YMMV / The Enigma of Amigara Fault

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • "THIS HOLE WAS MADE FOR ME!"
  • It also doesn't help that "getting your hole" is a Scottish slang term for sex.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The ancient people's reasons for building the holes. Scientists on-site note that it would be unnatural for a mountain to have this many people-shaped crevices, and find evidence that they were man-made. Is it a punishment for the modern people of Japan, a relic from potentially punishing criminals, or something unknown?
  • Owaki's hole only appears after he realizes that Yoshida has gone into hers. He's been having nightmares about being forced to go inside the hole as a punishment. Perhaps he succumbed to the influence willingly, and was Driven to Suicide by going into his own hole?
  • In-universe, Owaki posits that only lonely people are drawn to the holes. He reassures Yoshida that he's not going to leave her, so she won't have to worry about being alone at night. The story doesn't confirm if he is right or not.
• Gateway Series: For Junji Ito works and horror manga in general.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Being written by huge anime fans, Steven Universe would include the concept of a "Kindergarten" wherein alien Gems are "born" through coming out of holes embedded in the mountains shaped like themselves. This led to gems like this gif◊.
  • Also, Yoshida is in an A-pose on the cover.
  • In 2015, some burglars snuck into the Hatton Garden underground vault by drilling some small holes in the shape of a human's cross-section into the wall and squeezing through it. BBC News tried to demonstrate how the men got in by having a reporter squeeze through the small hole, only for the reporter to get stuck in it himself.
• Inferred Holocaust: It's unknown how many people were compelled to enter the hole before the government intervened. There are implications that the site was eventually closed off, to prevent visitors from succumbing to the same psychic hold. Even so, considering there were dozens on day one, the numbers couldn't have been pretty.
• It Was His Sled: The ending, which reveals that the holes deform as the person progresses deeper into them, eventually twisting them into the shape of a grotesque abomination. We don't see that until the end of the manga, but the Memetic Mutation it inspired lead to it being one of the most well-known aspects of the story, even among those who haven't read it.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • DRR...DRR...DRR...
  • This hole! It was made for me!
  • S-Sir! It's slowly coming this way!
• Narm Charm: Manages to be simultaneously nightmarish and hilarious.
• Tear Jerker:
  • It's hard to not feel sorry for Nakagaki during Owaki's first nightmare where he gets stuck while screaming for help. It gets worse in the ending where the deformed human could possibly be him.
    "S-Someone! Anyone! Help me!"
  • The scene where Owaki breaks down in tears right after Yoshida's disappearance also counts as this. He then enters his hole, with a Thousand-Yard Stare as if resigning himself to his fate.
• Token Romance: It was really unnecessary for Owaki and Yoshida to get together, though it's possible that it happened so that we'd get a giant Hope Spot, before things get worse.
  • It escalates the horror — something horrible happens not just to eccentric strangers, but to somebody you like (both Owaki and the readers).
  • It builds up to Owaki's Despair Event Horizon. Despite his best efforts, the girl he likes committed herself to a gruesome fate... probably. In that moment of grief, Owaki is extra vulnerable to the compulsion of the holes. But, horrifically, the event horizon is physical, not mental. Like suicide, somebody succumbs to temporary intense emotions and makes a terrible, irreversible decision.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Owaki is male with a somewhat female face and feminine haircut. You would think Owaki and Yoshida are lesbians up until his dream where he is a caveman with a stubble or when he enters his hole.