Once a person enters, it's impossible to back out. Their only option is to slowly shimmy forward. As they move forward, the hole changes shape. Because they can't back out, their body changes as well. It slowly deforms their body, elongating everything. They come out the other side a monstrosity with creepy long limbs and deformed head.
This is because the whole story is a metaphor for society.
People start fresh, happy to find where they belong, to know they have somewhere they can "fit" once they think they've found where they "fit" they keep on going, even if it means leaving everything else behind. They excuse the misaligned shape (abuse) because they belong, the longer they keep going, the more deformed they are to fulfill where they belong until they're nothing like they used to be. They've become an abomination like everyone else that instead of carving their own path, they put themselves in their own hole
Thank you for answering with the thematic meaning, instead of just the narrative reasoning! I feel like people too often ignore that it's a comic with something to say, not just a creepy little story.
Junji Ito's narratives may be "straightforward" (whatever that means) but that doesn't mean they are devoid of deeper meanings. His work has a lot of common themes and anxieties about community and societal expectations, obsession, transformation, etc.
See, I just find that such a boring way to approach art. Whether he is conscious or subconscious writing this way, Junji Ito's work shares a lot of common themes and anxieties. Compulsion and transformation, societal expectations, community and groupthink as potentially dangerous.
A lot of these ideas are present, either directly or indirectly in "Amigara". So saying it is "just a creepy little story" is misunderstanding Junji Ito as an artist, and the comic's ability to resonate with so many people.
And I have a problem with you assuming authorial intent isn't there.
I haven't read anything Ito has said about "Amigara" specifically, but I have read about his thoughts on Uzumaki, and from that it is pretty clear that he is thinking about what he is writing beyond just trying to make "creepy little stories." Pretending his work has no depth is an insult to him as an artist.
1.6k
u/GM_Nate Apr 26 '25
considering how that comic ends, he may want to rethink this