Gyo (3pts): Taking Marine-Themed Horror to the Next Level

     I love the ocean. I love it so much that before I wanted to become an artist, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I wanted to explore the deep sea and discover all the weird and disgusting creatures that lived down there. I even got my scuba diving license at 11 years old- that's how committed I was. Of course, that plan didn't pan out the way I had anticipated when I was younger, but reading Gyo brought me back to that time where I was a wide-eyed girl with a serious passion for the sea.

    For many people, this work would absolutely deter them from ever taking another trip to the beach, in fear of some fish scuttling up to them on spindly limbs. But we know that won't happen, since the legs that the fish were using were machines that were made during WWII. Obviously, the Japanese made no such invention during the war in our world. But I think what makes this manga extra scary is how it plays into our innate fear of the unknown.

    According to the NOAA, we have explored only 5% of our world's oceans, despite them taking up more than 70% of the Earth's surface. What's crazier is that we've explored more of space than we have our own waters. That is so much unexplored territory- and it could hold anything! It's no wonder why people fear the ocean so often. Its waters go so deep, into a murky black abyss where sunlight cannot reach. We could be missing out on all sorts of mysterious creatures, maybe even some with the attributes that define Ito's fish in Gyo. And I hate to break it to everyone, but there already are.

    Say hello to the tripod fish, a fish that can walk on its three legs to capture prey on the sea floor. They live in the deep sea, which means you probably won't be spotting this guy on your summer beach trips. But I have a feeling that this served as some inspiration for Ito's own creations.

    All in all, I think Ito did a great job playing into people's fears of the ocean with his horrifying fish with legs. But with so much hiding within the shadows of the abyss, and with how many new species of fish people are discovering every day, who knows? Maybe one day in the future we'll find out that fish have evolved to walk among us, and are just waiting for the day that they can storm our terrain with nothing to stand in their way...


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