Have you ever heard of Nakayoshi, that one shoujo (manga for girls) magazine? Well, it ran popular series such as Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura. Anyway, back in 2010, my Japanese pen pal once sent me a particular volume. She said it contained a very bizarre one-shot manga, the title translating to "The Crying Doll," created by an unnamed manga artist. She told me she had never seen anything like it before, so I was eager to see it myself. I'm assuming this particular volume was from the 90s, considering it also had Sailor Moon in it, but it looked dusty and abandoned as if it were left to rot in a dark room full of cobwebs. Just holding it gave me the chills. My friend told me it was found at some dingy thrift store. This particular manga had an art style I believed was more fitting of shoujo from the 70s, but the characters had white eyes with a black shine to them. It wasn't creepy or anything, I had just thought the artist made an odd choice. Since I was studying Japanese, I could understand a little of what was happening.
The story opens in a rural (European?) countryside, possibly set in the 1800s. A young girl named Lilica is out in a meadow, chasing fireflies with her friend, Emily, under the twilight sky, but her friend stops and says that she's losing interest in "childish things." When their parents call them home, Lilica finds an old abandoned doll sitting under a tree with teardrops painted on her face. She was covered in dirt and cobwebs and did look sad, despite being a doll. After Emily calls her a baby for wanting to bring the doll home, they get in a big fight. In the heat of the moment, Lilica says that she wishes her friend would just "drop dead," before running home. The next thing I see is Lilica going to bed with the doll lying next to her. As she goes to sleep, she has a dream where she meets a young girl who looks just like a doll. I'll call her Dolly for now. Although she was smiling, her eyes were flowing with tears. She tells Lilica that she was abandoned by a friend after the friend chose to "grow up." Lilica then wonders if growing up would be a bad thing.
When she was shown a flashback of her birthday party surrounded by friends and family. Dolly tells her that it will all one day disappear as everyone will move on to their paths in life. Lilica promises to never leave Dolly behind. Then I see Dolly's hair grow and wrap around Lilica, almost strangling her, promising they'll remain children and be together forever. Lilica is visibly frightened.
When she wakes up in the morning, she realizes the doll is gone. Later, she's informed, much to her horror, that Emily suddenly died the night before. During Emily's funeral, Lilica's parents try to comfort her, but she lashes out that them, wishing for them to disappear. She then runs home in tears. This is when things take an even darker turn. The tears keep flowing against her will as she slowly transforms into Dolly from her dreams. She begins to scream in horror when she looks in the mirror and faints. Lilica has another dream where she sees many clones of Dolly staring through her window, swarming around almost as if they were mermaids. They have a cold stare with stern, emotionless expressions. They soon grab her parents and Emily, viciously biting their heads off in a graphic manner. Way too gory for this magazine (Sailor Moon has its moments, but this was much worse). The art style shifts to several paintings, slowly becoming darker, more realistic, and sinister-looking, almost as if real photos were used as references. Everything was black except for the shape of the girls and the devoured bodies, which were painted in mostly dark greys with some white. It made me sick, but I kept reading. I was hooked. The "Dolly's" even started to get terrible, distorted demon faces. It sent chills down my spine and I will never forget it. It was more than just your typical "hyper-realistic bloody eyes" that became a joke over time. It felt as if they were staring at me!
Lilica wakes up and the style is back to normal. The next few pages were still black and white, but I saw some mysterious red stains on the pages scattered about. I wanted to put the book down, but it suddenly felt as if invisible arms held my hands to the book. My room started to feel a certain draft and someone breathing down my spine, but no one else was there. Holding my breath, I kept reading. It was night and Lilica realized her parents were still missing, so she went out to look for them. The sky was pitch black and the wind was howling during a storm as trees around her were falling. It was then she saw a pile of blood and guts of whom she believed were her parents. This is where all the red stains on the pages gathered together to color in the blood on the page. Could it have been real blood? I wanted to throw up this time. "Why are you doing this?!" shouted Lilica at the top of her breath. "You promised we would be inseparable." said Dolly in her head. Lilica demands her to leave, but Dolly says that only death will be able to separate them. Lilica then unwillingly shreds her arms and part of her face with her nails. Although it was only on paper, her screams looked so agonizing, that I could almost hear them. Being controlled by Dolly, she bashes her head against a rock. Blood splatters, but it wasn't hard enough to kill her. "We will never be friends!", shouted Lilica. She stumbles to the nearest lake. "I won't let you control me anymore", she shouted, before jumping in and drowning herself. Lilica has a peaceful expression in her final moments, promising to join her parents and Emily soon. The doll rose back to the surface that morning, implying that another young girl will find her soon. The last page showed an illustration of Lilica, lying in a coffin alongside many other unfortunate girls. Then, the manga just ends.
After reading this, I tried googling it, but no information showed up about this manga. I saw other copies of this Nakayoshi volume, but they didn't contain this story. I kept having nightmares of being strangled by the doll after that until I finally got rid of the magazine. I now despise dolls, and my little sister would always torment me about it. That's why I'm moving out soon. My pen pal only found one article mentioning this curtain issue, which was apparently, published in 1993. All these versions of this magazine have seemingly been recalled and destroyed after parents complained that it made their children sick. We don't keep in touch very often anymore, but at least the nightmares ended. That's all there is to say. Just please, don't ever show me another doll again.