Ibitsu by Haruto Ryo

Kazuki walks towards the dumpster by his building one night and encounters a young woman in a dirty lolita style outfit. She asks him if he would have a sister and he says yes, as in he has one. Then this girl follows him and even breaks into his house, insisting she is his little sister and generally freaking everyone out. How far will she go to fulfill this delusion? Why is she doing all this?

Ibitsu is a horror manga centered around an urban legend. A demon lolita asks passersby a question and if they answer at all, she will either kill their little sister to assume her role or act as their little sister with the end goal of eventually killing them. The lolita herself appears pretty monstrous with a deranged smile, hastily sewn slashed wrists, filthy clothing, and an equally dirty stuffed rabbit.  Kazuki had never heard of this legend before and has no idea what he got himself into. It starts out with relatively small things like the girl shoving her way into his apartment and washing her filthy stuffed animal, taking the master key to his apartment, eating his sister's makeup, and following him around everywhere to recite everything he's done or bought recently. Her actions escalate past anything I expected. The plot is pretty standard for any horror story where he investigates her past to try to find a way for him and his sister to survive and get her to move on. The lolita is half Samara from The Ring and half Tomie with a splash of urban legend.

I fully expected to like Ibitsu, but one particular aspect really bothered me. The violence towards women took a rather sexual bent for no reason at all. The positions were very suggestive with upskirt poses. The lolita rips open Kazuki's sister's shirt so her breast is exposed and almost presses a hot iron to her crotch, which pushed that act to genital mutilation or female circumcision. That has a whole plethora of connotations that have nothing to do with urban legends or Japan in general. I found that part particularly extreme for no real reason. On the other hand, a death by sledgehammer, which didn't have any sexual connotations, seemed rather censored in comparison to all the other deaths. I found these choices odd. I see the sexualized women and deaths sometimes in manga, but this example is the worst. It simply doesn't belong in this story and should have a good reason for being there. There is a whole genre of manga that people can read if they want sexual content and it felt very forced into this story.

Ibitsu had real promise. Even though it adhered to horror tropes, it managed to set itself apart with the backstory of the lolita and her method of infiltrating the family. The ending was well done, satisfying, and open for continuation. The sexual violence really put me off the story and didn't belong there. There are two small other unrelated stories. One is amazing. It involves another urban legend where couples will be happy forever if they write their name on a particular wall of an abandoned building. The reveal of what's actually happening is so chilling and creepy. The second story is frankly a slight changed rip-off of Stephen King's Misery except with a manga writer. The ending is quite predictable. Overall, Ryo has real promise, but I was a bit disappointed by this story.

My rating: 2.5/5 fishmuffins