 Hey everybody, welcome back to another installment of A Week in Geekdom here on YouTube. My name's Giovanna Medundas and today we're going to be talking about Junji Ito's Frankenstein Ito Collection Hardcover Thingamajig. I finally read it, well actually truth be told, I read it a long time ago and completely forgot to make a review on it. So here I am now, I remember in the previous video when I talked about Junji Ito's smashed, I remembered in real time, oh I forgot to make a video about Frankenstein, so here we are. So what is this book about? Of course it is adapting the Mary Shelley classic Frankenstein novel from the 1800s, I think if memory serves me right. Look, my history with Frankenstein is a little bit different than most people. I read portions of it growing up in high school for different classes and stuff I guess, I barely remember the story. I know what happens, I know about Frankenstein's monster and all that stuff. So yeah, this book basically takes that source material and does a kind of a straightforward adaptation. It's a little bit loose here and there, but for the most part I gotta say it's pretty faithful to what Mary did way back so many centuries ago. Ito of course is known for taking the mundane and infusing it with satire, some sort of bizarre humor and of course his trademark body horror and just how wonderful everything looks under his scope and how terrifying it can be. So with Frankenstein you get at least 150 some pages of adapting the classic novel and you get some space for some extra short stories that he made. Now with those short stories, their mostly hitter master was one that I really liked with the house, geez I can't remember right now the name of the character, but the character appears in multiple stories which of course fuels my theory that it's all just one huge connected universe of miserable characters and he has this house where he's seeing ghostly apparitions in the walls and like encrusted in the actual haunted mansion and his parents are away but then you find out there's like an alternate portal or sorry a portal to like an alternate dimension. Stuff like that, creepy stuff like that you come to expect from Junji Ito. Now there are some other stories where you know it's creepy it's kind of cool but it's kind of you know it kind of falls flat. The main drive of this book undoubtedly has to be the Frankenstein portion which you know takes a huge chunk out of this book like I said 150 some pages and this is what you're coming in here for. It is a good adaptation but of course Ito infuses it with this wonderful beautiful lovecraftian splendor that he's known for and everything just looks surreal it looks great the Frankenstein monster looks terrifying looks disgusting and just a beautiful tone of dread I mean plus that scene where the bride of Frankenstein is involved and her creation on all that stuff like gonna show you here real time look at all of this awesomeness and it is just really really eerie spectacular to read for the most part I cannot and I'm sorry because I haven't read the original 100% through I can't tell you how exactly faithful it is but from looking online and reading a quick synopsis on the book I can't I am confident that Ito paid his respects to the original source material and did a wonderful job adapting to it I didn't I had forgotten the whole scene with them in the north pole I think or Antarctica one of the poles and that whole scene really captivated me because I had forgotten about it so when I was reading it I'm like is this really what happened and yeah it did so in short if you are a fan of Frankenstein and you want to read a new some would say grotesque version of the story then yeah I mean you gotta you gotta check that out seriously there are elements from the original material here which or excuse me I should say you know they pay homage to the original source material and to the movies as well I took a note I took notice of that because there are a couple references to the long history of Frankenstein's monster and the way people have treated him you know this reading this book reminds me of just spending an afternoon where the weather is gray grizzled and it's a chill that's coming down and you feel it in your very soul it's that type of weather I felt that when I was reading this book plus it didn't help that I was reading it like a close to midnight or something like that because you know it's a horror book you have to read it at the worst possible time so yeah Junji Ito I love his work I'm a huge fan and and you know it's stuff like this where it's really gross and really awesome and really spectacular the drawings as usual are fantastic they're wonderful I love the story of how you have a character of Frankenstein Dr. Frankenstein and his pursuit for knowledge scientific questioning and wanting to have all the answers and life being the crazy bitch that it can be answering back in the form of this tragedy of the Frankenstein monster and the stuff that the doctor goes through with his family I won't spoil anything but it's quite an ordeal that this man is going through and I think Ito played all the right cards in adapting this story and it was really wonderful to see like I mentioned earlier the drawings everything is exceptional the writing is actually pretty cool because he doesn't go for the old English jargon from way back instead you get a more contemporary streamlined translation into English again I don't know if I'm spoiling anything I'm sorry I try not to spoil things on this channel but again for the most part it is a wonderful adaptation the short stories on the other hand leave much to be desired I think they could have been a little bit better there are a couple of stories in here like next specter which I thought was pretty interesting although extremely weird which is you know who are we kidding that's the norm with this author and you also had the adventures of non-non the adorable Maltese dog from the Ito family and and blessed that little doggy and she was awesome but then you had stories like this bog of living spirits which I got to be honest with you kind of they're okay strange tale of Oshikiri the walls looking pretty fantastic in my opinion and of course there was that other one of the short stories that I really loved was the one with the little girl that was being dollified if I said that correctly she was being turned into a doll and it is expertly done in my opinion it gave me the creeps from day one and I still remember it fondly because it was creepy as shit and I'm sorry for the cursing but that's the fact so yeah overall you're coming in here whoop you can't see it you're coming in here for this story Frankenstein the short stories whatever but yeah in my Ito ranking I placed this atop let's see I still have Uzumaki as my favorite read I got to put to me a close second because at least 80% of that book I'd loved then I'm gonna I'm going to place Frankenstein as my third read is it's really good fragments of horror comes next then the shiver smashed Gio haven't read dissolving classroom that's the only thing I don't own yet in collected edition and last but not least is cat diary that's my current ranking for the Ito verse ladies and gentlemen so what did you guys think of Jinji Ito's Frankenstein let me know in the comment section down below and if not like I always say recommend me some good horror manga I'm very interested in checking those out so yeah guys thank you so much for tuning in as always thank you for liking commenting subscribing and just being a part of the a week in geeked in family here on YouTube of course following me on social media whether it be Instagram or Facebook and Twitter and all that stuff thank you so very much you are the absolute best blessings to every single one of you I've got to go I will catch all of you on our next video