Tomie looks like an attractive young woman, but she's a monster. The fun of the stories about Tomie is discovering what nature of monster she is and what she is capable of, both psychically and physically. Artist and writer Junji Ito introduced Tomie to the world in a series of short tales published in Japanese manga. Ito's 'horror comics' are so effective I think it has proved very difficult for filmmakers to match the scary intensity of his illustrations.

Incidentally, Ito's original stories about Tomie have been collected and translated into English. Originally released as The Junji Ito Horror Comic Collection (because they included other horror tales, too), the manga collections are currently being re-released in three thick volumes under the collective title Museum of Terror.

So far, there have been no less than seven attempts to visualise Tomie's antics in films or straight-to-video horrors. Tomie: Another Face was the second, coming out shortly after the first film Tomie (1998), which I've also reviewed for Blogcritics. Another Face is shot on video (in a full screen ratio) and looks like it was made for TV. It consists of three half-hour short stories loosely linked by a flimsy narrative, as well as being centred around Tomie.

The first segment starts with a typical high school love triangle. But when Tomie is in the triangle and is already supposed to be dead, it’s not going to have a happy outcome! Actress Luna Nagai certainly looks the right age (unlike the actress who played her in the original Tomie) and is very good at simpering. But she has a tough time conveying malevolence. This story introduces Tomie's basic modus operandi – she drives her boyfriends to madness, is murdered, and then somehow rejuvenates. The simple story isn't helped by the inexperienced acting of the teenagers but, at the very least, it features one convincing and shocking pivotal scene.

The second story is about a photographer who is searching for his childhood sweetheart and finds, even ten years on, she hasn’t aged. This tale has fewer surprises and makes the mistake of altering Tomie's appearance. Once she's covered in make-up and changes her hairstyle, she doesn't look the part anymore. Anyhow, this piece at least has atmosphere, due mainly to the wall-to-wall music, sounding very derivative of a Massive Attack track and the soundtrack to Twin Peaks.

The last story finally manages to intrigue. A lovestruck 'salaryman' (a Japanese office worker) is warned of Tomie’s ex-boyfriends and her history of being repeatedly murdered all over the country. How can she be stopped? There are some new twists here for the character, and this segment is the bloodiest, with a rousing finale.

Tomie: Another Face is not as bad as other reviews had warned me, but it’s unambitious and only skims the potential of the manga's original visual ideas. This Tomie concentrates instead on her sexy schoolgirl allure and un-schoolgirl-like 'potty mouth'. It reads more as a morality tale about older men dating young girls.

I'd only recommend this to Tomie completists and only after they'd had a chance to see the theatrically-released movies first. It's certainly not a good way to enter the series. It's soapy rather than creepy, focusing on crimes of passion rather than extremes of madness. However, I found it more entertaining than the recent video entries Tomie: Revenge and Tomie: Beginning, of which I'd had higher expectations.