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:
- 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 he died.
- There's no sign of the noose Furukawa used.
- Furukawa is wearing a shawl, but isn't in the story. It looks similar to the one Kikuyo wears in the story.
- Oshima is wearing a shawl, but it's a different pattern from the one he wears in the story. It looks like the one Shigeko wears in the story.
- Neither Shigeko nor Kikuyo is wearing a shawl, but at the point where Oshima was wearing a shawl, both of them were, too.
I wonder if the cover design was created earlier than the story or if it was drawn separately from the story based on an earlier concept for it. It must not have been based on the final pages, otherwise I'd expect the designs to match.
This inconsistency doesn't matter, but I thought it was interesting. The style otherwise matches pretty well, with the major difference being that the cover is colored and the story isn't.