The Cutprice Guignol

Last year, I wrote a little about the brilliant Uzumaki by iconic Japanese manga creator Junji Ito – but today, I would like to turn my attention to another one of his creations, and perhaps his most singularly recognizable character to date: Tomie.

Tomie Kawakami is a character whose been with Ito for most of his career – she first made an appearance in a 1987 manga named Tomie, and went on to serve as the antagonist for dozens of stories (and unfortunate victims) in the years to come, mostly recently turning up in 2024 in a one-shot story for Nemuki+ magazine. But, even beyond the pages of the manga, she’s starred in nine movies between 1998 and 2011, and she appeared in a two-part adaptation for an animated anthology of Ito’s work in 2018. She is, by any measure, a horror icon – but the way she differs from other horror villains of similar stature is really interesting, and that’s what I’d like to get into today.

Of course, the most significant thing that seperates her from the likes of Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, et al is that she’s a woman (or at least takes the form of one). There are plenty of iconic female villains in horror – Debbie Jellinsky, you will always have my heart – but only a scant few of them have franchises to their name. Even the ones that do, such as Sadako of Ringu or Kayako of The Grudge, are less personified than their male counterparts, often driven primarily by curses or supernatural forces that decide their function and execution (sometimes literally).

One of the things that makes her so interesting to me is how she overlaps with other iconic villains of modern horror, especially with regards to her appearance. While so many villainous characters rely on masks or other objects (like hair) to cover their face for the most part, Tomie’s face is not just her most recognisable attribute but her biggest weapon. Her often-beatific features aren’t just recognizable, they’re a manifestation of her most prominent power (at least when it comes to other people) – her ability to enchant, seduce, and control.

And, in a lot of ways, she fits with classic depictions of the female villain – which is to say, one that uses her seductive power over men as one of her primary methods of chaos and destruction. Tomie sits comfortably in a long history of mythological characters who take the form of beautiful, alluring young women – from the Christian succubus to the Nordic Blednica to the Greek siren, she’s about as classic a female villain as you can get in those terms. Toxically feminine, she drives men to violent extremes with her beauty, and draws anything between adulation (like in the short Hair) to maternal care (in Orphan Girl) to rampant jealousy from the women who cross her path.

My favourite aspect of her as a character, though, is the levels to which Ito pushes this notion of the toxic feminine – specifically, with Tomie’s ability to reproduce. For my money, the depictions of Tomie’s amoebic reproduction make for some of the most grotesque and disturbing images in the whole series; from half-formed Tomie-s bulging out of severed limbs to versions of the character bursting from the stomach of a woman unfortunate enough to have one of Tomie’s kidneys transplanted into her, she’s constantly re-creating herself in the most hideous way imaginable. It’s a brilliant subversion of the traditional expectations of motherhood so often placed on female characters in fiction – of course she reproduces, like any normal woman should, she just so happens to do it in the most viscerally unpleasant fashion possible.

Tomie is a fantastic villain and I totally understand why she’s been such an important part of Ito’s back catalogue – and such a horror icon in her own right. I would love to hear your takes on the character and how she compares to other iconic horror villains below, so drop into the comments and let’s talk! Uh, provided you don’t have a beauty mark under one eye, of course…

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(header image via UkPosters)