Soichi: Junji Ito Story Collection

Characters: ★★★★ Atmosphere: ★★★★★ Writing Style: ★★★★ Plot: ★★★ Intrigue: ★★★★★ Relationships: ★★★★ Enjoyment: ★★★★Rating: ★★★★½I kind of hate Soichi, but I also feel a lot of sympathy for Soichi.This collection of short stories features the misadventures everyone's least favourite preteen boy as he navigates social settings. Spoiler: he's creepy and weird and horrible to everyone. He's the little imp popping in from the ceiling to spit nails at you and gloomily say he never wanted to be invited anyway. That's where I feel an ounce of sympathy for our sweet, horrible boy. Although he earns everyone's disgust, it's hard not to see how he's affected by the alienation he's receiving in every social situation. He's a disturbed boy, seemingly cursed from birth to be a 'demon', but is he really THAT evil? Unlike a lot of other Ito series, there's no death in Soichi (from unnatural causes). There are a heck of a lot of hospitalizations, but everyone in the end is no worse for wear. He also doesn't ever really hurt his immediate family, and you kind of get the sense that his immediate family isn't scared of him at all. It makes me wonder just how reliable the narrators are in this story—is everything real or are these just terrified misrepresentations of a mischievous oddball boy who's got a strange fascination with the occult? In conclusion, I guess pretending to be a cat won't get you out of every situation, but you might as well try it anyway.