The highly popular YouTube series “Pey Talks Anime” offers an intriguing video essay on how framing impacts emotional resonance in the Frieren anime adaptation.

Comics can also create tension by influencing the reader’s perspective through judicious framing & juxtaposition. Here, Ito presents restricted close-ups of the Creature’s awakening body, teasing but deferring a full reveal. This involves us in the birth of the Creature–& its horrific affects. 8/9

But comics do have their own version of the jump scare, in the form of page turns: creators will force you to turn the page to witness the monstrous climax of a spooky set-up. Page turns add a visceral quality to static images, physically involving the reader in revealing a shocking tableau. 7/9

Because comics are static and make multiple moments visible at once, horror comics are, in some ways, at a disadvantage in terms of pacing. Compared to horror movies, it’s more difficult to produce “jump scares”–sudden, unexpected cuts & sound cues meant to physically startle the audience. 6/9

Ito also exploits the symbolism of haunting in how he positions Victor in relation to the Creature. The enormous Creature often looms over Victor, a monstrous weight casting dark shadows across Victor’s body & mind, evoking both physical & psychological threats and the impossibility of escape. 5/9

Symbolism contributes to this horrific atmosphere. In this opening sequence, close-ups on the Creature’s monstrously gooey eyes are juxtaposed with views of the lonely Arctic where Victor will die. Connecting these seemingly disparate images involves us in Victor’s journey–and his nightmare. 4/9

This hyper-detailed linework evokes Jack Halberstam’s definition of Gothic horror: “The production of fear in a literary text… emanates from a vertiginous excess of meaning. Gothic, in a way, refers to an ornamental excess… a rhetorical extravagance that produces, quite simply, too much.” 3/9

Ito’s Frankenstein creates a horrific atmosphere through the use of dark shadows and obsessively detailed linework that, in key moments, forces the reader into close, claustrophobic proximity with the detailed architecture of monstrosity, making it hard to look away. 2/9

TBT: In any medium, creating effective horror stories requires more than visualizing scary monsters. It also requires careful attention to atmosphere, symbolism, pacing, and perspective. In his adaptation of #Frankenstein, Junji Ito showcases his mastery of horror within the comics form. 1/9

As this, and many other examples demonstrate, yomi turns battles into cerebral chess matches, rife with tension and dramatic anticipation, thus creating a satisfying experience even when the killing blow is rarely even rendered on panel. 11/11

In this instance, the narrative takes a battle between an elf and necromancer demon with an army of undead into a fatal game of “who knows more than the other” ending with a simple command and off-panel demise. And yet, the scene is tense, dramatic, and memorable to the point of being iconic. 10/11

Consequently, Frieren is always underestimated, giving her enormous advantage in fights, such as her famous battle with the demon Aura who casts a doomed spell making the lesser mage the thrall of the greater, assuming Frieren the lesser. The result: Frieren simply states “Aura, kill yourself.” 9/11

Most importantly, Frieren’s secret weapon is a labor-intensive commitment to suppressing her mana, making her appear far weaker to her opponents than she actually is. She maintains this illusion, without rest, for her entire life, having been taught it by her mentor flamme. 8/11

Frieren’s personal preferences (inherited by her protégé Fern) include spells that other mages view as useless and simple but effective spells that have fallen out of popularity. Both mages eschew flashy magic in favor of a highly practical and deeply unpredictable approach to magic. 7/11

In order to succeed then, a combatant must be highly intelligent and possess forethought but, at the same time, they must be inscrutable and unpredictable, something that Frieren achieves through a combination of studying obscure magics and disguising her own power. 6/11

Frieren takes this in a different direction through its depiction of magic battles, which aren’t one by reflex or training or fortune. They are one by whichever mage better anticipates their opponents next move to the most accurate degree. 5/11

Yomi plays a huge role in manga, even, perhaps improbably, in the battle-heavy shonen titles which famously pause time to have characters reflect on the best strategy for punching their enemy to greatest success. 4/11