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Tomie

(Tomie #1-3)

Junji Ito,

Naomi Kokubo (Translator)

4.12 · Rating details · 7,659 ratings · 832 reviews

Tomie Kawakami is a femme fatale with long black hair and a beauty mark just under her left eye. She can seduce nearly any man, and drive them to murder as well, even though the victim is often Tomie herself. While one lover seeks to keep her for himself, another grows terrified of the immortal succubus. But soon they realize that no matter how many times they kill her, th ...more

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Hardcover, Complete Deluxe Edition, 752 pages

Published December 20th 2016 by VIZ Media (first published 1987)

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· 7,659 ratings · 832 reviews

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Aug 25, 2020 Kat rated it it was ok · review of another edition

let’s break it down woot woot

good:
- almost 800 pgs of junji ito’s artwork?? i mean, what a lovely treat for my eyeballs
- spicy commentary on the effects of societal beauty standards

bad? how dare i have anything negative to say, i KNOW:
- it felt repetitive...story after story of unsuspecting ppl being affected by tomie, ending in her or their death (not even like fun death. just a lot of stabbing and dismembering, booooOring)
- i wish there had been more body horror involved. the bio horror that ...more

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Jan 28, 2021 daph pink ♡ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: manga-manhwa-manhua, genre-horror, 3-star, horror-god

a main course without dessert🙄

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Feb 09, 2020 Tim rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror, manga, reviewed

Beauty...

... is in the eye of the beholder.

I've often said that books are more disturbing to me than films, as I can imagine much worse than a film is going to show me (most of the films that truly get under my skin are things like The Haunting (1963) where you don't actually see anything). With the proper writing and descriptions, I can unnerve myself more than a film ever could... Junji Ito seems to exist just to hear statements like that, ask angrily "You can imagine worse than I can show ...more

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Feb 02, 2017 Emm C² rated it it was amazing

Shelves: seinen, manga, horror, reviewed, horror-tbr-challenge-2017, favorites, short-stories, thriller, science-fiction

I love this series, which is both a surrealist, fever-dream horror and a dark commentary on social perceptions of beauty and ugliness, in both personality and looks, as well as human destructiveness. Well, if you want to psychoanalyze.
Tomie is a horror - biological scifi series of related short stories, focused on an immortal woman who has such beauty that it drives people to jealous extremes, with a maddening personality to match. Any attempt to get rid of her will just cause her to bio-regener I love this series, which is both a surrealist, fever-dream horror and a dark commentary on social perceptions of beauty and ugliness, in both personality and looks, as well as human destructiveness. Well, if you want to psychoanalyze.
Tomie is a horror - biological scifi series of related short stories, focused on an immortal woman who has such beauty that it drives people to jealous extremes, with a maddening personality to match. Any attempt to get rid of her will just cause her to bio-regenerate into more Tomies. Tomie is the villain and the protagonist, the victim and the perpetrator, all at the same time. Anyone who comes into contact with her, regardless of age or gender, is ultimately doomed.

For the positives, the art, most noticeably, is effing marvelous (and there's nearly 800 solid pages of it!!) A lot of panorama drawings in minute detail. The story is actually equally as good, and inventive. With the premise it has, I thought it subverted or completely reversed a lot of typical horror tropes you would think it'd have.
I like that the other female characters besides Tomie (who is debateably even human, anyway) are portrayed in a much kinder light, especially the heroine of the first mini-arc. There's a surprising amount of character development, considering Tomie is the only one who sticks around permanently.
My personal favourite of the separate shorts were "Hair" and "Little Finger".

As for the negative...
A few of the chapters get far-fetched to the point of being ridiculous, and don't match the series metaphor or purpose at all. "Babysitter" in particular was the weakest, and I think the one about the sake was just written to disgust. (I still like the sake one, but it is a little bit absurd) The latter shorts can feel kind of formulaic, but are still good.
Tomie's character, mostly because of the sheer volume of Tomie(s) in the book, can be kind of tiresome after awhile. In the first story, she isn't even an antagonist, but she seems to get more relentless and vicious as the stories go.

Art - 5.5/5
Story - 4.5/5
Characterization - 4/5
Inventiveness - 4.5/5
Bizarre Character Deaths - 5/5
General Score - 5/5 ...more

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Dec 31, 2016 Jedi JC Daquis rated it liked it

Just in case you have missed it, Viz Media released three compendiums of Junji Ito's works: Gyo, Uzumaki, and the newest one, Tomie.

Viz Media's Junji Ito collections.

Viz Media's Tomie compiles Ito's 14-year work in this beautifully bound tome of horror. To give you a background about this episodic manga's main character, just remember these four things about her:

1. Tomie can seduce about any man she meets. These men will do anything just to get her.
2. These men will ultimately want to kill her, often times chop her to bits.
3. Bu ...more

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Jan 11, 2017 Quentin rated it it was ok

I quite enjoyed Uzumaki, Junji Ito's strange and terrifying epic of a town infested with and ultimately consumed by spirals. It was weird, and beautifully rendered, and even translated into English, beautifully written. Tomie is as strange and gorgeous, but I was so bothered by its implications that I can't recommend it as emphatically.

This story focuses on a girl, named Tomie, who entrances any man that she meets and ultimately works them into such a frenzy that they kill her and dismember her I quite enjoyed Uzumaki, Junji Ito's strange and terrifying epic of a town infested with and ultimately consumed by spirals. It was weird, and beautifully rendered, and even translated into English, beautifully written. Tomie is as strange and gorgeous, but I was so bothered by its implications that I can't recommend it as emphatically.

This story focuses on a girl, named Tomie, who entrances any man that she meets and ultimately works them into such a frenzy that they kill her and dismember her. However, she also is seemingly immortal, and each fragment of her thus produced grows into a new version of her. There isn't even really an overarching story (as there is in Uzumaki). Rather, its told as a series of vignettes. The story jumps around between a wide variety of characters who intersect with Tomie. Most go mad, or die, or meet an otherwise sticky end. Tomie likewise is not really a character herself; when she does speak, it's to selfishly demand expensive gifts or to ridicule those around her as unattractive, stupid, or worthless.

And here we get to the problem of the book--I feel like this is a male fever dream about violence against women. Here the titular character is inescapably beautiful, petulant, and demanding of attention...and it is these qualities that lead men to sadistically murder her and chop her up. A woman who embodies the worst sexist stereotypes forces men to do violence to her (and to others, in some cases). Men who beat women, or rape them, or otherwise abuse them, frequently draw on such stereotypes as justifications. Maybe Ito thought he was writing a satire--certainly there are comedic elements in the story, as when (in one vignette) a group of men are so entranced by Tomie that they pile on to what they think is her body and carve each other up in a fight over her while she escapes with another man. But for this book to be a satire, someone would need to question the stereotypical idea that women's behavior is the cause of their own violation. And no one does that anywhere in the book. If Ito is assuming his readers should already have dispelled that idea from their head, he is likewise assuming that the cultural pool of stereotypes from which he drew Tomie is not pernicious and broadly embraced. And I don't think he's right.

I can't knock Ito's talent--the art and story are rich and compelling as with Uzumaki. But I couldn't shake the feeling that this was just an excuse to show women being dismembered because they deserved it.
...more

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Jan 30, 2020 Michael Sorbello rated it really liked it

Shelves: all-book-reviews, all-manga, all-comics-manga-and-webtoons, t

Tomie is a lovecraftian monstrosity trapped in the body of a stunningly beautiful girl. She can seduce nearly any man with nothing but a single glance, driving them mad with lust and envy until eventually pushing them to commit brutal murders. Though strangely enough, the victim of the murders are almost always Tomie herself. Countless men and women have fallen victim to Tomie's supernatural charms and Tomie herself has fallen victim to hundreds of atrocities as a result, but soon the world begi ...more

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Jan 05, 2020 Mindi rated it really liked it

This is only my second manga, and it's also my second by Ito. My introduction to manga was with UZUMAKI, and I think that set the bar too high. I'm worried it's all going to be downhill from here. That's a joke, I know there is so much amazing manga in the world, but I honestly can't believe that I read such an amazing one first.

TOMIE has all of the stunning artwork of UZUMAKI, but I just didn't quite love the story as much. It's good, but it's also a bit flawed. This is a large compilation, and ...more

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Mar 21, 2018 Matthew Hernandez rated it really liked it

Tomie is a mixed bag for me it has both good and bad parts to the story, but I am thoroughly impressed by Ito's genius, creativity, and overall style that is uniquely his own. By far, Uzumaki is his masterpiece novel that I love with all my heart. Tomie and Gyo are just impressive in their own unique ways. I will read anything and everything that Junji Ito will create out into this world. ...more

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Sep 09, 2017 Sierra rated it it was ok

Shelves: graphic-novels

I have a problem with this narrative of the femme fatale being portrayed as a bitch who drives men to violence; as a monster who broke their hearts. Tomie is objectified throughout this book and there is no character development. In fact, she hardly even feels like a character. Tomie is a reflection on what the author hates in all woman and a justification for violence against them. At the end the reader knows nothing about Tomie or what motivates her. In addition, some of her cruelty doesn't ma ...more

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Dec 13, 2020 Ria rated it it was amazing

Shelves: tv-series-adaptation, movie-adaptation, 5stars, comics-manga

''Her only real interest is in herself. My daughter sees men as little more than adornments. She wants to be desired.... just a boost to her ego.''

how many Tomies do u think are out there?
i always loved her aesthetic and now i finally read the complete work. i can die in peace. i even preordered the Tomie Funko Pop :) please get me help.
love the sapphic vibes of the movies. i just found out that they were gonna adapt into a series for Quibi but well now rip to both.

...more

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Jan 16, 2019 destiny ♡⚔♡ [howling libraries] rated it it was ok

Shelves: z-2019-reads, horror, adult, graphic-novels-manga-comics

Junji Ito's work is pretty hit or miss for me — I feel like I usually love or hate it — and this was, sadly, the biggest "miss" thus far. I just couldn't get into this at all and didn't feel like it carried Ito's usual brand of bizarro, gross horror that I get so intrigued by. ...more

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Sep 10, 2017 Isabela Vilella rated it really liked it

Lesson learned: life is hard as an immortal succubus (already knew that from personal experience). Take advantage of your talent to charm men before they eventually mutilate you.

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Oct 26, 2020 Jenny Lawson rated it really liked it

Some of the best in body horror.

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May 30, 2019 Blair rated it really liked it

Shelves: ghosts-and-horror, translated, graphic-novels-comics

‘Painter’ was one of my favourites from the collection Shiver, and I’d wanted to read more about its central character, Tomie, ever since. Tomie is a beautiful girl who sparks mania in almost everyone she meets: first comes intense attachment, then the desire to murder her. She’s also an indestructible monster who can create infinite copies of herself. Tomie collects three volumes of manga, 20 stories in total.

There are lots of ways to read Tomie. Some argue the stories’ focus on repeated violen ...more

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Feb 07, 2019 Chris Greensmith rated it it was ok

Shelves: junji-ito

"She called herself Tomie. She was young, and beautiful." Not as good as his other works. I felt it was very repetitive, Tomie pops up in some way and people either try to kill her or go mental. The art was creepy, but doesn't have the edge that Uzumaki or Gyo had. But still a good read, even if it did drag a bit...
...more

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Mar 14, 2020 Armand rated it really liked it

Shelves: graphic-novel, transgressive, read-2020, allure

The primordial archetypes of Sex and Death meld together to concoct the perfect femme fatale in Tomie. No siren can be deadlier: she lures men by corrupting their most primal instincts - to copulate and to kill - and fuses them into a heady melange calculated to destroy them from the inside. Insidious, merciless, and voracious - she will stop at nothing to get her claws on her target. And once she has cornered her prey she sheds her visage to reveal her true self, in all the myriad monstrous glo The primordial archetypes of Sex and Death meld together to concoct the perfect femme fatale in Tomie. No siren can be deadlier: she lures men by corrupting their most primal instincts - to copulate and to kill - and fuses them into a heady melange calculated to destroy them from the inside. Insidious, merciless, and voracious - she will stop at nothing to get her claws on her target. And once she has cornered her prey she sheds her visage to reveal her true self, in all the myriad monstrous glories that can only spring from the fervid imagination of Junji Ito.

If you're familiar with his oeuvre, you know that he can whip up some truly sumptuous body horror. Tomie ranks among the best of these, and it's great to see how Ito's art improved over time. Check out the huge difference in quality between the first and the last chapter.

Anyway, regarding prey - she doesn't spare women either, treating them with hostility or contempt. Witness her stint as the head of a high school's ethics committee who goes into a bloody spree when a rival exposes her real form in Photo/Kiss. Her victims have hailed her as a goddess, and that would have been accurate if divinity presupposes a bloodthirsty creature with the immortality and moral compass of a hydra. She can spawn perfect clones of herself from just a handful of severed body parts, a transplanted organ, or even copious amounts of congealed blood. And yes, that process is not a very pretty sight, to put it mildly.

You know how every creature's main biological imperative is to reproduce? I kinda think that's the key to Tomie. She lures and provokes men into a killing lust precisely so that they could cut her up into disparate parts. Then from these bits she'll grow different clones of herself, developing into a horde of lovely Tomies after a stomach-churning metamorphosis. Thus the cycle would once again commence. The gist of all of this is that she reproduces not via sex, which this manga rather surprisingly lacks, but by violence.

This is a collection of mostly stand-alone stories that explore the different facets of our anti-heroine. She's been the muse of demented artists, the adopted daughter of a tragic old couple, a seductive stepmother, a sort of saké additive, etc. Taken together though, the whole is much more than the sum of its parts, weaving a grand tapestry of the lives and loves of our dear, distasteful Tomie.

For such a voluminous tome, I do wish there was more addenda than the paltry Afterword written by the author. I also hope that in the future, Ito would write the definitive genesis of Tomie, as her origin was not really disclosed here.

I have always been fascinated by the famous enchantresses of history. Combine that with my love of horror and the grotesque and I can't be faulted if I fall under Tomie's spell. I'm lucky that she doesn't exist on this plane or I'd have a hell of a time shaking off that black widow. In any case, even with a book as thick as this, by the end I found myself craving for more. I guess I have no choice but to source the Junji animé and the rather voluminous film series featuring this hellish minx *sigh*

I'm rating this 9/10 or 4 stars out of 5. ...more

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Sep 14, 2017 Scott rated it really liked it

Shelves: manga

Tomie, the mysterious girl with the birthmark and the hypnotic voice. The voice that can make you do anything. Make you fall madly in love with her. Make you obsessed to the point of murder.

But Tomie will not die.

This volume collects all twenty chapters of Junji Ito's surreal horror comic. Most of the stories are self-contained, but there are a few that have connections to others, including the multi-part finale. Considering Tomie's M.O. is pretty much the same from one to the next, it's remarka ...more

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Dec 16, 2020 Himanshu Karmacharya rated it liked it

Shelves: manga, horror

Tomie features some great artwork and body horror, but becomes repititive after some chapters.

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Oct 10, 2017 Rituraj Kashyap rated it really liked it

Shelves: comics-and-graphic-novels, manga, genre-horror, manga-viz_media

Tomie is a beautiful girl. Men obsess over her, to the point that they kill for her. But with this obsession comes an urge to chop her to pieces. And after they kill her, from every chopped part grows a new Tomie. So you could say she's like a lizard's tail, only here it's the tail from which the same lizard grows back.

The book is divided into chapters, each a self-contained story barring a few. With each chapter, the reader will find new ways by which Tomie regenerates. There's even a chapter w ...more

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Jan 05, 2021 hannaღ rated it it was amazing

Shelves: ficiton, favorites, manga, horror, asia, paranormal, japan

It's fascinating to see how Junji Ito's drawing style changed over time - from his quite crudely drawn first stories up to the distinctive look of his more recent work where basically every panel is a piece of art.
Plus Tomie is just an amazingly twisted character, I love her! ...more

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Jan 14, 2019 L. McCoy rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: Fans of strange horror.

Shelves: action, borrowed, comics-and-graphic-novels, manga, reviewed, creator-owned, viz, horror, sci-fi

This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever read. I like it.

What’s it about?
There’s a girl named Tomie. She’s a beautiful young woman and guys end up getting obsessed over her. They get so obsessed that despite falling in love they get unstoppable urges to chop her up! Wait, what?
The thing is she always comes back to life somehow and multiplying herself in disturbing ways. In this collection of short stories that all tie in to one bigger story, we find out if there’s any way this sadistic monster girl ...more

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Apr 09, 2020 Rue rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: manga, horror

A series of short stories about the entity 'Tomie' (I say 'entity', because she is most definitely not human).
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tumblr-b2fcaf33a454c42e5368c9b81c29d8ad-58f2aad0-640

Ito Junji manages to recycle the same plot, but add, twist and distort it so as to keep it relatively enjoyable throughout. However, it is somewhat forgettable (once you've read one, you've read them all), and is redeemed mainly by the art and concept.
pHohu8W

The story centres around one beautiful girl named, well, Tomie, who takes a mean grip of mens' hearts and subverts them to do any and eve ...more

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Dec 30, 2016 Orrin Grey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: comics, manga

While Uzumaki is probably Junji Ito's masterpiece to date, and while I don't really like the Tomie stories as much as much of his other work, it's still hard to deny that Tomie may be his most enduring creation, and not just because she's been around the longest. Tomie is clearly a metaphor, though what for seems much harder to pin down, and changeable from one story to another. While books like Uzumaki and Gyo have a broader vision--even if Uzumaki goes through a series of vignettes and cul-de- ...more

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Jan 03, 2018 Jack rated it really liked it

Shelves: manga, horror

Junji Ito, the Japanese master of horror did not disappoint. We have a young girl who allures men with her beauty, then they savagely kill her... Like a siren who lures sailors to their death, but instead the sailors are the ones doing the killing. However, every time they thought they killed her more "copies" of her would rise up from the corpse and become to seek out their next victim. This idea is carried out through most chapters, not going to lie the idea became a bit dry and repetitive.

I ...more

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Jan 02, 2017 Derek Royal rated it really liked it

These are early stories from Ito, a little rougher (both art and especially story) than you'll find in Uzimaki and Gyo. Would I call this a short-story cycle? In a way, yes, but the stories hang together in a way where there's not much progression of character, setting, or context. Some of the stories, especially the ones that are more overtly interconnected, stand out among the rest. ...more

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Jun 14, 2019 Hannah Garden rated it really liked it

Shelves: comics, jugs-capes, june-2019

Tomiiiiiie!

OK.

So.

Tomie.

So the first part of the premise of this book is . . . I donno, kinda flatly woman-hating, I guess: there's this crazy beautiful thin-long-limbed big-eyed tiny-skirted anime-dream teen, Tomie, who, because she is too beautiful and too selfish (i.e., she doesn't care about other people's feelings), is murdered and dismembered by her married teacher with whom she has been having an affair and her jealous resentful classmates while out on a field trip.

Right? Pretty dismal ...more

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Jul 19, 2020 Rusty Grey rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020-read, comics-manga, 3-stars, horror

3.5 stars

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Apr 05, 2019 Am Y rated it it was ok

I guess you can't talk about Junji Ito without mentioning Tomie, which is why I checked this out. There are a total of 3 volumes in this series, each with ~6-8 chapters (that are also short stories which can be read independently), all of which star Tomie, the title character who's a mysterious and devastatingly beautiful young woman with some kind of otherworldly power over men. They claim to love her, yet the height of that love always means killing and dismembering her, after which she never I guess you can't talk about Junji Ito without mentioning Tomie, which is why I checked this out. There are a total of 3 volumes in this series, each with ~6-8 chapters (that are also short stories which can be read independently), all of which star Tomie, the title character who's a mysterious and devastatingly beautiful young woman with some kind of otherworldly power over men. They claim to love her, yet the height of that love always means killing and dismembering her, after which she never fails to return from the dead. The cycle thus repeats itself over and over again.

The first volume was refreshing enough and generated sufficient interest for me to continue on to vol 2, but by vol 3 (also the final volume), this interest had pretty much fizzled out due mostly to the sameness of each chapter's storyline. By the end of vol 3 I was glad it was over and I didn't have to read about Tomie ever again. It definitely didn't help that vol 3 was the weakest in the series and felt the most uninspired.

One of the ways Ito baits readers and keeps them returning, is the promise that there is a good mystery to be solved, that will explain the horror taking place. With Tomie this is very much true, because one is intrigued by how and why this girl keeps coming back, and what her purpose is. There is also the fascination with Tomie herself - is she the protagonist or antihero? Whose side are we on exactly - Tomie or her "victims"? And who exactly is the "victim" in the first place - is it the supposed innocents Tomie exerts her mind control over, or Tomie herself, since she always ends up getting murdered and hacked into pieces by those who claim to love her?

In this way Tomie offers the reader a lot to think about. A few of the chapters (remembering that they are self-contained stories in their own right) are also pretty good, with unexpected plot turns here and there.

But ultimately, from an entertainment perspective, Tomie was on the whole an unrewarding experience for me. The macabre factor quickly loses its appeal because almost the same thing happens in every chapter, and no questions are ever answered (as is the case with many of Ito's works). I went away with a huge sense of deflatedness, brought on mainly by the realisation that my time could have been better spent. ...more

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Aug 07, 2017 Karissa rated it really liked it

This is the third manga collection I have read by Ito. This was a pretty good collection of horror manga stories involving Tomie. I thought the stories got a bit repetitive; this would probably be better if you read one story at a time rather than reading the whole volume at once.

This really wasn't a cohesive large story but rather a collection of shorter stories featuring the immortal and regenerative Tomie who tempts men into killing her while destroying their lives. It was very gory and was w ...more

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About Junji Ito

Junji Ito

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Junji Itō (伊藤潤二) Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner o Junji Itō (伊藤潤二) Born in Gifu Prefecture in 1963, he was inspired from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's comics and thus took an interest in drawing horror comics himself. Nevertheless, upon graduation he trained as a dental technician, and until the early 1990s he juggled his dental career with his increasingly successful hobby — even after being selected as the winner of the prestigious Umezu prize for horror manga.

The most common obsessions are with beauty, long hair, and beautiful girls, especially in his Tomie and Flesh-Colored Horror comic collections. For example: A girl's hair rebels against being cut off and runs off with her head; Girls deliberately catch a disease that makes them beautiful but then murder each other; a woman treats her skin with lotion so she can take it off and look at her muscles, but the skin dissolves and she tries to steal her sister's skin, etc.

Ito's universe is also very cruel and capricious; his characters often find themselves victims of malevolent unnatural circumstances for no discernible reason or punished out of proportion for minor infractions against an unknown and incomprehensible natural order.

His longest work, the three-volume Uzumaki, is about a town's obsession with spirals: people become variously fascinated with, terrified of, and consumed by the countless occurrences of the spiral in nature. Apart from the ghastly, convincingly-drawn deaths, the book projects an effective atmosphere of creeping fear as the town's inhabitants become less and less human, and more and more bizarre things begin to happen.

Before Uzumaki, Ito was best known for Tomie, a comic series about a beautiful, teasing and eternally youthful high school girl who inspires her stricken admirers to murder each other in fits of jealous rage. Eventually, unable to cope with her coy flirtation and their desire to possess Tomie completely, they are inevitably compelled to kill her — only to discover that, regardless of the method they chose to dispose of her body, her body will always regenerate.

In 1998, during the horror boom that followed the success of Ringu, Tomie was adapted into a movie. Since Tomie, many of his works have been adapted for TV and the cinema. ...more