Junji Ito’s Gyo

I have been obsessed with Junji Ito’s comics ever since they were put in my hands. Whether they be disturbing, comedic, or genuinely just well written, Ito has one of the most unique styles both in art and writing. While I could never pinpoint a favorite within the collections, Gyo is one that particularly stick out to me as unique, as what appears on surface to be a creepy ghost story about evil legged fish, is, at its core, often assumed to be a metaphor for climate change. I am going to break down some of the key factors of this theory by going through the books chapters and explaining what each of them represent in such a message.

Starting off strong with chapter one, Junji Ito sets the scene with the main characters, Tadashi and Kaori, arguing vigorously on a couples retreat. The intentions with the dialogue are to capture “discontent society,” and people focused on the wrong problems in life. The characters are fighting the entire time they’re walking through a beautiful area of Japan, as well as cuss out sharks that live there. This is a prime example of how the problem began in the first place.

The themes slowly shift as we go towards chapter two and get our first example of a problem; the fish monsters making their debut. Chapter two and three are examples of humans mishandling a situation due to it not being significant enough yet. Tadashi is the first to see said monster and his response is to throw a rock at it and put it in a bag. He abandons it to talk to the police about what he saw and they wave him off as crazy. There’s zero urgency, and this allows for the problem to fester uncontrollably.

We especially see this in chapter four, when from off the coast of a beach a massive spider legged shark monster first appears. This beast is often regarded as a huge icon in Gyo, and is made to vaguely resemble something out of Jaws. From here, then, if we look into the symbolism behind the shark in Jaws, we see it’s an embodiment of nature’s indifference to human concerns. It serves as a reminder that nature operates according to its own rules, without caring about human needs or desires. While this connection to Jaws and Jaws’ own themes are all speculation, it unarguably would make sense if these same themes were to play into the narrative with all that had happened so far.

Chapter five represents a rising problem as the fish creatures begin to overwhelm the beaches of Japan; the issue becoming blown completely out of control without anyone trying to stop it while they could. And in chapter six and seven this chaos is pushed further as Japan’s response is to enforce militia causing an Armageddon war. 

Chapters eight and nine start pulling away from the big picture and focus back in on our protagonists, only to find Kaori is incredibly sick. We see her attempt to commit suicide twice, suffering from a disease that spread due to this entire unfortunate event. By now, the book is reflecting a dystopian future where we let our problems get out of hand and devastate society. It becomes clear that the everyday person is suffering greatly, and that its likely too late for a cure. 

After watching Tadashi attempt to take Kaori to his uncles house in a depressing state of mind, the shark creature from earlier suddenly appears again and interrupts the solum moment. This only further illustrates how it could be a metaphor for nature not caring about us as people, as the timing completely derails the emotional moment and forbids Tadashi from properly grieving.

Chapters eleven, twelve, and thirteen then go back to showing more of the big picture and how its devastated the entirety of mankind- here, Ito gives us disturbingly beautiful shots of buildings being burnt, military tanks hunting down monsters and civilians dying morbid deaths from the spreading disease. Fourteen flings the last standing protagonist, Tadashi, into a dream about it all, where he sees that this doom is truly an inevitable occurrence.

By now it seems as though all hope is lost. Most of the population has died off, and there is little hope for sanctuary. Fifteen and sixteen spiral off into a new sudden subplot towards the very end as we see a circus made with the infected corpses of innocent civilians. The ringmaster seems to have no care for the lives he’s using, but is instead trying to generate a source of entertainment and profit despite everything around him going to hell. This scene in which we see Tadashi fighting him on the grounds of moral rights is the nail in the coffin that there is truly no recovering from this disaster…

… And by chapter seventeen, we watch him take Kaori’s body to a cliffside to watch the sky, as he has finally given up on trying to fix what had become too far broken. 

Gyo illustrates a very tragic, but threateningly realistic narrative of what could happen if we do not take climate change, or any mass change seriously when it first begins.

The HoneyDripper is the Savannah College of Art and Design’s juried comics and illustration blog, dedicated to publishing, promoting, and showcasing the finest in student work.​