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  • What's that giant earthworm doing in that Tomie hybrid made with the old man's daughter in "Mansion"?
    • Possibly a mutation with an earthworm. It's established that Tomie can regenerate from just her blood alone, and we were also shown that her DNA isn't above invading living creatures (as evident by the "Hair" chapter, where a young lady decides to add some of Tomie's hair to her own, and the strands eventually transformed her into another Tomie). So, it's entirely possible that some of Tomie's blood got splattered onto an earthworm during the experimental stages, and that ungodly abomination was born.
    • Wouldn't the earthworm become a full Tomie, though?
    • My guess is it's the opposite - earthworms turn into two living worms when cut in half, so the doc probably did some comparisons with worm DNA. Or hell, Tomie evolved from earthworms and that explains her regeneration ability. Yeah.
    • Earthworms don't have such regeneration at all, actually, it's a myth. Some other organisms do however.
    • Not that the myth would have to be true to be true in Tomie.
  • In Tomie, does the titular character's powers extend to asexuals and people with inhibited sociability? Other than the girls, who were often (though not completely) immune to Tomie's charms, the ugly man in one of the short stories was able to resist Tomie's influence (much to her anger) for quite a while until one of her weaker clones (who grew from Tomie's severed fingers) got bullied by the other Tomies, prompting him to defend her from the others due to similar experiences he shared in his childhood. I believe since his appearance didn't grant him any favors in getting girlfriends, he probably never considered the possibility of romantic attraction until Tomie getting pushed around reminded him of his own problems and reignited the spark of feeling that create most males' murderous obsessions. Does her powers also extend to any men who are castrated or are homosexual?
    • Tomie's schtick is not just sexual attraction, as that one exception shows. She just needs to make one feel strongly attached to her in any way, and then the whole "go crazy and kill her but it was for love" story repeats itself. I'm pretty sure homosexuals, asexuals and castratti are still pretty much capable of love, yes.
      • Another example is in Orphan Girl where an elderly couple adopt Tomie as a daughter. They both view her as a daughter and succumb to her charm, ending up attached and obsessed with her. So even parental love is fair game for Tomie.
  • Tomie has a ridiculous regenerative ability. Even setting her on fire or dousing her completely in acid does nothing to prevent her from coming back and wreaking havoc again. But what if someone were to tie her up in the middle of the desert and drop a hydrogen bomb right on top of her? Even if the bomb were to annihilate her down to her atoms, would she still continue to regenerate against the odds?
    • If one assumes she can regenerate from a single cell(as I do) but not further, then I suppose no. But even that can't be the case, or else Tomies would be all over the place from her skin dead cells alone.
      • Perhaps Tomie knows the only way to truly destroy herself and the reason there isn't an army is because she uses the method.
      • Tomie can be destroyed simply by being "cremated at the highest temperature" apparently, as it is the method used by the Man in Black to dispose of dead Tomies. It is implied that simply burning the body properly with gasoline or the likes would kill her - the fingers regenerated out of the ash simply because a small campfire isn't hot enough to fully cremate a human body.
  • What would happen in a Tomie pregnancy? Would she give birth to another Tomie? Or would said Tomie-fetus kill her instead and use her to grow?
    • Considering that Tomie reproduces by infection and regeneration, it might not be possible for her to get pregnant at all. If she did, however, the fetus would probably end up the same way as the children Tomies in the later stories — as in yes, she would give birth to an infant Tomie, who would grow up to be an overly sexual spoiled brat.
  • And what if a male got infected by Tomie? Would it be like Yukiko, where a Tomie grows and breaks out of the body, or could the Tomie cells actually alter the body to transform like they can for women?
    • Some dudes drink her genetic material in a chapter and don’t turn into her, although we don’t see the long term effects. If it does turn them into Tomies, Then they’ll be Tomio (Not the Red Turtleneck one.) and we’re all screwed.
  • Tomie is very different in her first appearance than later ones. She doesn't seem to have her madness-inducing traits — people lose their minds understandably because she came back from the dead and acted as if nothing was wrong while seeming to deliberately rub her failure to die in her face, not just from obsession with her — her initial death is due to a simple argument over her cheating, and this escalates into killing her again and dismembering her because of a number of internally-sensible reasons — most of her classmates hate her, the teacher wants to cover up that he was in a sexual relationship with her, and he manipulates the students into doing to cover for a fellow student. When things come to a head, it's because everyone remaining is in too deep and desperate to keep their conspiracy hidden. Heck, she even has a childhood friend in Reiko. So... was that her Start of Darkness? Would she have just gone on being a cheating, manipulative girl rather than the outright sadistic sociopath she is later on if she hadn't been so brutally murdered and abused... or was she already more sinister than she appeared and was just playing a longer game than usual? Could it be that Reiko was her Morality Pet? Is it just Early-Installment Weirdness? What's going on here?
    • Its very possible that it’s simple Early-Installment Weirdness, but Junji might have intended it. There’s a video circulating that frames Tomie as a Jerkass Woobie that makes some interesting examinations.
    • It's probably early installment weirdness. Tomie clearly isn't a normal person before she's killed, displaying the same manipulative two-timing behavior she's always been known for. She has a boyfriend but tries to seduce her teacher, even saying she's pregnant with his child...it's very typical Tomie behavior. She's trying to find the right way to make herself a target. These traits just got refined later.
  • If Tomie reproduces through wounds and dismemberment, why does she rely on other folks to rip her apart? What's keeping her from doing it to herself? Does she enjoy causing misery in others too much?
    • Tomie doesn't seem to like "competition" Tomies. She doesn't have to worry about it if she's cut completely to pieces, since every piece will be a new Tomie, but if she has a new Tomie growing out of herself she views it as a tumor. Maybe she doesn't quite have the nerve to cut herself to pieces, but definitely doesn't want to just injure herself and let a new Tomie "tumor" grow.
    • Also, as much of an asshole Tomie is, she doesn’t really seem to have the stomach for murder and gore. When she gets killed she clearly feels pain and noticeably doesn’t enjoy the process of splitting into more Tomies, so she probably just doesn’t like doing it herself. And that’s if she even intends to get herself torn apart and she’s not just an idiot who can’t tell she drives others mad.
  • Does Tomie even know what she is? I got the feeling that she herself is not sure about her own nature and purpose, but just rolls with it because the satisfaction of her base impulses takes precedence. She even helped her teacher-turned-thrall make experiments, supposedly because she wanted to be "cured" (or because she found an opportunity to be terrible again; or both, it's hard to say with her). I feel like if Tomie knew she was something alien or supernatural, she'd use it as a gloating point to her victims, to bask in her superiority even further.
    • It's left ambiguous if she does know at all, but if she does, then her lack of acknowledgement towards it may be due to hidden insecurity towards her inhumanity. Narcissists tend to act like they're God's gift to mankind, but it typically masks deeply hidden insecurities. Tomie, for all her bravado, seems somewhat emotionally reliant on the validation of others, as other people ignoring her beauty is a Berserk Button (as the one time a man didn't fall for her, she takes it as a challenge to change his mind and is clearly annoyed when it doesn't work, which if she didn't care what he thought she'd probably just ignore him). Despite her Lack of Empathy, Tomie does seem to care what others think of her to an extent and gets angry when reality doesn't meet her expectations. Perhaps this is because, deep down, she knows she is an inhuman monster who will die over and over again and tries to avoid thinking about it by screwing over those she deems as "lesser" than her to make herself feel better and being spoiled rotten by those under her thrall?
  • In the last story arc, why isn't Tomie happy that Ryo is trying to hook up with her? He's a rich supermodel who showers her with attention and money. That should be right up her alley, but she's cold and dismissive of him right from the start.
    • Tomie is a narcissist. A lot of narcissistic people may like a rich hot partner, but many also want someone easy to control. Look at all of the people Tomie influences; nearly all of them tend to be emotionally vulnerable in some form or another. Ryo is probably too emotionally secure for her to abuse and manipulate. After all, Tomie likes starting trouble, so what would be the point of dating a guy who gives her everything with no fight?
      • That and he's more obsessed with himself than he is with her, it unfuriates her that he actually thinks he is more beautiful than her.
  • Question, but why doesn't someone just bury her? As in just tie her up and put her in a coffin, bury it six feet under (or more), shove some dirt over it and boom. She's not cut up so she can't reproduce, no one can hear her that deep underground (and you could just gag her to make sure). Even if she eventually gets out it probably won't be for a long while and it won't be your problem.
    • Simply put, burying her will rid you of only a single Tomie. There’s still countless ones out there looking for victims, so unless you bury every one you can find (without other people calling the police because they see you burying teenage girls without context), she never really goes away. Tomies also seem to function as a Hive Mind, so if you get rid of one Tomie, others might be interested in picking up where she left off, or even convincing other people to dig up the one you buried. Tomies rarely just let sleeping dogs lie.

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