Tomato in the Mirror: Invoked, as Ryusuke starts to doubt his sanity and wonder if he and the boy at the crossroads are one and the same, especially after others reach that conclusion, but the evidence he sees have been planted by his friend trying to get Ryusuke to kill himself and join Suzue so her ghost will leave him alone. In ‘The Beautiful Boy at the Crossroads’, teen Ryusuke and his family move back to their hometown of Nazumi, where the ‘crossroads fortune’ is a popular pastime: a person stands at a crossroads and asks the first stranger that passes to tell their fortune (usually, what they actually want is an answer to a question about their love life). The best horror bypasses your critical and/or intellectual faculties, pushing psychological buttons, some you may not even know you have. The latter portion of the manga follows a separate storyline of a very bizarre set of orphaned siblings who like to play pranks and mentally torture the people in their lives, and while I didn't enjoy this story as much as I did the Lovesickness plot, it was still fun, weird, and highly entertaining. Miki had been struggling with one sided love, while Mitsuru had been depressed for being alone, but after hearing what the white clothed pretty boy had to say, they became happy.

Except a beautiful - but cursed - boy walks the streets and soon the town is dealing with a spate of teen suicides brought about by… Lovesickness! When a mass suicide occurs, the fog turns red from the blood, and when Ryusuke becomes the boy in white, the fog becomes softer and more ethereal.This collection really only has four stories in it since two of the stories are extended ones that I assume were originally published in different volumes over many years. The outsider, who is clearly tired of life and looking to commit suicide, decides to participate in the fortune telling game and asks a boy dressed in all white what's the best way to be happy and also how to commit suicide. The Strange Hikizuri Siblings’ was incredibly creepy solely due to the character designs, and ‘The Mansion of Phantom Pain’ had an awesome concept where characters where less important. For the pointless, stupid, pathetic final story I cut down one star, otherwise this was a great read.

Ryuusuke rationalizes that the woman he met back then had a mental breakdown and resorted to intersection fortune telling as a way to solve her problem. It feels like a diet version of Uzumaki with less interesting set pieces, less scary horror elements and a far less satisfying conclusion. Like Ito's Frankenstein, the lion's share of this volume is given over to one multi-part story, in this case the eponymous "Lovesickness," which I originally read under its alternate title "Lovesick Dead. Midori, who has been tagging along, brings some flowers with her to lay at the intersection where her aunt died. Everyone is bombarded with these questions and they try to answer thoughtfully, but this guy creates mayhem with his answers.One day, Ryuusuke, growing increasingly worried about Midori's deteriorating mental and physical health, tells Midori that he will turn himself in to the police to save her. Exact Words: Midori is compelled by the beautiful boy's advice to hate Ryusuke for the rest of her life.

The outsider finishes his questions and notes that all though it's still foggy the town has gotten a lot more quiet. Sometime later, Ryuusuke and Midori are walking home from school when they find a heavily tattooed woman standing at an intersection. Bittersweet Ending: While at the end, the boy at the crossroads and ghosts seem to be gone, many lives have been ruined by intersection fortune-telling and the protagonist must bear the burden of restoring and aiding the town as it continues its practice. Ryuusuke, feeling responsible for this death, too, decides to start helping people playing the game.Reishi, confused, says that she thought he was ending his relationship with Midori, but he tells her that he still won't go out with her. What starts as an innocent game of fortune telling by the crossroads takes a turn for the horrific when an evil entity disguised as a bewitchingly handsome boy begins telling cursed fortunes that lead people to unfortunate dooms. By the end we have an idea of why the beautiful boy of the crossroads may be haunting this town, but nothing concrete enough to dispel his mystique.

He is seemingly killed by the ghosts of the girls who played the game and the Intersection Bishounen, but in the end, he becomes the White-Clothed Pretty Boy, who spreads happiness to girls playing the game.The other short stories included are more disturbing than creepy but round out a very good horror collection.