Gyo

• Main
• Characters
• YMMV
• Headscratchers
• Crowners
  • Awesome
  • Funny
  • Tear Jerker
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

Gyo is a Seinen horror manga by Junji Ito, also known for creating Uzumaki and The Enigma of Amigara Fault (which, incidentally, is an extra story in the back of the second volume).

During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army commissioned a secret experiment to create biological weapons. The end result - a deadly bacteria that infected corpses and released nauseous gases, and a walking mechanism fueled by these gases, for the purpose of spreading infection. This plan was averted when the ship carrying the bio-weapon was sunk by American bombers during the war - but the bio-weapon remains active, infecting the sea life and spreading back into Japan in the form of undead walking fish... Then the scientists look at it, and it's pretty clear that no human hands could have designed the walking mechanisms, though it's never made quite clear what's behind it. Oh, the ghosts of all who died in wars undersea, you say? Wait. What?

It gets worse.

The manga was turned into a movie by ufotable. The movie takes plenty of artistic liberties with Kaori becoming the protagonist as well as there being new side characters in the form of Kaori's two unlikable friends. The plot itself is radically changed. Basically only the events in the background and several of the set piece scenes remain reasonably intact. The movie admits how far-fetched the events are and outright says that people need to find their own meaning.

---

Tropes used in Gyo include:

• Alien Sky: A grey, swirling sky is shown off throughout the OVA. It's actually pretty by the end.
• And I Must Scream
• Bland-Name Product: In the OVA, Tsuyoshi uses a BloodBerry.
• Bloodier and Gorier: The manga had very little blood; the OVA looks like it's going to have gallons.
• Blood-Splattered Innocents: At one point in the OVA, Kaori slips and falls in a large puddle of blood.
• Body Horror: A particularly gruesome moment when they tried to remove the tubes out of Kaori's mouth. Her mouth was grotesquely disfigured and judging by the detailed drawing one can plainly see that if you try to yank the tubes away her mouth would stick to it and got peeled off. Surrounding the inner lips were a kind of wires that were sewn in. It was sad.
• Brick Joke: The first walking fish is smashed and bagged, but its bacteria keeps producing enough gases to make it float to the mainland.
• Cassandra Truth: The fact that Kaori even goes into full-blown fits over a smell only she can smell didn't help.
• Circus of Fear
• Creepy Uncle: Tadashi's uncle, also a Mad Scientist.
• Depopulation Bomb
• Downer Ending: Apart from the hero meeting up with La Résistance, it's a total downer.
  • The OVA tries to make the ending even worse by showing scenes of the infection in different countries, a clear sign that unless an immunity is developed, most of humanity is pretty much screwed.
• Editorial Synaesthesia: Stink lines.
• Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: The walking fish are initially a minor annoyance at the most - cue the literal land shark. When the stakes are raised with a freaking whale walking out of the ocean, it collapses under its own weight.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: Tadashi is the only named character we know for sure survives.
  • Kaori is this in the OVA
• Evil Hand: One of the legged machines is removed from the fish it was fused to, after which it latches onto a scientist's arm. Though he promptly amputates it it starts crawling around for a while.
• Evil Smells Bad: Basically what the story is about.
• Evil Uncle: More like callous and really crazy uncle.
• Fate Worse Than Death: Ignoring the physical Body Horror for a bit, the bacteria slowly paralyses the victims' muscular and nervous systems, keeping them vegetative but very much alive. Kaori is even conscious enough to reactivate her walker and try to Murder the Hypotenuse.
• Final Girl:In the anime, where Kaori is the only named survivor.
• Fog of Doom
• For Science!
• Hot Scientist: Ms. Yoshiyama
• It Got Worse: See the cover of the first volume up there? With the zombie fish? Here's the cover of the second volume!
• Karmic Death: The soldier who shoots at the legged machines driven by human bodies, and then gets impaled by one.
• Madness Mantra: Aki chants "Die, die, die, die" under her breath as she simmers over Kaori leaving and Erika engaging in a threesome.
• Mad Scientist
• Monumental Damage: The world's doom in the manga is sealed with a montage of swarms at the Eiffel Tower, Taj Mahal, Empire State Building, and Kremlin.
• Ms. Fanservice: Kaori and Erika get scenes that would make the viewer rock hard in the anime. The latter actually seems to try to invoke this trope.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Zombie fish. With robot legs. Actually, just robot legs. Made by sentient bacteria. Apparently under the command of ghosts.
• Raising the Steaks
• Scenery Gorn
• Screaming Woman: Kaori. In nearly every scene. In the anime, however, she is noticeably much calmer.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Kaori in the anime.
• Spider Tank: All the walking fish are really fused with these. They steadily get bigger to carry bigger bodies...
• Take Our Word for It: It's a good thing that there's no media that could express the monsters' smell to us. Though they keep saying that it smells like death, which anyone who's ever had to deal with gangrene knows all too well. (Or if you work in a morgue).
• A Threesome Is Manly: Erika and her two strangers.
• Time Skip: Invoked when the hero tries to seek help but falls into a canal and goes into a coma for a month.
• Unreliable Narrator: Erika and her gentleman friends are less than truthful in their television interviews.

---

GASHUNK