I've been missing Junji Ito's work lately, and damn, this did NOT disappoint! Lovesickness is easily one of my favorites of his works that I've read so far.

The primary portion of the manga follows a multi-chapter story of a boy who moves back to his childhood town, only to find his past is haunting him through the spirit of a beautiful boy, targeting young girls at crossroads and leading them to drastic ends. This story was unsettling, disturbing, and altogether really enjoyable, with an ending I didn't quite see coming. In typical Junji Ito fashion, shit gets weird on more than one occasion and there is some violence and gore that might not be for everyone.

The latter portion of the manga follows a separate storyline of a very bizarre set of orphaned siblings who like to play pranks and mentally torture the people in their lives, and while I didn't enjoy this story as much as I did the Lovesickness plot, it was still fun, weird, and highly entertaining.

If you're a Junji Ito fan, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of Lovesickness as soon as you can, because you're not going to want to miss this one! If you're new to the author's works or horror manga, this would be a solid introduction to his bibliography or the genre as a whole.

✨ Content warnings for:

Spoiler

graphic and frequent portrayals of suicide, violence, self-harm, and murder, including infanticide and a woman forcing her own miscarriage through trauma

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!