I read these over a couple of months, so I don't feel like getting into every story. But I can say that nothing stood out as bad; the bonus story is kind of nothing more than a cameo of a character from the "Fashion Model" story in this same collection. Here are some that left an impression:

"Used Record": Interesting idea about obsession with a mysterious record of morbid origins. I found the story progression to be less interesting than the concept, though.

"Shiver": A creepy neighbor girl has a strange disease. I don't want to say more than that, but this one was pretty good.

"Hanging Blimp": Weird, interesting, even kind of funny. Following apparent suicides, large blimps of the dead's heads float throughout Japan.

"Marionette Mansion": This is about a family that does marionette shows. The two brothers grow up and reconnect later on. I don't want to say more, but this is one that held my interest yet in the end there didn't seem to be much under the surface.

"The Long Dream": This one is about a psychiatric patient who complains of increasingly long dreams. His doctor finds this funny at first, until he starts to see signs that the patient is experiencing years all within a night's sleep.

"Greased": Literally a horror story about oily skin. It's often said that Stephen King could make anything a horror story, but Ito went next level. ( )

This was a nice quick story collection.

I must confess . . . I skipped the Tomie one due to it being in the Tomie Omnibus. I have my favourite and least favourite short stories - the one with the oil was . . . Uhm disgusting, and that is on the bottom of the list.

The marionette short story was brilliant and my favourite one of the whole lot. Still a nice read for any Junji Ito fan out there. ( )

A selection of some of Junji Ito's best short stories! Need I say more?

Ok fine, they're all great! True to Ito's style they're full of deranged and through-provoking concepts mixed with evocative and terrifying imagery. Sure the characters are somewhat underdeveloped and thin, but that's easy enough to overlook in favor of all the nightmare-inducing imagery.

It's hard to pick favorites in a collection this good, but here are a few that are really burned into my brain:

"Hanging Blimp" - a rash of suicides that quickly escalates into a full-blown apocalypse of giant floating heads with nooses; as wild in concept as it is hard to explain.

"Marionette Mansion" - a family who have built a house allowing them to be fully controlled like marionette dolls by strings and people in the ceiling; also a creepy demon puppet that causes excruciating havoc in the end.

"The Long Dream" - a frightened hospital patient whose dreams continue to increase in length (though his sleep time remains the same) and whose body begins to transform because of it; a really interesting concept with some shocking images.

There's also one story, called "Greased," that I won't ever read again just because it was so effectively gross. And not like in a gory way or anything, I just can't handle greasy pimple stuff (you weirdo pimple-popping video watchers will love it :P). ( )

I am OBSESSED with Fuchi. Like, where did she come from? Where did she go? Where did she come from, Junji Ito? ( )

This is a collection of the best Junji Ito's stories as selected by the author and it shows. All of the stories are good (even though I have my favourites) and the art is phenomenal and scary. I am really glad I decided to buy this one because I do prefer Ito's short stories to the longer works from all that I have read from him so far.

My favourite stories were Marionette Mansion, The Long Dream and Shiver, but others deserve to be mentioned too because Greased was disgusting and Honored Ancestors and Hanging Blimp were terrifying.

The extra story was the shortest and also the weakest and it had no commentary like the previous works, but it was still alright.

There isn't a bad story in this manga if this is the kind of horror you are into. I really enjoyed it. ( )