Joe Cecil

Some inconsistencies between the cover of Deserter and the story

(Spoilers for Junji Ito's "Deserter" from the collection Deserter.) On the cover, and unlike in the story: 1. Furukawa's corpse seems to be sitting against a dresser or filing cabinet — but I don't think there would be one in the room where

What's going on with "The Reanimator's Sword"?

(Spoilers for Junji Ito's "The Reanimator's Sword.") "The Reanimator's Sword" begins with our protagonist, Keiji, wandering through the woods with his friend, Murase. Keiji's grandfather is dying and he is supposed to be at the hospital, but instead,

Counting more extreme orders

I've been drawing tarot cards without replacement as part of a project to learn the cards. Lately, I've been getting lots of Swords. I'm curious: Can I quantify how early the Swords are in this shuffling of my deck? Eventually I will have drawn

In a mystery, false leads don't have to be developed or specifically contradicted

I learned from the audiobook of Rosemary and Rue that false leads don't have to be developed or specifically contradicted. They can simply be introduced, optionally with doubt ("I didn't think so and so did it") and the subject revisited rarely if ever. The

Other kinds of -anthropy

You've heard of misanthropy, but what other kinds are there? First I think it helps to specify how I'm thinking of misanthropy, because that defines what other kinds look like. I think of misanthropy as a stance, or as an aspect of sullenness. I could say

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