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Alley is a collection of short manga from Junji Ito. It’s not his best, but there are a few memorable stories in here. My teenager agrees

Junji Ito is as prolific as he is inconsistent. He’s the Manga Stephen King. Alley is his latest collection of short manga, and as with others like Soichi and Frankenstein, it has a few standouts, a few duds, and a few that are fine. 

If you’re an Ito fan (or, ahem, the father of an Ito completist who keeps handing you the books), you know what you’re in for: creative, often bonkers ideas, wild art, and usually an unsatisfying ending. My enjoyment of these stories is contingent on either a fun, imaginative setup, or atmospheric and creepy art. 

(Again, like King: I’ll recommend Under the Done and The Outsider, even though the endings aren’t good at all. He’s so good at the rest)

There were four stories that stood out for me here, and my teenager agrees with me about these: 

“Descent”, where the plot includes some people falling out of the clear blue sky to their death. The art and atmosphere here are excellent and sinister;

“The Inn”, about a family that falls apart when the father decides to turn their home into an inn, complete with self-dug hot springs. The story has some fun surprises, and the art toward the end is increasingly weird;

“Town of No Roads”, where a protagonist is being spied on in her home, which sends her on a quest that makes things even weirder. It’s more ambitious storytelling than usual, and the second half was very strong; and

“Ice Cream Bus”, which was part of the not-very-good Netflix series, about a creepy ice cream truck. This is Ito at his icky, nasty best.

Altogether, it makes for middle-of-the-road Ito. Good for completists but not a great starting point. Thats Uzumaki, no question. 

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