Warning: spoilers for Junji Ito's Frankenstein are ahead.
Famed manga artist and writer Junji Ito is a bonafide horror icon, and his adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein novel cements this truth. Known for works such as Uzumaki, Tomie, and Gyo, Ito's horror is marked by a sense of surreal body horror and psychological madness. Both of these themes fit perfectly with Frankenstein, which tells the story of a young scientist's attempt to create life from death, and the brutal consequences of his actions. Despite being one of the most influential works of all time as the genesis of the science fiction genre, Frankenstein has a notorious lack of faithful adaptations. Spawning several films and forays into other media including comics and manga, Frankenstein nonetheless continues to be an evergreen story that speaks to the anxieties and pains of life and death.
Ito's Frankenstein manga closely follows the plot of Mary Shelley's novel. It begins with the discovery of a shivering Victor Frankenstein in the Arctic Circle, who recounts his early life and education before revealing that he created a creature from the flesh of corpses. Upon seeing his creation come to life, Frankenstein was revolted, rejecting the Creature who in turn discovers that his appearance makes him incapable of joining human society. After Frankenstein fails to deliver the Creature an adequate companion, the Creature kills several of Frankenstein's friends and family, leaving his creator in the same hopeless isolation as him.
The Frankenstein manga is refreshingly faithful to Shelley's text, with the exception of one detail that makes Ito's story even more horrifying than the original. While the novel's Frankenstein eventually destroys the female creature he had begun to construct, Ito's Frankenstein is successful in making one for the monster. As the Creature smiles in anticipation for his new companion, his female counterpart reacts in horror at the sight of him, despite the fact that she herself is also created from corpses. The female monster attacks the Creature with scissors, forcing him to kill her in self defense. Betrayed by Frankenstein's failure to "make a companion with whom [he] could share joy," the Creature vows to destroy everything that his creator loves.
This twist on Frankenstein makes Ito's adaptation especially bleak, and strengthens the novel's themes of isolation. By not only featuring the completion of the female monster, but also making her scream at the sight of the Creature despite her own ugliness, Ito proves that Frankenstein's creation can never truly be free from prejudice. While Frankenstein's hand is capable of reproducing life, it is incapable of recreating innocence. This makes Frankenstein's greatest sin not his rejection of his creation, but his failure to provide him with a means to escape his creator's prejudice.
Ito's Frankenstein adaptation is rife with scenes of body horror, but its most horrifying scene is of the interpersonal kind with the female creature's rejection of her intended companion. It spawns a question of how cultural fears develop, as the female creature is created using the head of Frankenstein's wrongfully-executed family servant, Justine. While literature fans often bemoan the changes to classic stories in new adaptations, Junji Ito's change honors the spirit of Shelley's Frankenstein novel, adding another detail that makes the emotional journey of the story even more devastating.
