito, continues like Kafka, than turns into a Kago, then tities, then little bit of Alice, then Ito again, then tities, and finally good ol’ Ito ending. This would be a fun thing to turn into a film
This was great! It was horrifically creepy…the best kind of creepy. I actually found the behavior of Saiko’s family to be more disturbing than the Town and its (human) inhabitants. The manga seems to vaguely suggest that her family was in the process of mutating into the “strange ones” that we see later, although as several people have pointed out, the story cuts off before we see most of the themes & ideas explored in detail.
I also enjoyed the few sparks of goodness & decency in the midst of horror (which we also saw in Hellstar Remina), as well as a few amusing moments (did anyone else notice the bartender on page 53?). Despite the cut-off ending, I enjoyed this a lot. Thanks so much for the speedy translation and for bringing this Ito gem to us.
Thanks again so much! Was worried something might have happened to you in the disaster. Thank you for once again satiating my unquenchable thirst for Ito! For now…..
I think most people that come here would agree that Uzumaki is Ito’s masterpiece. I like this story a lot but I see it more in more in terms of what he was doing leading up to Uzumaki, and I see some of the same elements in both stories. That being said I enjoyed the hell out it, it just didnt leave me shook up with the spiral obsession! Turn Town Without Streets in to a movie…. I’d watch it!
I agree with Peter’s review. Right on the nose!
Also, it could be a great full volume, even better than Hellstar Remina. The Strange Ones were definately underused. They looked so creepy! They should’ve followed her around or something (I mean, people in the story said they were dangerous, but why?). The Ripper thing was kind of ridiculous. Also, I would like to see Saiko coming home to find her family mutated. A true, desperate Ito ending!
ps: does it bother anyone else that the group that was translating Black Paradox just quit after one chapter? That seemed interesting, even though Daniel didn’t like it.
Your most charitable work, in breaking language barriers between cultures for fellow denizens of the interweb, is very much appreciated. I have been following this blog for some time now, and will continue so doing, so as long as you keep posting such delightfully entertaining reads, which you have yet to fail to do. Thank you, sir, for your translations.
@crowbar
Do you think the family was some way infected and the process of mutation turning them to something like Ten-eyed´s caused their paranoia?
In fact, I felt with the family for some pages. This is nothing pleasant, to be aware some boys are visiting their child unseen and even they were fighting above their sleeping daughter. But, their concerns escalated to really unbearable grade…
When I saw the manga for first time my first thought was the story is something like parody of today´s life with false morality, paparazzies and surveillance cameras on every corner and near to be crazy developers trying to use every piece of ground for their projects, breaking land-use plans and turning living areas into something maze-like.
The Kosato looks like a town from near future of overpopulation, mutations, recession and totality, the dark paradise famous from certain computer games and SF movies.
Didn´t someone there said this perhaps reflects author´s own personal experience of living in a tight space boxed in with other people?
But, seems the people decided to built such a maze by their own, to make their town someway special or to have more adventurous lives? Or, under mysterious influence of Strange ones?
In fact this is town where the paranoic conditions the poor Saiko tried to escape by leaving her family are manifested…in big scale.
Eh, are you really not approving my comments at times or am I stupid and just miss my comments constantly x_x ?
Anyways, great comparisons htoleso! I definitely see the similarities between this story and Kafka’s work („Der Process“ anyone?) and Kago. By the way, the latter reminds me of Itō quite often. Do you know if Kago ever stated that Itō influenced him? I mean obviously you know this guy when you’re drawing in that genre but did he ever speak of him in high terms or something like that?
Kinda disappointed with this one. I mean it was entertaining yes, but as has been said a few times so far, I feel like it had too much crammed into it without properly developing any of it. Still, thanks for the translation!
This story was well worth the wait! My only complaint is, like many of the people here said, that even 70 pages is still not enough for this story. It leaves too many questions and subplots that would have made a fantastic full-volume story but results in an only adequate short story.
Thank you so much for translating this!
Thanks everyone, record number of people coming in to read this one.
I am a little bit worried about people’s expectations of what hasn’t been translated in the Museum of Terror collections, though. There isn’t another UZUMAKI just waiting to be discovered in there. With all its flaws, this is pretty much as good as it gets.
Demut: sometimes I don’t allow your comments, and honestly you should think about why, or take a break from this site sometimes.
Only because it’s a unique volume with 70 pages full of unsolved mysteries… But is not so bad. With all this we can dive in troughts that are so fun! This is one of several reasons I like Junji works. Everytime it ends with a gap! And this gap is one of the best I’ve ever read. So many things to resolve with their mind. This whole Aristotle and Jack The Ripper thing is so nice to discuss later! Place it all together in the end, filling gaps (so many in TWS). I personally can not get out of my head the peepholes in the Saiko’s room and “the strangers” looking into them in the end. I wonder if it really was her family who snooped around or the strangers who came to visit her. Why they acting like this if they don’t live in that town? Kishimoto live over there? Is he calling for help in her dreams? See? That’s what I’m talking about. Ito is a magician.
thanks for translating this !
Fun story, although it did try to bring too many disparate elements together. But its length helped get you invested in Saiko and her plight. I really liked the town without streets itself. It showed the horrors of the disintegration of planning regulation. The look of the town and the sense of a journey reminded me of the Megastructure in Blame!
My expectations of Ito’s other untranslated stories are pretty much in check. But I do hope that there will be one or two that I’d like still out there. Souichi’s stories seem like they might be promising based on the ones in the ‘Voices’ collections.
Thanks once again Daniel; you are a gentleman and a scholar!
@Demut
I read manga by both.
And there are sligtly similar manga, for example by Ochazukenori , Kanako Inuki, Miyako Cojima,Suehiro Maruo…
But, in my opinion, there is significant difference between Ito Junji and Shintaro Kago. Even though both they can be find under the ‘Erotic Grotesque’ arts group there are in fact no ERO-manga by the first, but a lot of them by the second one…
I read somewhere Kago Shintaro and Ito Junji actually met, I am aware both they were influenced with Umezu Kazuo, the style of guro manga of both is sometimes called “fashionable paranoia”…but to be honest, I am not quite sure if the one of the another ever did spoke in high terms…
This might be interesting, how Kafka (or other European absurdists) of Franzjosef´s and following periods would come out with his own life if born in Japan of Meiji jidai instead…＾ｖ＾
Daniel, once again, fantastic job. I’ve not had the chance to read this one yet, but I finally found some free time to do so.
I’m very relieved to hear that you’re doing well in the midst of everything going on.
I do hope Junji himself is alright as well.
These things that you do mean alot to us, and we appreciate them very much.
Thank you.
I think 99% of the gratitude here should go to Mr. Ito instead of me, but thanks anyway guys.
No more comments about commenting, please. If you can’t figure out the rules, err on the side of caution.
Kinda messy storyline in this one. Especially (sub)plot about the Jack Ripper was totally unnecessary, but combination of town with no streets, creepy family and peeping holes everywhere was pretty solid. Thanks for providing English version to us.
this is set in a totally ‘ito’ universe and its in these kind of settings that he excels in his storytelling. im not a big fan of stories which seem to be set in a ‘real world’ kind of environment. this story reminds me of the third part of uzumaki, where the townspeople start rebuilding the town in spirals …
thanks daniel! we remain in eternal debt to you …
@Daniel – I disagree! While Ito did create this story, the fact that we are now able to read what is going on and understand (to some degree) the story, is very important. I’m sure the big man himself would thank you for allowing his stories to reach a wider fanbase.
I think this story is similar to “The Sad Tale of the Principal Post” in terms of more metaphorical, Kafka-like, disconnected absurdity. It’s commentary on the lack of privacy without shrugging it off lightly, but in fact showing the benefits of openness. The aunt’s at first ridiculous character portrayal later becomes one of more seriousness. Where the girl is left to contemplate privacy by physically walking the streets of privacy and vulnerability. It’s not just commentary on say “WOW WE’RE TOO OPEN NOWADAYS” but life in general. We constantly disconnect ourselves by wearing masks, but it’s clearly impossible to hide from the truth that we’re all the same: animalistic, brutal, and unforgiving. At the end, however, we’re enlightened with the aunt who saves her life and shows her back to a life of privacy (which essentially is impossible). The beginning, the Aristotle part, is interesting because it acts as a “circle.” The more one subliminally is exposed to something, the more they’re attracted to them. This is clearly one of Ito’s best works. Although the story is unclear and still a little “amateur” in this book because of it’s lack of continuity, it still stands as one of his more surreal and allegorical mangas!
Thank you so much, Daniel, for uploading this!
Thank you very much, Daniel, for uploading this!
I think, this is just Junji Ito masterpiece (although, some events from Uzumaki and Gyo in sight of recent events in Japan…but, still a fantasy world)
Believe it or not, I am meeting “strange ones” daily. From safety organizations to mere hackers and paparazi and paranoid parents bugging their children. It´s true, they does not look like the cucumber-head creatures from Junji Ito´s fantasy, but they ´re comparable fairly in terms of inhumanity.
And, in fact the town without streets represents modern society of enforced multiculturalism and the method our “gods” use to take control over us, after enforcing us to break rules of tradition and social behavior which worked quite good for thousands of years.
And, like in the town, despite all the pee-holes they made and all the doors they destroyed, the real enemy, represented in the character of Jack, ( malefactors and terorist in real society) increases it´s power happily…until someone will recognize is time to find a path one to another and take matters into their own hands.
As I heard, Ito Junji, is not only talented artist, but have something much storymakers don´t have, but well-developed social feelings. This is why his comic, although fantasies, can create such a atmosphere.
In my opinion, some of horror things known from Ito Junji comics, will be possible to met on streets in next 20 years.
But I am afraid the good things I am meeting in his comic will be more and more rare to meet…
thanks y very much !
Hm.
I wish she had stayed.
I quite like the aunt.
Thanks so much for this translation and all of your Ito-posts, I’m a big fan. This story is great and I just keep wondering how he creates that atmosphere. Kafka, as some above already mentioned, with added ingredients of horror. Few, if any writers or artists apart from Ito have been able to replicate or recreate Kafkas’ universe. This puts Mr. Junji Ito up there along with the classics for me.
With best regards,
Marcus
Hey Daniel. I had a question. When will you be done translating the rest of the stories in the Junji Ito Collection Manga? I really wanna read all of them and I check daily to see If there’s any new one’s that have been translated. I’m a big fan and I just wanna know when you’ll finish translating the next set of stories, or If your even continuing too. Thank You.
He’s translating a 10 volume series by Kengo Hanazawa at the moment. There’s a few other people translating Junji stories, though. When I see a new one I post it on the Junji Ito English Online Reader comments page.
Alright, Thank You very much!
Hah, agree that Strangers were underused I mean…THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZfmPREbTd8
All I could think of….. *shudder*
DX
Ito would totally do it. HE WOULD.