Gyo (5 points)


 

Gyo is an interesting take on a monster story because the horror doesn’t exactly come from the monsters themselves but from what powers them. The scariest part of the manga is the Death-Stench that reanimates fish corpses and infects people. It can’t be stopped because, well, it’s a gas. The manga seems to give us an explanation for how it came to be in the form of a World War II experiment, but that’s upended later when we see the gas is alive and the legs have no real way of moving. This gives it a more mysterious element that makes it even more terrifying. We even see the gas take a somewhat physical form that only some can see. It has ghoulish faces and hands, and it’s not entirely clear if it’s just people seeing this in random cloudy shapes or if this is its true form. It’s that ambiguity, combined with the overwhelming force of the legged corpses, that truly make it horrifying. The manga is very reminiscent of zombie apocalypse stories and is content in playing with both types of zombie origins: the supernatural and the scientific. It provides multiple explanations that it’s up to the reader to choose which one they align with, if they align with any at all.

 

However, the possibility provided by the survivors from Kyoto University is the one I lean most towards. They hypothesize that the bacteria that makes the gas synthesized with destroyed battleships in the ocean. As they say, “a machine created by mother nature.” It reminds me of the Godzilla films where he’s presented as a vengeful force of nature, like Gojira, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (which is far darker and serious than its title suggests), and Shin Godzilla. The legs, then, would be a manifestation of Earth’s revenge on humanity for its crimes against nature in World War II. It’s an angry planet taking back its world and making us confront just how many we’ve killed in our pursuit for power and knowledge. Gyo is a warning about scientific advancement without regard for ethics. Like the quote from Jurassic Park, “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

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