This one-shot manga is Junji Ito's adaption, and sequel, of the 1925 short story The Human Chair by Edogawa Rampo.
Plot[]
A woman is walking down a street of a Japanese rural town when she notices a furniture store. She walks inside, wherein she meets the proprietor, who is also the carpenter of the furniture. The woman, who reveals herself to be a writer from Tokyo, is looking for a soft chair in order to alleviate back pains. The carpenter asks if she had been looking for his store specifically, to which she denies. He goes on to explain the importance of finding the ideal chair, claiming that the right chair has the potential to change a persons' life. From there he begins telling the story of an unusual relationship between a chair-maker and a female author from the Taisho Era of Japan. A disturbing story of a relationship tied to a particular couch:
During the Taisho Era there once lived a famed and affluent writer named Yoshiko Togawa, also married to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Among the multiple fan-mail she often received there was one that stood out from all the others, as it vividly described a grotesque furniture maker who lived inside one of his chairs, located in an inn. Sometime passed and the chair in question had been removed from the inn and sold to a politician. As Yoshiko kept reading she became horrified of the letter as it was heavily implying that the chair she currently sat on during her writing process was the same chair mentioned in the letter. However, and much to her relief, the letters' author tells her that the events described in his correspondence were entirely fictitious and merely a sample from a novel that he himself had been working on, titled "The Human Chair". Later, Yoshiko is having a meal with her editor and discussing which books have been getting good publicity lately. She learns that "The Human Chair" had been well received by critiques, even topping her latest work for the top spot in popularity. She admits that the story had in fact scarred her, given the detailed connection to her, but soon after found the anonymous author to have simply been cheeky with her. More so, it was Yoshiko who recommended the author to her publisher. The two end their conversation after Yoshiko' editor reveals that none of her letters addressed to the unknown author ever arrived. Apparently the return address had been a fake.
Yoshiko is woken up one night by the sound of foot steps. She and her husband go to investigate, believing that a burglar had broken in. The sounds end just as the couple reach the study, where her chair was located. As the husband keeps searching for the intruder Yoshiko is scarred by the appearance of a face-shaped bulge on the chair. Her screams alert the servants, who immediately arrive and begin investigating the chair per her insistence. None of them can find any openings on the chair, or any means as to how a person could have entered or exist the chair. To ease her fear the husband smacks the chair with his wooden sword. With no reaction coming from inside the chair the man insists that there couldn't be a person inside of it. A few days passed without Yoshiko having sat in her chair. She receives yet another letter from the anonymous author in which he confirms that he had indeed been inside the chair the night before. He claims to have been feeling lonely without her sitting on top of him. He claims that she should leave her husband, whom he assures her must have been jealous over her popularity. The letter ends with the man telling Yoshiko how he awaits for the moment when the two of them will be together, obviously scarring Yoshiko to no ends.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs comes back from work one day and finds Yoshiko sat down at a table writing her novel instead of doing it in the study, on her chair. He chastises her for the recent paranoia, using it as an excuse for not writing in the study, as they agreed she would. Yoshiko follows him into the study and apologizes for recent trouble. She finds her husband sat on the chair with a grim expression on his face. He falls to the floor dead, with a large stab would on his back. Yoshiko turns her sights on the chair and notices a knife blade sticking out the back cushions. The knife proceeds to slowly slither back inside, leaving her in a fit of hysteria. After the police arrive to investigate Yoshiko keeps insisting that a man is inside the chair. The officers tare the chair' back and discover the truth. The interior of the chair was partially hollowed-out, in the shape of a man, with cans of food and water jugs next to the head region, and the murder weapon still inside. This confirms that someone had indeed been living inside of the chair, which leaves Yoshiko once more in a panic.
Back in the present day, the chair maker reveals that the human chair had been detained by the police and that following those events Yoshiko Togawa disappeared from the public eye, having been driven insane and stopped writing. The woman is concerned about the nearby chair that seemed identical to the one from the man' story. He picks a pair of plyers and begins removing the stitching from the back. The inside of the chair was also hollowed-out in the form of a man, but inside were also the desiccated corpses of a woman and a man. The carpenter reveals these to be Yoshiko and the chair maker, who had somehow met up and fell in love. He ends his tale with the idea that the two had children and that he was a descendent of theirs. He goes on to identify the woman as Yuzuko Hayama, also a female writer as Yoshiko had been. He offers to make her chair, to which Yuzuko is horrified of the idea and runs out the store.
Back at her apartment, Yuzuko is worn out by the experience from before, leaving her so exhausted that she couldn't get any writing done. However, archival newspapers reveal that the story of Yoshiko and of the human chair were real, furthering her anxiety. Just as she lies face down on her desk a furniture delivery team knock at her door. They enter with a large chair that had been ordered directly to her home. Yuzuko screams in fear as the back of the chair bulges in a human-shaped pattern.