Sadly I am unable to review this title as by the time I was able to find a system that would like me install a programm that allows acsm. files to be read the file had expired I could no longer access it. I have rated it 3 stars based on the details I have of the title.

Tongues. So much, tongue. 

I’m very torn over how I feel about this one. Initially, I was really into it. I’ve always been a fan of end of the world scenarios that involve space, so the beginning of this had me real excited. Ooh, an ominous planet is heading towards earth faster than the speed of light! Neat! I was absolutely delighted slash unsettled when an eyeball appeared on said planet. And then, the tongue, of course.

I stopped being delighted when the realistic, aggressive abuse of Remina the girl started. Probably should’ve seen it coming, considering the opening scene was of her, crucified. When she was sexually assaulted by a fan, my feelings took a hard turn towards, “NOPE.” Was that necessary? It only got worse from there. 

While I enjoyed all of the sci-fi aspects and the typical gruesome horror that Junji Ito is known for (my GOD, the surface of the planet Remina made my skin crawl off my body), the scenes of graphic abuse overshadowed the things that I liked. Perhaps it’s because it hits too close to reality, and I enjoy living in a state of suspended disbelief when I read his work. 

Overall, I’d give it two stars out of five. I’ll keep reading his work, but I don’t think I will be recommending this to others.

I have read quite a few of Junji Ito's works and unfortunately, this one is probably my least favourite. It tells the story of the planet Remina on a collision course with Earth and the human girl, Remina from whom the planet got its name. For me, while this was still full of the tentacular imagery that Ito does so well, the story itself felt pretty light and rushed. It hits a lot of the same story beats of some of his other works, namely persecution and lost love, but it just didn't pack the same impact for me.
I received a free copy of this work from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Junji Ito once again brings  a great concept and characters. However the lack of characterization and ending that makes you wanting more feels disappointing.

This manga was entertaining, just like any other Junji Ito manga, however I felt like it was missing that body horror aspect we all love about Junji Ito. Things like Tomie and Uzumaki come to mind as his greats and Remina was “almost” there.

I've been hearing about Junji Ito for a while and it was cool finally reading some of his work.  This was an interesting story and looking forward to reading more.

I write this post knowing that I am a complete newbie when it comes to reading horror manga. Works from Junji Ito and so are not a realm that I have explored before, which is why I jumped at the chance to read one of his works when I have the chance. Especially when it involved a lot of science fiction elements in it. Especially weird space nonsense because while I love space stuff in general, weird space stuff is another thing that is my jam. This seemed like the perfect fit for me when trying it out and I can’t help but feel like a mark was made and missed somewhere. Lets see if I can explain why. Spoilers

Remina starts off with a very unique premise. Dr. Oguro sees a strange object out in space and calls it after her daughter, Remina. From this famous event, Remina becomes a star. An idol perhaps and she just raises in fame and gains a larger fan base of people who love her. Of course, the object in space called Remina turns out to be a planet that eats other plants on its way to Earth. With that doom in question, the world slowly raises up against the person Remina with the belief that if Remina dies, the planet can be saved. Yeah, that was the experience. The manga itself opens with Remina being crucified so none of this is a spoiler.


So this is obviously a story that focuses on multiple themes. The first one being the nature of fandom itself in terms of persecuting a famous person with the planet Remina being a representation of the in person Remina’s inner thoughts on what is going on around her. There is even a small amount of 1%er commentary about those idiots landing on a planet that is hostile to them without even considering that issue. Those are two very good things to explore. At the same time, all of that is ruined by the nature of the manga. It’s insane and completely ungrounded in every way possible. Remina’s fame just happens as instantly as all of this insanity happens. A lot of this manga is a chase game with convenient moments that save Remina’s life and that goes from on foot chases to the planet losing gravity from spinning too fast and still chasing Remina in the sky. It’s crazy. There is a very minimal level of dialogue here, it’s mainly action panels and it’s whatever.

At least the art is incredible though. I’m amazed at how beautiful the art is. It’s a very well detailed manga with panels that flow well in time with the barely there narrative to sell the complete package together. The space stuff looked insane and the technology for all the rockets and space suits. If Junji Ito wrote a normal space opera manga, he has more then the artistic talent for it. Would recommend for the art alone. Other then that, I can’t help but say I was completely unimpressed with Remina. It’s just whatever. I may need to check out more of Junji Ito’s work though. Maybe read some real gems or something.

I feel that it's difficult to describe a book like this.  I have read Ito's works before and always enjoy them but this was just a bit too much for me.  The characters had little depth it seemed and the physics of it all were almost laughable.  I think there's something to be said about humans and their panic responses to horrifying situations but all of this just exited the realm of potentiality and dove straight into ridiculousness.  It gave an otherwise horrifying, serious story a strangely humorous overtone that detracted from reading it.

This was an interesting, fast read. Not one of my favorites from Junji Ito, as I didn't feel the same connection to any of the characters in Remina that I normally do in his stories. The art, however, was just as stellar as ever. I would recommend this one to tried and true Junji Ito fans, but would definitely go with another of his works when recommending him to a new reader.

Thanks to Viz Media for an advance NetGalley of this graphic novel, which is coming out this Tuesday Dec 15, 2020--

Having a scientific discovery named after you seems rad, right? Your name will be remembered forever--and associated with a cool new star, or the complicated solution to an infamous math problem. But in horror master Junji Ito's manga Remina, this kind gesture becomes an apocalyptic curse.

Remina is a shy young girl who's not interested in the limelight, but she becomes famous after her father, Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Dr. Oguro, names a new planet he discovered after her. Soon, however, it becomes clear that this planet is malevolent; not only is it heading straight for Earth, but it's decimating all the other planets in our solar system along the way. In a state of desperate doomsday hysteria, people become convinced that Remina and her father are responsible for the destructive planet--and that the only way to stop it and save Earth is to kill them both.

Remina is a great showcase of Ito's distinctive (and completely disgusting) cosmic and body horror drawing style: we get bloody crucifixions, gore-splattered head explosions, and a nasty planet-sized wet tongue. Unfortunately, despite the brilliant premise of this manga, the plot and character development are a little lacking. Remina spends a majority of the graphic novel sobbing and being dragged around by underdeveloped men and boy characters--one of whom tries to assault her without any consequences. The creepy cult-like hooded leader of the "we need to kill Remina and her dad" movement gets a pretty lame end reveal: more "boring teenage relationship drama" than "end-of-the-world mastermind." Ultimately, the art visuals here are absolutely horrific and gorgeous; I wish I could say the same of the story.

This was not something I enjoyed. I am not afraid of planets coming from space to lick and eat us, just weird. The rest is kind of torture porn. Not for me.

Junji Ito's Remina depicts the story of a planet heading towards a collision with the Earth.  The scientist who discovered the planet names it Remina, after his sixteen year old daughter, Remina.  After the planet is named Remina, the girl Remina begins to garner a celebrity status.  As the planet Remina gets closer to Earth, terror starts to spread.  People begin to suspect that both Reminas are linked which leads to an unnerving course of events.  Ito's illustrations perfectly captures the fear and angst of the frightened masses.  Most of the characters are male, females are almost entirely absent from the story with the exception of Remina and the mother of another character.  Remina moves at a frenzied pace readers may find a little wonky, but works for the novel's theme and plot.

Remina is a six-chapter manga that illustrates some of the worst aspects of human nature.

Remina
Written by: Junji Ito
Publisher: Shogakukan
English Publisher: VIZ Media
Release Date: December 15, 2020

Unlike the previous Junji Ito release that I read (Venus in the Blind Spot), this volume tells a complete story in its 256 pages rather than presenting a collection of short stories. At the beginning of the story, Professor Oguro has won the Nobel Peace Prize. During an interview, a reporter mentions a planet emerging from a wormhole that the professor had discovered 30 years earlier. The professor has named the planet after his daughter, Remina, because it appeared on her 16th birthday.

Having a planet named after her and having it announced at a major press conference throws the shy Remina into the spotlight overnight. At first, Remina turns down offers to go into show business. However, she finally breaks down and accepts an offer because she feels it’s just not possible to hide from people forever. Right around the same time, though, Professor Oguro and his assistant are noticing that the planet Remina is acting mysteriously.

For a while, though, the manga focuses on Remina’s rise to stardom, which includes getting a fan club and becoming the face for Mineishi Construction. When Remina has dinner Mr. Mineishi and his family, she meets his son, Kunihiro, who is a big fan of Remina. It becomes clear that Kunihiro is interested in Remina.

But as Remina’s popularity soars, it’s discovered that the planet Remina is headed toward the Earth. As word gets out to people through the media, and people begin panicking. The panic only gets worse when it’s discovered that Remina is destroying the planets along its path.

And this is when Junji Ito’s ability to write horror really comes into play. The people decide that since the planet was discovered by Professor Oguro and named after his daughter, that they are somehow calling the planet to the Earth. They decide that the way to save the Earth is to kill both the professor and Remina. The lengths that these scared and panicked people are willing to go to are truly terrifying. And the way that Kunihiro and his family turn on Remina is also disgusting. She was wonderful as long as she was making money for them. But now they’re panicked and wanting to blame someone, and she’s the perfect target. It’s disgusting behavior, but sadly, it’s realistic. But let’s just say that with something that the Mineishi family experiences through their own selfish actions is almost poetic justice. While I wasn’t necessarily rooting for this outcome, it was pretty obvious that this was going to happen to them thanks to their arrogance.

Remina ends up on a wild chase, accompanied by a mysterious homeless man she encounters when she’s trying to hide from an angry mob that’s wanting to kill her. The man’s identity becomes important when they’re trying to figure out how to save those who have supported Remina throughout this whole ordeal.

Remina ends up being a wild ride, and the stakes keep getting higher and higher right until the end. Sadly, though, we don’t know the ultimate outcome for the characters that survive this ordeal, especially since there was a time limit thrown out there. But with the story that Ito is trying to tell, that detail isn’t important. It’s just, as a reader, it’s a loose end that’s left hanging out there.

It’s interesting to note how Ito’s art is very detailed early on in the volume, especially during Remina’s rise in fame. But as the panic and chaos ensures, the art starts having less and less detail to it. I like to think that this was done intentionally, as a way to highlight how bad things get for Remina and the other characters after the chaos ensues. One of the main exceptions to this is when the planet makes it to Earth… the eye on the planet is very detailed, which helps to make it “pop out” from the page.

I was impressed with the storytelling and the art in Remina. While there are horror aspects to this story, it didn’t quite have the same horror feel that many of the stories in Venus in the Blind Spot had. The more I’m starting to read to Ito’s work, the more impressed I’ve become with it. I’m usually not a fan of horror, but Ito has a style to his storytelling that helps to raise his stories above the baseline level of horror.

Junji Ito meets Armageddon. In his latest book, Ito tells the story of an astronomer who discovers a new planet and names it after his daughter, Remina. Everything is fine until the planet begins absorbing the galaxy and threatens to destroy Earth itself. As the planet looms closer, people get more desperate and start resorting to violence, which means Remina is in great danger.

I'm a fan of Ito's work for its surreal horror. He dreams up things I could never even imagine. While this book had some great creepy moments, it was kind of a letdown. As always, the art was excellent and is the highlight. But the story itself is just okay. It feels like similar apocalyptic tales we've heard before. There are moments of great tension, but very little of it felt scary. And it seems you're just waiting for this great crash to happen throughout the entire book. It's something that should've happened in the first act, yet it's stretched out for 200 pages. It keeps building up to this climax that's ultimately underwhelming. Junji Ito has far better books out there. This book is a disservice to his horror reign.

Ito has earned his reputation as a master of horror manga. His artwork alone can disturb and disgust, but the stories he tells linger with readers, the two combining to create a sense of unease and dread in the dark of night, memories of what was just read creeping back in to fill the hours with shuddering discomfort. There’s something about his work that never ceases to thoroughly unnerve me, whether the horror of the story is related to a dread supernatural presence or the darker side of human nature.  Remina ticks all the boxes that I’ve come to expect in one of Ito’s works.

When a new planet is found, the scientist who discovered it decides to name it after his daughter, Remina. Remina is a shy woman, but finds herself thrust into the spotlight after this, becoming the darling of the media and gaining thousands of ardent fans. But the planet keeps moving ever closer to Earth, posing a threat not just with its proximity but also with its very very strange and creepy surface, and Remina the person is the one blamed for the threat, with people adamant that she, or her family, somehow summoned the planet and caused it to approach Earth. Mass panic grows as the danger looms ever nearer, and neither Remina nor her father may come out of the ordeal alive…

While the planet Remina definitely is a sinister force to be reckoned with in Remina, as it does things that planets are definitely not supposed to do, I found the greater horror to be the way people latched onto Remina the woman as a scapegoat, blaming her for all the ills befalling humanity. Now, it seemed that the planet itself was feeding into humanity’s dark side through all of that, almost feeding on the desperate fear and anger that people felt, even tricking them into approaching it with false promises of safety from the chaos happening on Earth, but frankly, no supernatural force needed to be exerted in order to get people to blame something convenient for their ills. Especially something they once loved; Remina went from a much-beloved idol to a hated pariah in short time, fans turning on her as they felt betrayed by what they assumed she did. You don’t need to bring the paranormal into it, to tell that story. We see it around us all the time, especially when crisis looms.

Remina delivers horror on two levels, and that’s not even taking into account Ito’s unique art style, which can be just as disturbing at times as the story itself. He’s particularly good at illustrating body horror and the grotesque, both of which feature here; if body horror is a trigger for you, then be cautious when approaching Ito’s work. Remina had less of that than other works, at least in terms of “the human body doing things human bodies are not meant to do,” but similar to how one of the frightening aspects of the story was the realistic aspect rather than the supernatural, there are depictions of broken and bleeding bodies in here, some of which involve characters being tortured.

If body horror and violence are not trauma triggers for you, however, and you’re in the mood for something visual and disturbing to bring additional shivers to the approaching winter season, then get your hands on a copy of Remina as soon as you can. It’s delightfully disturbing and tremendously troubling, balancing the weirdly supernatural with the weirdly mundane. It’s a story I won’t soon forget.

Weird. Creepy. Great art. Sci-fi. Strange story. Not bad just not my kind of thing. I thought it would be scary as I've heard people call the creator a 'horror master'. Not quite right in my opinion.

Will go live 12/23/2020

The story is about a rogue extra-dimensional planet and the girl the planet is named after by her astronomer father. The overall theme of the book is humanity pushed to the brink and that bringing out the worst in humanity. When the rogue planet defies all the laws of physics to head towards Earth, a pseudo-cult rises to blame Remina and her father for the planet's actions, and demands that they be sacrificed to placate the rogue planet. A massive chase/hunt for Remina begins that spans the majority of the book. Most of the characters are one dimensional representations of architypes, with Remina being the worst as just a victim of the action of all the men in, and intruding on, her life. She is overly flaccid for being really the only female character of any significance in the entire book, which is disappointing to say the least.  However, visually, the book has Ito's signature flare for the bizarre on a grand scale, especially when the rogue planet reaches Earth. His play with the physics of the situation is interesting if not very realistic, though yes, realism, in this case, needs to be somewhat sacrificed for the intersestingness of it all.  Overall, what it lacks in characters, it only somewhat makes up with a thought experiment of a story, and is fully supported by Junji Ito's interestingly-bizarre/bizarrely-interesting art style.

This is Junji Ito’s action movie. This is Armageddon with the blistering ferocity of Mad Max: Fury Road. Remina reveals the fragility of humanity in the midst of planetary peril. Remina, the titular character, becomes the most beloved then reviled being on Earth for an event outside of her and her father’s control – despite what others may believe. The immaculate and macabre art (showing us why Junji Ito remains one of the greats), the various themes, motifs, and symbols that can be extrapolated whether it be from the crucifixion of the aforementioned father and daughter or the planet Remina itself mercilessly consuming all that comes to its path, and the breakneck pace this work relentlessly takes the reader into – there is so much to enjoy and appreciate. While my enjoyment may not be as visceral upon repeat reads, there is no denying the artistry and intensity in Remina. 

Hit it home for the Junji Ito fans of his take on the end of the world. Highlight how widespread panic and paranoia can accelerate the death and destruction of a world. This is an invigorating work of art for Junji Ito fans and the wider horror community

another gorgeously horrific tale from the great Ito. I can't help smiling from cover to cover, knowing that the graphics and text are only going to grow more harrowing with each page. Remina proves once again that you really don't want to be a beautiful girl in Ito's hands.
(posted to Goodreads here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3654746024)

This is the first graphic novel that I've ever read, so perhaps my thoughts should be taken with a grain of salt. I love reading anything about horror, space, and other cultures. I was very impressed with both the illustrations and the originality of the storyline. The only critique I would possibly give is that the dialogue is somewhat elementary; however, I'm not sure who the target audience is meant to be. In my opinion, this would be a good YA read.