A sleepy town on the coast of Japan is under quiet, deadly siege, not by a person or group but by a primeval spiral shape whose victims include both parents of Shuichi Saito. In this second volume of the saga, Shuichi’s girlfriend Kirie becomes further involved in the town’s terrible secret when schoolmates start turning up as horrible human snails and something unspeakable is discovered within the walls of the local hospital.
Junji Itō (Japanese: 伊藤潤二, Ito Junji) is a Japanese cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his horror manga. Ito was born in Gifu Prefecture, Japan in 1963. He was inspired to make art from a young age by his older sister's drawing and Kazuo Umezu's horror comics. Until the early 1990s he worked as a dental technician, while making comics as a side job. By the time he turned into a full time mangaka, Ito was already an acclaimed horror artists. His comics are celebrated for their finely depicted body horrors, while also retaining some elements of psychological horror and erotism. Although he mostly produces short stories, Ito is best known for his longer comic series: Tomie (1987-2000), about a beautiful high school girl who inspires her admirers to commit atrocities; Uzumaki (1998-1999), set in a town cursed with spiral patterns; Gyo (2001-2002), featuring a horde of metal-legged undead fishes. Tomie and Uzumaki in particular have been adapted multiple times in live-action and animation.