My third voyage into Junji Ito's work has defied expectations, mostly. While I had anticipated the dark aesthetic that has permeated my experiences of his work, this was my first encounter with its mood tilting towards the darkly comic side of the spectrum. The depths of Gyo's waters uncover the horrors of its past, a country's tally of mortalities manifesting in a senseless madness that spreads and consumes the unsuspecting living. Though many cases would have left me detested for the campiness that its storytelling inhabits, it finds itself comfortable running through the established motions, with much of its key characters merely as signifiers of its inherent themes, perhaps even a deliberate diversion of our focus to the event than the characters themselves. As far-fetched as the premise may be, Ito has brought forth something fairly accessible, imaginative, and strange.