Junji Ito is a name that’s been popping up with increasing regularity lately. Alexandre Aja will be adapting Ito’s Tomie manga series for Quibi, Toonami announced an Uzumaki anime for 2020, and the prolific manga artist even made a sly cameo in Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding video game. For horror comic and manga fans, Ito is a name that’s been familiar for a while; he’s been delivering distinct and unsettling horror manga for decades. Because he’s on the cusp of reaching a much larger horror audience, it’s time to delve into the visceral horror of Junji Ito.
Think of this as a primer to his unique horror aesthetic; one that’s not so easily adaptable.
Ito’s first published work was Tomie, a manga series that ran from 1987-2000. The collection of stories center around the eponymous Tomie, a beautiful girl who enchants those she meets and drives them insane with jealousy; jealousy that crescendos in violence and drives the people who fall in love with her to homicide. Inevitably, the violence turns on Tomie, but she’s unable to die. Whether it’s disfigurement, maiming, or even death, Tomie’s flesh can regenerate and repair itself. Her beauty is her weapon, a tool she wields to get people to do her bidding, and yet it’s also ultimately her downfall. Power always comes at a price.
This long-running manga series inspired a film series spanning nine entries and an anthology TV series to date, making it one of the most recognizable works of Ito.
The other most well-known of his works, of course, is Uzumaki. Translated as “spiral,” this 1998-1999 manga series tells of the citizens of a small town coping with a supernatural curse centered around spirals. In Ito’s hands, a silly concept on paper becomes downright unsettling. Spirals infect the suburb like a plague, spreading and growing to the point of distorting the citizens’ minds and bodies. Something that starts so innocuous slowly builds to an oppressive force, a perversion of the ordinary rendered bone-chilling in Ito’s hands.
Ito’s tales of terror become something else entirely thanks to his exceptional artistic aesthetic. A casual image search of his works makes it easy to see why Ito has left such an indelible mark on the world of horror comics/manga. Stark black and white art with minimal shading- at least for the human characters- and bold strokes and line work creates drama. Ito’s art is densely intricate and detailed, and he typically uses shading to create texture, namely for the horror and gore elements. That his horror tends to lean heavily into body horror and the surreal makes his bold style all the more horrifying. It works in perfect (or terrifying) harmony with his stories, which tend to fixate on the unraveling of humanity. Often that means insanity, but it also tends to mean unnerving body transformations. Above all, Ito’s brand of horror tends to be bizarre.
That inimitable art style isn’t one so easily adapted for live-action. Uzumaki received a live-action film adaptation in 2001, which captures the tonal weirdness of the manga but not so much Ito’s visual style. It’s a worthy adaptation in terms of atmosphere and building madness, but as with most things, the manga is even better.
For works beyond Ito’s two most prominent manga series, look to 2018’s Junji Ito Collection anime. The twelve-episode anthology series, plus two OVA episodes, adapted several Ito stories. Stalwart Ito fans agree that it doesn’t manage to capture the haunting imagery of the source manga, but as an entry point to Ito’s works, it offers up a solid eclectic mix. From the gross-out “Greased” to the surreal “The Long Dream” to the hilarious “Smashed,” there’s a little bit of everything in this anime show. Including appearances by Tomie.
Upcoming adaptations of Tomie and Uzumaki have the potential to bring more international attention to the prolific mangaka than ever before. That, in turn, creates the potential for more adaptations of his lesser-known works. Whether any manage to come close to capturing his unique and haunting horror aesthetic doesn’t matter much; more interest in one of horror’s most singular voices is always a good thing.
