English Dub Review: Junji Ito Collection “Window Next Door / Gentle Goodbye”

Passing on.

Overview:

A neighbor keeps harassing a young man to be let into his house, every night. Elsewhere, a young woman marries into a family where the dead don’t really stay dead.

Our Take:

Window Next Door features a neighbor that is insistent in terrifying the new resident. Every night she calls out to him, asking to be let in, but naturally, he refuses. She is persistent and keeps claiming that she’s getting closer. However, she’s situated far enough away that she’d have to climb across space between their houses to get to him. Her fixation in her new neighbor is one thing, but it actually warps her house, so that her window can come closer without her leaving. We’re not sure what happens next but sure enough, her window is right up against his in the end…

The second one is a much more subtle horror. Riko is always terrified of her father passing, and she enters a family where the power of belief creates an afterimage of the person that recently passed. In doing so, it allows the family to accept sudden, heartbreaking deaths and gives them the chance to come to terms with that void in their life. Riko is at first put off by it, especially when she realizes that a fair chunk of the family that she’s become part of are actually afterimages. Becoming attached to a person that’s already dead is an uncomfortable paradox, but Riko tries to press on. In the end, it’s realized that Riko herself is an afterimage, created by her grieving fiancee after she was struck and killed in a hit and run.

A very existential horror. Riko doesn’t realize that she’s already passed on since afterimages maintain their senses of self even after death. She’s tethered to the world, and in adamantly believing that she’s part of it, she’s trapped. Her in-laws are cold to her, not because they don’t believe she’s worthy to be part of the family, but because she will eventually vanish in a few years. Her fiancee eventually starts seeing another woman, not because he doesn’t care for her, but because it’s part of him moving on with his life. That she is both alive and not alive, yet clearly slated to die, is a kind of horrific state to be in. At the same time, it allows her to be at peace. She’s so terrified of her father died before her, but since she’s already dead, that can’t happen. Instead of allowing herself to simply fade away, she leaves the house and resolves to spend her remaining days with her father. While her existence as an afterimage may be a transient one, she did finally find peace.

The animation quality is still low (as per Studio Deen), but the second segment is quite compelling. It’s honestly rare to see such subtle horror, and to see it work, so that raises this rating up a bit. There should be more, haunting, quiet horror out there, and this one really works!