Line #3 YMMV/Tomie


1	* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
2	** Is Tomie a bitch because she's an AnthropomorphicPersonification of lust and violence, and the death and destruction she causes in her wake the whole point of her existence in terms of the reason she was put on the earth? Or is she just a cruel and petty sociopath with horrifying powers?
3	** Is Tomie's regeneration a supernatural means to protect herself from the men who want to chop her to pieces? Or does she cause people to chop her to pieces as a form of reproduction (also explaining why she's so pointlessly aggravating to her "boyfriends")? The former was suggested in "Mansion," although the speaker was hardly a reliable source of information, but there's a lot of evidence in her behavior that indicates she lives to be killed and chopped up so she can replicate.
4	** Was the first chapter EarlyInstallmentWeirdness or is it intended to actually be indicative of Tomie's backstory? In this case, this would give her a FreudianExcuse, though not one sufficient to keep her out of CompleteMonster territory.
5	** Whether Tomei has any true volition [[spoiler:after she is first killed]] is debatable. She may be nothing but a kind of ''onryō'', a revenant with [[EmptyShell nothing left but rage and spite]]. A few, especially [[DracoInLeatherPants Tomie sympathizers]], theorized that she [[PowerIncontinence doesn't have much control]] over own body. ''Tomie: Takeover'', included as a bonus with ''Manga/JunjiItoKyoufuMangaCollection'''s DVD, shows a {{Body Surf}}er switching sides with her and getting the same traits he later loses control of, which threw more fuel to the fire.
6	** Is Tomie completely controlling her "lovers" and making them more mentally unstable and dependent on her, or were they already kind of off their rocker and Tomie merely pushed [[BerserkButton the right buttons?]] Or perhaps somewhere in the middle? While it can be said that most of of her victims' bad actions can be blamed on Tomie herself, and characters InUniverse blame Tomie because of her inhuman nature, many of the guys Tomie is involved with have insecurities or traits that can make them easier to emotionally exploit and push them to kill her when [[BerserkButton she goes a bit too far,]] implying that her control over them isn't as infallible as it seems. With some of her victims, they seem to love her instantly while others take a bit more time, and Umehara seemingly has zero interest in Tomie initially, with no supernatural explanation offered for why he's immune to her charm. The people who blame Tomie for brainwashing them also justifiably have little incentive to give her any benefit of the doubt because of [[JerkAss how nasty she is.]]
7	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: "Hair", as it spends an entire Tomie-less chapter exploring a property of Tomie that ultimately amounts to nothing--no advancement of the Tomie "species", just death.
8	* CompleteMonster: [[VillainProtagonist Tomie]] is a HumanoidAbomination who enjoys toying with men to get what she wants. She gets them so devoted to her that they'll commit murder and suicide for her, and then drives them to murder her, after which she always regenerates, usually with multiple bodies in one HiveMind. At one point, a bunch of Tomie chunks grew into more Tomies at the bottom of a lake, where they proceeded to lure many men to jump and [[WouldHurtAChild drown one young boy]], to say nothing of the child she drives insane in the "Boy" chapter. In another chapter, she turns an old couple who took her in against each other, leading to the wife being DrivenToSuicide and the husband killing Tomie and the maid, all so she could get their money.
9	* DesignatedHero: Tsukiko and Ryo. The former is involved in taking pics of her male classmates without permission to sell to her female friends. The latter is an arrogant asshole who not only tries to disfigure Tomie after she disfigures him, but also starts creating NEW versions of Tomie (who can age, and by infecting baby girls) simply to torment the new versions by watching them age and lose their beauty that way. This is downplayed with Tsukiko because she’s not nearly as bad as Tomie, but still.
10	* DracoInLeatherPants: Surprisingly, Tomie, as she has a small number of readers who overlook her sociopathic and manipulative behavior in favor of viewing her as a blameless representation of the abuse women suffer at the hands of men. They also tend to ignore the fact that most of the things she suffers through are overwhelmingly a result of her own actions coming back to bite her in the ass, something she never seems to learn from, and that, ironically enough, she's an abuser herself, given that all she literally does is go around and latching on to people then proceeding to repeatedly mistreat, insult, and leech off of her victims to the point where they're driven insane from her toxicity and end up killing her. Others point to her apparent FreudianExcuse of being initially killed as a normal teenage girl and supernaturally resurrected in the first chapter, ignoring the fact that it [[FreudianExcuseIsNoExcuse is far outweighed by her other actions.]]
11	* FauxSymbolism: There's an argument to be made for the series and its titular character being a metaphor for abuse, but it could just be a horror series.
12	* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
13	** The chapter that has a man named Tetsuo "rescue" a Tomie that was growing out of the body of another murdered Tomie, and eventually he ends up keeping it around, even "planting" it in a pot. All the same BodyHorror of the series applies in this chapter, but there's something hilarious about a disembodied head yelling at poor Tetsuo like a spoiled brat, demanding expensive jewels and food.
14	** There's a chapter later in the series that shows Tomie having gotten sway over a crowd of male thralls who do whatever she wants. She even gets to have the caviar and foie gras that she demands in almost all of her appearances... but now she's sick of it because she has it so much.
15	* JerkassWoobie: The male fashion model from the final arc. He’s horribly burned to a crisp due to a dare with Tomie, but afterwards begins infecting innocent babies simply so he could watch them age.
16	* LoveToHate: Tomie is one of Ito's most iconic creations for this reason. She's a truly wretched and monstrous individual, but her petty personality, mysterious nature, and versatile abilities make her a delightfully horrifying character.
17	* MemeticMutation: "I've got more demons where that came from". [[NightmareRetardant Even funnier]] when a very well-known edit features [[VideoGame/{{Doom}} Doomguy]] [[https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/290/027/171.jpg pounding the table with his fists while holding utensils]].
18	* MoralEventHorizon:
19	** Mr. Takagi crossed it in the fourth chapter by his Tomie experiments, including grafting pieces of Tomie onto a girl that [[BodyHorror grew into many more Tomies]], which are so painful [[FateWorseThanDeath that her screams sound like thunder]].
20	** The Tomies in the lake eating a boy alive in the sixth chapter is another one.
21	** "Little Finger" is this for one of the later Tomies, showing any kindness or vulnerability she shows is a lie to BaitTheDog.
22	* TearJerker:
23	** In an early story, a girl has parts of Tomie grafted onto her. The girl herself doesn’t become a Tomie, but instead has them grotesquely grow out of her. The final panel is of her sadly walking without the Tomies being captured by camera. Also counts as NightmareFuel.
24	** Tomie's entire existence is tragic in a weird way if you think about it. Yes, she's a cruel sociopath, but she's doomed to endlessly be slaughtered in horrible ways and has no real concept of love or affection, only manipulated, slavering followers who inevitably dismember her. She's not even at peace with herself, as even her clones will go for each other's throat. And no matter how many times she regenerates, she will never grow or change, continuing this monstrous cycle ''forever.''
25	* WhatDoYouMeanItsForKids: This ran in a magazine in Japan called "Monthly Halloween"... a ''[[ShoujoDemographic Shoujo]]'' publication.
26	* TheWoobie: Pretty much any character that comes into contact with Tomie and isn’t a [[AssholeVictim complete asshole]] is this, and [[JerkassWoobie maybe even them.]] Special mention goes to the little boy who is manipulated by her into [[spoiler:killing a man, and has his father leave him and his mother, [[WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds growing up into a violent felon who is executed at a young age]]]].
27	** Yukino and Tadashi from "Morita Hospital" and "Basement" are very much this. Tomie tries (and eventually succeeds) in driving a stake between the two so she can have Tadashi all to herself, which causes him to snap and murder her in a desperate attempt to break free of her control. [[spoiler:This only makes things worse, as Takagi is able to pull some strings to have Tomie's kidney transplanted into Yukino and use her as a host to make new Tomies, first by growing a head in her stomach (which causes her immense amounts of pain) and then by [[MindReformatDeath having Tomie replace Yukino entirely]]...all while the poor girl is fully aware of what's happening.]]
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Context YMMV / Tomie