Very different type of read. Overall Okay. Strange and scary with an ok story line, Not sure it exactly made sense to me but it was a quick read and unique from what I typically read.

Did not finish. I was prepared to really like this book but it was not as compatible with my taste as I had expected.

Sensor, a collection of connected early Junji Ito works, is held together by a thread... though not in the figurative sense. Instead, Sensor is the story of several individuals who come into contact with a strange phenomena of yellow threads, hair if you will, gathering on individuals and terrorizing them. Not unusual for horror master Junji Ito, there is a great deal of body horror, though there is perhaps more in the way of characterization than I've found from some of his other titles.
I can't quite say that I loved it, but I do think it is a good introduction to Ito's work. I can think of several patrons who will find this to be their cup of tea. 3/5 stars.
Thanks to NetGalley and Viz media for this advanced readers copy.

Classic Junji Ito. It was an engaging read and his art is amazing. If anyone is looking for horror I always point them to the master! Thanks for the arc!

I might be bias, but I continue to enjoy every new story Junji Ito gives us. Trying new things isn't bad, but I love that he hasn't ever ventured away from what gives his work his unique horror characteristic--like the build up of shock and turning the page to a full spread of terror. Sensor is another tick in the delight of horror check box from me.

Junji Ito meets Lovecraft in this tale of cosmic horror. For existing fans of the king of horror manga you won’t be disappointed. This new novel is set in a sleepy town covered in strange golden fibers and follows, of course, a mysterious and perhaps malicious woman.

Thank you to NetGalley and Viz for this ARC

As always Junji Ito has delivered another unique masterpiece. The illustrations are as beautiful as they are terrifying. The details intermingled throughout this volume is mind blowing.

The story, is exactly as one would expect it to be, strange, grotesque and utterly unforgettable.

I really like the overall dread the Ito has essentially mastered this far into is career. The atmosphere is consistently unsettling while the art is his trademark style of beautiful images that give later grotesque moment the extra punch it needs. Story wise, I feel that Sensor did lull a bit towards the middle, and I was a little confused on the religious turn towards the end. It wasn't bad, but I started to lose connection towards the end that made the the story fizzle as i went on.

Received a digital ARC of this book via NetGalley.

Requested because the author is known for horror as well as the description this book has been tagged as. I didn’t find this a horror story in any way. More a biblical pushing of good vs evil. I liked the creepy parts of spiders being possibly former deaths. The art work was outstanding compared to the story. Though did find the depictions of running too anime-y. Wasn’t too impressed with this one.

Well, that was odd. Even though I did enjoy it I'm not quite sure what that was. It opens with shades of 'Brigadoon' then goes into cult horror and then into some kind of 'From Beyond' vibes all in a mish-mash of cosmic horror. It does not sour me on reading more of Ito's work though.

I think Junji Ito just isn't for me. I was hoping the cosmic horror aspect would help, but Ito's art, while amazing and detailed, creeps me out in such a visceral way that it makes his books unreadable for me.

I've heard such amazing things about Junji Ito so I decided to have this manga be the very first work I have read from them and sadly.... I didn't love it. It was not as horror centered as I was expecting with everything I've heard about this author.

Ito being Ito. I can't say this is my favorite, but it hits all the beats you'd expect from him. Grotesque, numbing and unforgettable.

I was interested in previewing this title to see if it would be appropriate for my library's ya collection. There is too much horrifying imagery and I do not believe it would be appropriate for ya.

Junji Ito can do no wrong in my eyes! As always he delivers on every front. The illustration was beautiful and terrifying. The story was strange, but I couldn't stop reading.

I haven’t read a Terry Brooks book in a long time.

I had already read Tolkien by the time I got to Shannara and even at a very young age I was able to identify the similarities and not view it favorably. This was odd for me because when you’re young you kind of just like the fact you are watching a movie, reading a book, playing a game, and it takes awhile before you decide oh… this isn’t good.

My opinion on Brooks is not that simple though.

Child of Light Terry Brooks
In later year I started blogging about books to some success and that initial reaction I had about Brooks carried with me and I did what a lot of people do on the internet and that’s find something you don’t like to be a platform for what you do like. I’ve come to find that stance was not fair to Brooks but more importantly it wasn’t fair to my own reading experience.

The Lord of the Rings is going to go down in history, has already done so, as a literary classic. It’s done. It’s locked. Shannara wasn’t and isn’t that.

What Shannara was though is no small thing. Shannara was a giant success and in many ways spearheaded the modern fantasy book market. Brooks kept on writing bestseller after bestseller and while some of us may scoff at that, it has a tremendous effect. It opened doors.

In a previous post about Dune I talked about that I was a kid who had at an early age read a lot of classic novels, which included The Lord of the Rings. After that though Fantasy novels weren’t things I ran into everyday. This was pre-internet, I was a kid under 10 year old, so life, the world, was really about what you literally physically ran into.

My local public library had this series of three chest level shelves lined up in the front of the room as you walked in the entrance. Showcased on the top of them would be new releases, typically reserved for household names. Mainstream novels, rarely genre novels, and if so almost never fantasy or science fiction. One of the exceptions was the books of Terry Brooks. NY Times Bestsellers had that kind of clout I guess. And Brooks books had covers that either repelled you or, if one of the initiated, was EXACTLY the thing you were looking for.

There was a time in my life where every trip to the library was one I hoped led to a run in with a Terry Brooks cover I had never seen. Remember the doors I was talking about Brooks open? I meant it both in terms of what kind of business Brooks books did and the library door. On those occasions I didn’t see a new Heritage of Shannara book, the possibility of that random encounter was what got me through the doors. Disappointment in not seeing it led me to the library shelves where the regular catalog was stores, scanning books, finding authors that would shape my late childhood, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Ursula Le Guin, Stephen King and others.

Today in my hand I have a new Terry Brooks novel. I’m in Hawaii, Terry is one of my neighbors though he doesn’t know it lol. It’s called Child of Light.

I’m 100 pages into it and I have two observations.

The first is that Brooks’ greatest tool is comfort. To this day I can recall how Brooks Shannara novels begin. Its usually is on the move, a walk, whether its Flick or some other Ohmsford or Allannon, Brooks usually has us on the way to something. We begin our journey in brand new setting and, again, with one already in motion. In Child of Light we begin during a prison break from what appears to be gun totting goblins who imprison, eat, enslave, and breed human children, yet we are completely comfortable, we are completely in-step, we are not disorientated in the least, and it’s not something he learned from the repetition of writing stacks and stacks of bestsellers, he has done this since The Sword of Shannara. Literally before I walked the earth.

The term comfort food is almost exclusively derogatory when used about entertainment and art but if your back catalog is comfort food, you retire in Hawaii. It’s also a skill people would kill for. Someone had to make all this crazy, stereotypically cringe worthy fantasy shit, and put it in novels for mass consumption, and Brooks does it from page one. I don’t think there is a single moment in Shannara that feels disorientating or is an overload. Brooks was welcoming. He was unabashedly welcome. And unlike some of those that would follow him in epic fantasy he mostly let his work speak for him. He was the king before we knew there was a throne and though he’d lose that throne to writers who would expand and take epic fantasy to the next level, he was a good king. His reign prepared us for the era to come.

Which brings me around to a point: Terry Brooks was the entry way for many fantasy readers. Tolkien’s LotR, much like Herbert in science fiction, doesn’t really pass for the reads of young children. Certainly it’s done, I did it, but most people aren’t reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid in the same year they are reading The Lord of the Rings. For every kid walking into libraries like mine or into a book store with limited shelf space for fantasy, I can almost guarantee what they did have was paperback Terry Brooks books.

My other thought is more micro. Child of the Light is taking a long time to get to a place a reader like me (or you) already knew where it was going. The novel’s official description could stand in for the first 80 pages, like literally, you could skip the first 80 pages and just read the summary. My fear is that it also covers the final 50 or so pages too.

Still, it’s been awhile, and giving a new Brooks books a chance seems the least I can do for the guy who put new fantasy novels next to names like King, Steele, and Grisham on the featured shelves of my youth. When zeitgeist novels that hit big like Memoirs of a Geisha would come out Brooks would make sure a big fat fantasy with a Keith Parkinson or Darrel K. Sweet cover would be sitting next to it.

The enormity of how cool that was should never be, and never have been, taken for granted.

I think the knock on Brooks, if it is even that, is that he is not a dangerous writer. He may have reopened the door to let some through though. I’m not sure if Tyrion gets to piss of The Wall if Allannon didn’t come for Shea Ohmsford and takes us on journey and remind us of our magical heritage.

I never can't get enough of Junji Ito works. This new book from him is amazing like always. Fun, crazy weird, dark and totally entertaining! The true voices of manga horror!

I received an eARC of this title through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book even though the plot kind of confused me. I was on board for the first half of the book, however, the ending really threw me. I know that is usual Junji Ito style, but this one hit me differently than his other works. I still enjoyed it though. The art is well done, the characters intriguing.

I recommend this to anyone interested in reading more of Junji Ito's work.

This manga is for you if you... LOVE Junji Ito's work, but don't mind a lacking plot. Don't pick this up as your first Junji Ito!!!

This is the first Junji Ito I'm giving less than 5-stars and I am sooo sad about it. The art style is AMAZING, as it always is, but the plot was not good. It was all over the place and barely cohesive. Ideas were pulled from nowhere and then never explained or thoroughly examined. I was left feeling a bit confused and all over the place by the end. In the Afterword, Junji Ito himself even says he felt like this piece is similar to a bus taking off without everyone on board and that he's not super pleased with it. Interesting. Nevertheless, I'll still pick up everything he ever comes out with. Just disappointed int this one.

Thank you to NetGalley and VIZ Media for an advanced readers copy. All thoughts and opinions are, as always, my very own.

ARC From Netgalley.
2.5 Stars.
I'm actually surprised. I normally love Junji Ito's work and rave about it for days. This one came off kind of lukewarm.
A young woman, Kyoko Byakuya, stumbles upon a village at the foot of a volcano. After meeting the villagers and learning of both their communion with an astral goddess, and their almost worship of "golden volcanic hair" that covers the village, she becomes the only survivor of a volcanic eruption. The experience has given her the golden hair that radiates.
Next, we meet Wataru Tsuchiyado, a reporter who comes across Kyoko out in the woods. She is trying to escape from a cult called Indigo Shadow, who seem to be trying to summon the same dark deity from the beginning of the book. This is where things begin to breakdown...
The rest of the book feels very disjointed, almost like his ideas were not complete. If you read the author's note at the end, even he acknowledges that he "couldn't make the characters tell their story". Junji Ito is a master of manga horror storytelling, but this one could be skipped.
Recommend with reservations.