Layers of Fear is a one-shot story published in 2017 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Junji Ito's manga career.
Plot[]
A team of archaeologists led by Professor Soya uncovers a series of layers at an excavation site. One of the team thinks that the layers resemble a human face; a skull, which looks like that of a child, is uncovered. Soya thinks that this might be part of a burial ritual, which would be a huge discovery. However, he is forced to abandon any further investigation because of rain.
Thirteen years later, in 2017, Soya is now dead. His wife favored their daughter Reimi whilst neglecting their other child, Narumi. Mrs. Soya claims that Narumi was too ugly to bother with, whereas Reimi is beautiful and had prospects for the future. When their car collides with a truck, Reimi loses half her face in the accident. However, an identical new layer of skin is underneath. When examined by a doctor, it emerges that Reimi's body is comprised of layers of skin: she does not have organs, bones, or muscles like a regular human. The doctor believes that Reimi grows a new layer each year, and all her younger selves are still contained inside her.
Narumi says Reimi has fallen victim to a curse. The layers resemble exactly the burial site that Soya uncovered; Narumi believes he was cursed when he broke open the tomb. He became obsessed with his work and passed away nine years later. Narumi reveals that she, too, is cursed, showing a mouth with layers of teeth. Reimi comes home, and Mrs. Soya is upset at the loss of Reimi's beauty. She is obsessed with Reimi as she was at two years old, which was when she was talent scouted for a TV commercial and was (or so Mrs. Soya believes) at her most beautiful.
As Reimi sleeps, Mrs. Soya watches over her; wanting to re-connect with the two-year-old version of Reimi still inside her. Upon hearing the two-year-old Reimi call out to her, Mrs. Soya hacks through Reimi's body with a knife, wanting to cut away the layers and reach the two-year-old Reimi. Sure enough, Reimi's 2-year old face is intact underneath the layers, but like a tree her body has been naturally distorted by her growth over the ensuing years up to the present, growing and stretching as the layers grew on top. Mrs. Soya declares that she'll simply remove the layers of her own body until she returns to the age she was when she gave birth to Reimi. However, Mrs. Soya isn't affected by the curse and her body is not made up of layers, causing horrific results as she cuts her face away.
Narumi reports that the infant skull her father had unearthed at the burial site is missing and was never found. Her severely disfigured mother shuts herself away in a room of the house with Reimi; who has mutated into a grotesque abomination with layers growing on top of layers. Narumi doesn't know what to do about it.