Junji Ito Maniac – Season 1 Episode 6 Recap & Review

Mold / Library Vision

Mold

Episode 6 of Junji Ito Maniac starts with a guy returning to his home after a year’s absence. His new tenant should have left by now and he’s hopeful it has been left in a good state. Unfortunately… it hasn’t. The lights aren’t working and the entire place reeks of mold. The place is a complete mess too and the pantry is full of rotten food.

After cleaning the place up, Mr Rogi and his family head over, marveling at Akasana’s success and deciding he should lease the house to him. It’s an unnerving situation, especially when the family are absolutely desperate to move in. Seiji (Akasana’s brother) even suggests getting the paperwork in check.

There’s definitely something going on with this house, and as Akasana returns after his trip, agreeing to lease the house out to them, he finds the place dilapidated and completely covered in mold. Seiji points out that there’s something dangerous going on here, reminiscing chillingly about Mrs Rogi and her baby, slowly ended up infected by this strange mold. Akasana heads in to investigate and finds Rogi and his family, completely consumed by the mold. And unfortunately, the same occurs for Akasana too.

Library Vision

Our second tale sees Goro and Koko both inside a giant house in the middle of nowhere. Goro is obsessed with his library, refusing to let Koko touch his precious books  and even ends up having a bad dream about his books disappearing.

Goro finds several books missing and he begins looking frantically for them in the middle of the night. It seems they keep disappearing, one after the other, and materializing as an actual living, breathing entity. In fact, the books have an inexplicable impact on Goro, who ends up with scratches all over him and begins screaming, deciding to try and memorize every singe word from every book before he dies.

Koko tries in vain to stop him, but eventually the whole place goes up in flames, with Goro inside and letting the flames consume him. Those books though? Well, it appears they were actually taken by some strange guy, with a twisted, disfigured face.

The Episode Review

Junji Ito Maniac returns with another coupe of decent episodes, ones that play on the deepest parts of our psyche and delivering some thematic material in the process. The first story looks at the relationship between landlord and tenant, with the woes and worries of both playing out in full view for all to see. The mold and issues inside the house are a great example of how landlords or house owners worry that their properties won’t be looked after.

Meanwhile, the second chapter plays on that idea of a hobby turning into an unhealthy obsession, which we see play out across the episode as Goro becomes more and more consumed by the books he’s reading.

On the whole, this double-bill delivers a really intriguing set of chapters and ones certainly worth checking out.