Scary Book: Faces

Kazuo Umezu

Umezu returns with the Faces, the third offering in the Scary Book franchise. To be honest, it's not one of the series' stronger efforts. The main reason for this is "Fear," the first story, which is rather trite, and doesn't cover any ground Umezu didn't tread in the first two books. In "Fear," high school student Aiko has always been in the shadow of her beautiful, smart older sister Momoko (shades of the Orochi series here, also drawn by Umezu). After Momoko suffers a disfiguring accident, however, she uses Aiko to lure pretty girls to the house so Momoko can kill them and attempt to transplant their faces onto her own body. This one had real potential-- there's a subplot about Momoko's fiance and some real depth that could have been plumbed about the dynamics of relationships between sisters-- but Umezu ignores any real emotional depth he could have plumbed and goes for shock value (though it's hard to imagine getting much shock value out of Umezu's stuff, which relies far more heavily on atmosphere than blood and guts, in the days of Hideshi Hino and Rei Mikamoto).

The second, much longer story, is "The Coincidental Letter," and Umezu gets back on form here. Yoko, seeking to take out her frustrations, writes a letter, then makes up a name and address for it and posts it. (The first part of this is, of course, a well-recognized psychological technique for handling frustration. The second part... not so much.) Coincidentally, the name and address Yoko made up turn out to be those of a real person, who begins to suffer the torments Yoko outlined for her. Yoko, suffering unbearable guilt, has to find a way to remove the curse that she unknowingly put on the woman. This is Umezu the way he should be, giving us takes on tales that are at least somewhat fresh and with a bit of insight. Still, the inclusion of "Fear" weakens the volume overall.