Years ago, the Japanese Military created a bioweapon—a germ that releases an unbearable noxious gas. Evolution and Something Else (ominous) wrapped themselves into the hulls of sunken ships to create seamless, steam-powered, spider-like legs. When these forces combine, they create a parasitoid that latches onto living things infected by the germ. The gas in the victim fuels the machine, which uses its host until they rot off its back.
The story follows Tadashi and his girlfriend Kaori. The couple run into a fish infected by the parasitoid while vacationing together, and beside the horrific sight of scuttling fish, Kaori is tormented by the smell the creature emits. It lingers even when they return home, haunting Kaori, who is quickly breaking down. The fish, including sharks and other large ocean animals, start to move into the mainland, spreading both havoc and starting to infect mammals, including humans. Mammals infected become bloated, covered with boils, and near endlessly excrete the rancid gas from both ends of their body. Kaori is no exception to this fate when she's infected, while Tadashi discovers he's immune to the germ. Tadashi's uncle and his assistant promise to help take care of Kaori while Tadashi recovers from an accident, but are essentially. Torturing Kaori? And exploiting her as patient zero, the uncle even making his own version of the parasitoid legs he attached to her.
Once Tadashi recovers from the accident, he discovers what his uncle has been doing to Kaori during his absence with the help of the assistant. Upon seeing the state of Kaori, Tadashi and his uncle's assistant have a brief affair, interrupted by his uncle and Kaori, who is still conscious. Tadashi's uncle flies away with his assistant, and Kaori runs from Tadashi. He gives chase. Outside, other parasitoids kill Kaori because she's noticeably different, due to her hardware. She reaches for Tadashi's hand one last time before she fades and the parasitoids skitter away. Tadashi is left alone with the the corpse of Kaori, his girlfriend, burnt to a crisp, still bloated, boiled, and intubated to the parasitoid legs.
Ito attaches the forces of human creation, evolution, and mechanics beyond human comprehension, and forces them into a singular being—kind of like a three body problem? Three nigh inescapable forces caught in each other's gravity collide to create an otherworldly mechainal parasitoid doomed to consume itself into extinction.
Wrow. I don't like how familiar that sounds, lol. Gyo was written back in in 2001-02, and the concern over the progress of man and how we effect the world around others, both nature and other humans. Climate change was a known issue, and is an ongoing crisis. Our expanding knowledge about space, quantum physics, reality, and philosophy are making us feeler smaller and smaller, fading into the infitine abyss of insignificance.
Reflecting the realities of today, many countries in the world are facing a crisis of fascism. The United States is one effected, and is where I'm from, so my focus is limited to what I experience here. I see echo chambers within "both sides" of political parties, I see the history of the way authoritarianism, terrorism, and facism has disrupted grassroots movements (see the Black Panthers) and demonizing marginalized groups of people (immigrants and trans people, to name a few) because the organizations don't function like Most do. Immigrants and trans people are viewed as Inherently Different from the Normal people. As fascism rises, we grow more and more insignificant "in the grand scheme of things." We become things to stamp out. To eradicate. By any means necessary—for the greater good and benefit of the majority. And climate change is still a looming crisis, even with all our efforts to address it. The more carbon we extract from the atmosphere, the more carbon from the ocean rises to replace it. We don't know what exists in dimensions beyond our own. By design, we can't know. Another Carrington Event could set human progress back wildly. What can we do if a stray asteroid finds itself in line with our planet? When all these forces collide, what's left in the aftermath? Would even could remain? What would a theoretical Ted of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream do if he were left alone in a world immune to a nigh all-consuming parasitoid?
While the world collapses, Tadashi sits with Kaori's smoldering corpse over a sunset. The city behind him is in desolation eating itself alive. His uncle and parents are nowhere to be found. The grass is cold beneath his hands, and with the wind blowing over the seaside hill, Tadashi's fading voice promises Kaori she's finally free from that horrible smell.
Gyo by Junji Ito. Good manga. Go read it. Matteo and Amos OUT.