ギョ うごめく不気味 (Gyo: The Death-Stench Creeps)

What a horrible nightmare! Gyo: The Death-Stench Creeps is a manga published in 2001 and written by the brilliant Junji Ito that chronicles the world descending into chaos and destruction by the hands, or rather, fins of... fish on legs. At the surface, it sounds a bit silly, as if it were the plot of a cheesy horror movie like Sharknado. But these 2 volumes are jam-packed with a grossness unlike anything seen before. Spider-like machinery with an unknown origin have attached themselves to 6 billion animals of the sea, infecting them with bacteria that produces enough gas to power the machine's legs and spread their stench for all to smell.

This manga is a unique blend of different types of infection horror. It has everything from the classic pathogenic outbreak that is characteristic of zombie media to crazy science experiments to supernatural elements that make you question whether the bacteria as a whole has a mind of its own or not. Although most of the elements of this story have been done to death, Junji Ito loves to surprise his readers with a twist increasingly more absurd than the last. Now the bacteria-machine complex has begun to attach to sharks. Then whales. Then humans! Now the humans are mindlessly tubing each other into a giant ant pile of gas-producing vessels that would make the scientist behind the human centipede cry with joy. Each time I tell myself, "Well, it can't get any worse than this," Ito continues to prove me wrong.

The story is told through the lens of the average young Japanese couple Tadashi and Kaori. While Tadashi is diving into the ocean, he sees a battleship, which gives us a clue as to the origin of these sea-dwelling monstrosities. Kaori is unfortunately the first human we see fall victim to the bacteria, already having been cursed with a heightened sense of smell. And yet, Tadashi continues to help her and care for her even after she's dead, decaying, and strapped to the machinery. Tadashi is probably the most loyal partner I have ever seen in a story. One can only dream of having a partner like that, hehe.

It is then revealed that Tadashi's uncle's father had been the orchestrator of the machinery, working in conjunction with microbiologists to, in an act of desperation due to the losing Japanese army in WWII, make a product that would overwhelm the enemy with a foul stench akin to that of a rotten corpse. This doesn't paint the full story. Obviously the Japanese army could not have built ~6 billion machines of varying sizes in a war that was extremely time-sensitive. A student at Kyoto University later theorizes that bacteria had also evolved and used the scrap metal left behind by the battleships to make their spider-like complexes.

Although at first I had wished that the complex were entirely organic, I now recognize the unique terror that comes from the parasite-looking apparatus being metal and potentially man-made. It's a nice change of pace from the behavior altering microorganisms that defines zombie horror. This time, there's nothing to kill a second time. There's "no central nervous system" that gets hijacked. It's nothing but air, pistons, and cylinders. Something so simplistic has wreaked havoc on Japan, and eventually the entire planet.

There is a burning question that is always presented when it comes to infection horror media: what are the chances that it becomes real? There are numerous bacteria that do infact produce gases like methane, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen, and are the reason why we fart; think Bacteroides and Methanobrevibacter smithii (though the latter is technically an archaea and not a bacteria). An overabundance of such bacteria can cause bloating, abdominal pain, and indeed increased instances of flatulence (Mutuyemungu et al., 2023). It may be possible to inoculate and isolate a bacteria strong enough to cause some serious damage like we see in the manga. In fact, taking advantage of the gas produced by such bacteria is actively being used to generate electricity and fuel that powers machines, though on a modest level (O'Donnell & O'Donnell, 2016).

Where this potential real-life scenario falls apart is the fact that the larger sea animals and humans somehow know to chase normal, uninfected humans, like how they scamper around Okinawa and Tokyo trying to get a piece of Tadashi. This is obviously Junji Ito trying to incorporate the typical brainwashing that we see with parasites/viruses taking over its host entirely. The issue is that it would legitimately take hundreds, if not thousands of years for those organisms to affect a human to the point where they move to infect others against their will. The closest thing we have to that is a fungus called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis which essentially turns ants into zombies. In humans, it's rabies and the tetrodotoxins Haitian voodoo priests and priestesses use to put people into a zombie-like state (Davis et al., 2012). No need to worry about your girlfriend stabbing you in the gut with an air-controlled stainless steel leg.

If you like infection/body horror or are just looking for a manga that gives you a proper fright, then this will likely be your cup of tea. If you're looking to get into Junji Ito, I recommend the bonus story The Enigma of Amigara Fault as an appetizer, or Uzumaki if you're ready to dive in into the messed up mind of Junji Ito. Just kidding. Ito has such a kind soul! Who could hate this precious guy?

Citations

Mutuyemungu, E., Singh, M., Liu, S., & Rose, D. J. (2023, January). Intestinal gas production by the gut microbiota: A review - sciencedirect. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756464622004376

O’Donnell, B., & O’Donnell, B. (2016, November 7). Milking microbes for energy could help replace fossil fuels. Horizon Magazine. https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/horizon-magazine/milking-microbes-energy-could-help-replace-fossil-fuels

Davis, W., Paoletta, K., Kunzru, H., & MacKinnon, J. B. (2012, November 1). The pharmacology of zombies, by Wade Davis. Harper’s Magazine. https://harpers.org/archive/1984/04/the-pharmacology-of-zombies/