Ah yes its that time again. Its time to return to the Junji Well to quench my everlasting thirst for quality horror manga. How many times has it been now? I suppose it matters not. After all every trip to the Junji Well may as well as be the first. https://i.ur.com/0AtyDcu.jpg Black Paradox 440https://i.ur.com/1LU7ysk.png Black Paradox is one of a select handful of horror manga by Junji Itohttps://anilist.co/staff/97410/JunjiIto to be an actual series rather than an anthology of short stories. Worthy to note that some other entries of that handful while I would still call them series they definitely feel like they could just be a bunch of different short stories just with lines connecting the dots. I think the only ones I could compare Black Paradox with are Gyohttps://anilist.co/manga/30909/Gyo and Hellstar Reminahttps://anilist.co/manga/33992/JigokuseiRemina. Unlike both of those though Black Paradox by the end manages to remain chugging along the rails while both Gyo and Hellstar Remina just fly right the fuck off and explode magnificently. 440https://i.ur.com/zIamxBZ.png This is not flying off the rails in the world of Junji Ito. Mind you the typical insanity and strangeness of Junji Ito flows abound from Black Paradox all the same. Its just that it remains a whole lot more stable. Also it helps that it starts relatively simple. Giving it a lot of room to grow in insanity. 440https://i.ur.com/ERsS8Hc.png As while we start with a group that seems relatively normal going off into the woods to perform a group suicide we very quickly veer off into weird territory. One repeatedly sees a doppelganger of himself staring at him from afar ones face is half disfigured from a hideous birthmark one experiences odd premonitions of future events and finally perhaps the weirdest of them all there is a man who is committing suicide because he has an inferiority complex towards a robot. A robot that his company built in his image to match the man exactly but still exceeds him due to being a robot. 440https://i.ur.com/aZsCRe1.png Initially I thought this manga was going to be some form of Groundhogs Day hell where these wacky characters keep on trying to commit this group suicide yet something goes wrong to botch it every single time. Instead on the second try the man who has a robot copy of himself vomits up a strange large round jewel upon taking the pills they intended to kill themselves with. And that of course leads this manga down an odd and twisted path as this suicide group becomes enraptured by the Paradoxical Night. 440https://i.ur.com/k23YnAW.png While there would certainly be a temptation present I would probably be unsure about attempting to market jewels from some other strange world which occasionally have human souls coming out of them. But two of the members get rich off of the stones and the days of them wishing for suicide quickly disappear behind them. 440https://i.ur.com/XRBDGmb.png But a door thrust open is not so easily shut as the spread of Paradoxical Nights lead to effects they could have hardly imagined. And when someone obsessed with peering further into the realm Paradoxical Nights originate things go horribly wrong. 440https://i.ur.com/uMc0nha.png Bonus: The Licking Woman and Mystery Pavilion As with the case with other Junji Ito manga that focus on telling one extended story Black Paradox also includes two additional Junji Ito short stories. 440https://i.ur.com/AFxl7bZ.png The Licking Woman is a full length Junji Ito short story. Its one of his ones that stray more towards disgusting than anything else. Because the idea of a strange woman just randomly pouncing upon you and licking you with absolutely no warning is a pretty weird and strange situation. But also this is what her tongue looks like. 440https://i.ur.com/CC366X1.png Yeah no fucking thank you. Only in the Junjiverse would this happen. Everybody We need team up together to trap and capture the Licking Woman Shes terrorizing the entire city If she licks you youre dead 440https://i.ur.com/fwVDpXa.png Its a pretty good short story but yeah fuck its disgusting. Mystery Pavilion is a four page extra. Since its only four pages Im reluctant to use the term short story but hey its a full colored extra about a... mutant pelican? In Kazuo Umezuhttps://anilist.co/staff/97777/KazuoUmezu fashion in this extra the pelican has gone extinct and using the power of science humanity has brought it back. Yet it seems like whenever that happens in something... 440https://i.ur.com/L6oxPqL.png It goes horribly wrong. Conclusion Black Paradox was real enjoyable. Still possesses a fair amount of Junji Ito craziness but remains relatively grounded. Whereas you know Hellstar Remina was just dialed up to 100 insanity. Which has its own charms for sure but I actually really liked the characters of Black Paradox and how they changed following the discovery of Paradoxical Night. An 8 out of 10. 500https://i.ur.com/6hdKQ7V.png