Leave it to Junji Ito to create the most impossible scenarios and make them as horrifying as they are believable. The man that can create a series about fish climbing out of the ocean with metal legs in “Gyo” can find horror in everything. In the seventh episode of “Japanese Tales of the Macabre” on Netflix, Ito creates a town where the dead bodies don’t need to be burned or cremated; the bodies take care of themselves. Two unwary siblings drive into the town and unknowingly commit a crime, only to find out the strange secret of the town. Ripe with disgusting body horror—an Ito specialty—here’s what happens in the episode.
Spoilers Ahead
The Accidental Crime
Siblings Tsuyoshi and Kaoru are driving down a long, winding path in Tsuyoshi’s new car, and Kaoru is pulling her brother’s leg about him agreeing to come just to meet Kaoru’s friend Izumi. Losing track of where they are, Tsuyoshi is fidgeting with a map when Kaoru screams, and by the time Tsuyoshi stomps on the brakes, the car has hit a girl. The siblings drag the girl into the backseat of the car, and Kaoru notes that her face is swollen. The brother is hurrying to get the victim to a hospital when the sister declares that the girl is dead. They’re driving through a town with the body in the trunk, and Tsuyoshi plans to dump the body somewhere once they arrive in a deserted place, when they come across a tombstone right in the middle of the road. Trying to go around it, they find even more tombstones, completely blocking the path, so he tries a U-turn but ends up hitting the tombstone. People gather around and advise him to get a jack and remove the tombstone from underneath, but Tsuyoshi hesitates. He manages to sneak the jack out from beside the girl’s corpse without anyone noticing, and the people explain that these days, tombstones are being placed for all sorts of deaths, whereas only car accident victims would get tombstones previously.
The Strange Town Of Gravestones
Meanwhile, Kaoru’s friend Izumi walks up to them, takes them to her home, and explains the strange occurrences that happen in the town. She shows a gravestone right inside her room’s closet because that’s where the person who used to live before them breathed his last. Izumi asks if Kaoru is feeling okay, but her brother quickly says that having driven for so long, they’re just tired. Izumi suggests showing them around the town, and Tsuyoshi readily agrees, but Kaoru looks uneasy. While walking, they notice a piece of land seemed to have multiple gravestones, and Izumi says that the people in the town try their best to drag the people on the verge of dying to an empty spot to avoid having them die inside.
Just then, people dressed as ER workers stretcher an old man to the courtyard outside a hospital, and Izumi explains that this way, the gravestones can be erected out in the open instead of in the hospital. While walking, they spot a cat that’s been hit by a car, and Tsuyoshi tries burying it, but Izumi screams. She warns him never to touch a dead body because if it’s touched or disturbed, its soul can never find peace, and it’s better to leave it as is; there’ll be a tombstone there in no time. While staring at rows of tombstones, Kaoru remembers their crime and is distracted, which her friend notices. Kaoru lies that her stomach is upset as her brother scowls at her for adding to their problems. At Izumi’s home, her mother brings in soft drinks for the guests and asks if Ayumi has returned, but Izumi says that she went out for a walk in the mountains and is yet to return. She informs the guests that Ayumi is her little sister.
That night, the concerned parents contacted the police because Ayumi hadn’t returned still. Tsuyoshi pulls Kaoru to the side and asks how Ayumi looks. Based on the description Kaoru provides, it seems that the girl the siblings hit with their car was Ayumi, but Tsuyoshi scolds Kaoru for thinking that. The next morning, a search party is organized to look for Ayumi, and the officer informs the team that the girl had a tiny bell on the bracelet she wore—the same as the girl that Tsuyoshi hit. The siblings also participate in the search when they find out about an old well, which is the one where the corpses of people who couldn’t rest in peace were thrown. The search-party head instructs the siblings to visit the place where the old man died the previous day.
On their way, Tsuyoshi and Kaoru argue about what to do now that they have killed Ayumi, and he says that he doesn’t have a plan. Upon reaching the hospital, they find the old man turning into stone—his body is metamorphosing into a tombstone on its own, and one of the people there forbids Tsuyoshi from touching the body until it has transformed completely. Witnessing a human turning into stone is too much to digest for either of the siblings, and they can’t believe this is happening. Suddenly, they come upon Izumi peering inside their car’s backseat, and upon noticing them, she says that some skid marks were found on the road, along with the car’s paint and blood. As she leaves suddenly, Kaoru gasps that her friend might have been looking at the bloodstains on the backseat and tearfully suggests turning themselves in.
Hiding The Evidence
At night, Izumi says that if her sister’s body has been moved, Ayumi won’t turn into a stone pillar properly. She also narrates the incident of seeing a body that had to be thrown inside the old well because it didn’t turn into stone. She requests the siblings to tell her if they spot anything on the road that could help her family, and Kaoru almost reveals the secret when Tsuyoshi says that they shouldn’t bother Izumi’s family at such times and that they’re leaving that very night. Tsuyoshi drives to the old well, all the while arguing with his sister, who keeps saying that turning themselves in is the best option. Instead, he plans to remove all proof of their crime and opens the trunk of the car to throw the body inside the well, only to find a foul stench and the grotesquely distorted body of Ayumi as jagged rocks protrude from the corpse. He commands his sister to help him carry the body to the well, and she has to tearfully accept. They heave the part-rock, part-disfigured body to the edge of the well, and while throwing it inside, Ayumi’s bracelet falls off.
While catching his breath, Tsuyoshi notices a cut on his palm from the sharp edges of the rock when he hears grinding and scraping noises. Out of the well, a snake-like monster climbs out with several bodies stuck on it and Ayumi’s head on top. The monster cries out for its sister and points at Tsuyoshi, repeating his name as the man who murdered her and hid her body. Kaoru shakes Tsuyoshi awake, and the two drive away.
The Punishment
Izumi finds the bracelet at the foot of the well, while back in the city, Kaoru sobs softly as Tsuyoshi whimpers in pain. Jagged rocks are growing out of the part of his hand that was scraped by Ayumi’s body. Izumi informs her parents of what became of their daughter as Tsuyoshi turns into a hideous monster similar to what Ayumi turned into, and Kaoru apologizes profusely. A gravestone has appeared at the spot where the cat had been hit by a car, and three gravestones stand side by side at Izumi’s house, next to bottles of empty pills and their last will. Grinding noises can be heard coming from the well.
‘Junji Ito Maniac’ Episode 7: Ending Explained
The episode titled “Tomb Town” serves as a reminder that punishment shall befall those who commit heinous crimes. In the episode, siblings Tsuyoshi and Kaoru accidentally hit a 15-year-old girl and, unaware of the strange laws of the town, hide the body in their car and drive into the town. This is a weird town where dead bodies turn into gravestones all by themselves, and the primary rule is never to touch a body before it has completely turned into a pillar. Kaoru begs her brother to turn themselves in as she can’t suppress the guilt anymore, but Tsuyoshi tries hiding the crime and plans to dump the body in an ancient well. While a body that hasn’t been moved from the place it died smoothly turns into a stone pillar, a body that hasn’t been at rest after its death turns into a grotesque freak. The vision that Tsuyoshi has of Ayumi’s body climbing up and calling him out as the murderer was a nightmare he had when he passed out after exhaustion, but the fate that awaited him was far worse. Tsuyoshi transformed into the stone freak while alive, so he could feel his body turn into such a monstrosity, and be reminded of the crime he committed.
