How Junji Ito Became Synonymous With Horror Manga
Read Time:11 Minute, 15 Second
When you search online for the best horror manga, one of the first results is the question, “What horror manga are there outside Junji Ito?” This one simple sentence sums up how important Junji Ito’s work is in the horror manga genre. With seminal works like Uzumaki, Tomie, Hanging Balloons, and Gyo, Ito has cemented his place as one of the most influential creators in the industry. Let’s explore how Junji Ito became synonymous with horror manga, his notable works, his influences, and what the future holds for this incredible artist.
A Brief History Of Horror Manga
Japan has a long and proud history of producing terrifying works of fiction. Japanese movies and novels are noted for their creativity and an unerring ability to horrify their audience. Manga is no different. The horror manga genre has been popular for decades, spearheaded by renowned authors such as Kazuo Umezo, Hideshi Hino, and Suehiro Maruo.
Kazuo Umezo is known as the “godfather of horror manga.” Among his many famous works, The Drifting Classroom (1972-1974) is particularly noted as a defining piece of horror manga. It depicts a classroom of children transported to an apocalyptic world filled with monsters. Umezu showed his talent for creating feelings of dread, terror, and hopelessness, along with harrowing artwork.
Hideshi Hino began his career in 1967, producing manga such as Hell Baby (1982), Panorama from Hell (1984), and his Hino Horror Series. He is known for his gory illustrations depicting deformed monsters and brutal human experiences. His work combines supernatural and psychological horror and he remains one of the most important horror mangaka.
Ito’s Early Life And Influences
Both Umezo and Hino were major influences in Junji Ito’s development as a mangaka. Born in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture in 1963, Ito’s introduction to manga and, more specifically, horror, came at an early age. His two older sisters loved ghost stories and were avid fans of Umezu. Ito started drawing at a young age and continued to create manga as a hobby throughout his teenage and early adulthood years.
In 1987, Ito submitted his first short story to the Japanese manga magazine Monthly Halloween. The story received an honorable mention in the Kazuo Umezu Prize and ran as a serial in Monthly Halloween. The series continued for 13 years and became one of Ito’s most famous works: Tomie.
Ito describes many different influences that have shaped his work. Along with Umezu and Hino, mangaka Shinichi Koga and Shigeru Mizuki inspired Ito, particularly in his youth. Each mangaka approaches horror differently; some focus on gore and the shock factor, while others explore psychological horror. You can see these influences throughout Ito’s work, as he experiments with different themes and terrors in his many stories.
Ito also credits H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror writing as profoundly impacting his work. Lovecraftian themes can be seen in Ito’s Uzumaki, as well as other stories. Like Lovecraft, Ito explores the impact of horror on his characters’ minds, leaving them teetering on the edge of insanity. In Tomie, there is a suggestion that the beautiful, mysterious Tomie existed long before the manga started and cannot be destroyed. This is reminiscent of Lovecraft’s Great Old Ones, whose existence is hardly understood by the humans in his stories.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is among Ito’s influences. He expresses deep admiration for the mixture of emotional torment and scientific horror the novel explores. You can see these themes reflected in much of his own work. In 2018, Ito adapted Frankenstein into manga form and won the 2019 Eisner Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium.
Impactful Works
Ito’s catalog of works is vast and varied. He specializes in crafting bizarre stories that delve deep into human experiences such as alienation, obsession, and paranoia. Using horrifying locations, events, or creatures, he creates an environment within which characters come to fear not only the horror around them but also that within themselves and each other.
His first published work, Tomie, is a collection of short stories. Tomie is a teenage girl who is brutally and horribly murdered. Instead of disappearing in death, Tomie returns to her normal life… but normality is not something she will ever have again. Men fall in love with her beauty and are driven to jealous and violent rages. Often, Tomie herself is the victim of these rages. But she cannot be killed. Again and again, she comes back, bringing physical and psychological destruction with her. Tomie is a complex work. There are some recurring characters and longer arcs within the short story collection but for the most part, Tomie is the eerie and unsettling link between them all.
Uzumaki (1998-1999) is perhaps Ito’s most famous work. The series takes place in the small town of Kurouzu-Cho where the inhabitants are plagued by a supernatural curse involving spirals. Each chapter follows different characters, detailing the effects of the curse. Some characters become obsessed with spirals, others are driven insane with terror, and many more die as a result of the physical and psychological powers of the spirals. Uzumaki is an incredibly well-crafted series. Ito takes his time with each character’s story, building tension and dread as the curse gradually expands to affect the whole town. The artwork is bizarre, graphic, and often grotesque, featuring some of Ito’s most disturbing drawings.
Another story that enthralls and horrifies readers is Hanging Balloons (2000). Part of the short story collection Shiver, Hanging Balloons is a standalone tale and is often considered to be one of Ito’s scariest works. Giant human heads resembling balloons appear in a town and plague the people whose faces they share. Instead of string, a chain hangs from them that ends in a noose. The story is incredibly dark, with strong themes of suicide. Some suggest that Hanging Balloons explores the stigma around mental health, the high suicide rate in Japan, and the toxic effects of fame and fan obsession. Ito creates a stifling atmosphere full of dread and hopelessness, accompanied by harrowing illustrations that stay with you long after you finish reading.
Gyo (2001-2002) is a cosmic horror series that combines Ito’s characteristic psychological terror with a sci-fi plot. A military experiment goes terribly wrong, resulting in a gas known as the “death stench” that turns sea creatures into grotesque robo-zombies. Ito creates a nightmarish world inhabited by grotesque and terrifying monsters, while his characters fight for their lives and their sanity. Gyo is considered to be one of Ito’s creepiest stories and one of the scariest psychological horror manga.
Making Horror Beautiful
Ito’s strength lies in his ability to craft bizarre and terrifying stories complemented by detailed and nightmarish illustrations. His drawings are often beautiful and always terrifying. Uzumaki features some of his most disturbing artwork based around the spirals that plague his characters. One iconic scene occurs in the chapter The Scar when a woman’s face is devoured by a spiral on the side of her head. Another scene that stands out to many readers is in The Snail when the teacher drags himself into his classroom half-transformed into a snail.
Ito constantly produces fresh and visceral horrors in his work. Ribs Woman from his Lovesickness collection is a famous example, depicting a woman who steals ribs from others and whose chest is a mass of ribs held together by string. In his short story Lovesickness: A Woman in Distress, Ito tells the story of a woman with worsening mental problems who wants to get a tattoo, only for her to appear later in the story with her entire body covered in tattoos. The intricate designs and dizzying patterns of the tattoos produce a confusing and disturbing visual effect, making it one of the most unsettling of Ito’s drawings.
Ito’s Impact on Other Manga Artists
Junji Ito’s work is often described as bridging the gap between traditional gothic horror, such as that of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mary Shelley, and contemporary horror fiction. His stories explore themes of ancient, unknowable evil in a modern setting. His characters suffer from awful supernatural torment that brings very real issues to the fore. Obsession with appearances, negative attitudes toward mental health, and sexism are all examined in his various stories, the study and interpretation of which lead to fascinating discussions and debates.
Ito has contributed to the popularity of psychological horror widely seen in manga today. Mangaka such as Shūzō Oshimi (The Flowers of Evil, Blood on the Tracks), Usamaru Furuya (No Longer Human, Lychee Light Club), and Masaaki Nakayama (Seeds of Anxiety, PTSD Radio) are some of the most acclaimed horror mangaka who specialize in psychological as well as physical torment. Manga series such as Naoki Urusawa’s Monster and Hideo Yamamoto’s Homunculus similarly explore what it takes to push someone to the brink. Other anime and manga like Death Note, Paranoia Agent, and Perfect Blue all expand on these themes, bringing their own distinct flavor to the horror genre.
Adaptations of Ito’s Work
Ito’s work has been adapted many times during his long career. The 1998 live-action Tomie movie is considered to be one of the best. In 2023, Netflix released Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre. This animated anthology series adapted some famous short stories, including Hanging Balloons, The Strange Hikizuri Siblings, and one of Tomie’s best-known stories, Photo. The series was complimented for its animation and voice acting but many fans felt it fell short of capturing the essence of Ito’s work. Others criticized the stories chosen for adaptation, describing them as unmemorable. The episode Tomie: Photo suffered from a lack of context; Tomie’s background wasn’t explained and newcomers to Ito’s work were left confused and underwhelmed.
Adult Swim’s highly-anticipated animated adaptation of Uzumaki recently reached eager fans. With only four episodes, many fans were worried we would miss out on crucial context and tension-building. At the time of this article, two episodes have been released, with the remaining two due to arrive later this month. Episode one received overwhelmingly positive reactions from critics and fans, capturing the manga’s tone and beautifully recreating Ito’s incredible artwork. Episode two, however, received harsh criticism for the drop in the animation quality. Viewers also felt it rushed the storyline and failed to respect Ito’s careful pacing and tension-building. With two more episodes to go, fans’ hopes of finally getting an anime adaptation worthy of Ito’s manga are lower than ever.
What’s Next For Junji Ito?
Ito’s next book is unlike any he has written before: it’s his memoir. Uncanny: The Origins of Fear will be released on October 15th, 2024. It’s the first time he will write about his own background and career. He continues to produce manga. His most recent work was Stitches, a short story anthology written by Hirokatsu Kiha and illustrated by Ito.
With Uzumaki’s success, fans are eager to see more of the great mangaka’s work adapted to other media. In 2023, Fangoria Studios announced the development of three live-action movies from Ito’s Smashed collection: Bloodsucking Darkness, The Mystery of the Haunted House Part 1, and The Mystery of the Haunted House Part 2. Ito will be a producer on the movies, which will hopefully start production in 2025 or 2026.
Master of Horror
Junji Ito’s name has become synonymous with horror manga for a reason. Over the course of a 40-year career, Ito has produced some of the most creative, disturbing, and haunting horror stories. He combines gothic themes with modern experiences and conveys his characters’ physical and psychological terror through detailed, meticulous illustrations. From Tomie to Uzumaki to his countless short story collections, he has solidified his place at the forefront of the horror genre – and shows no signs of slowing down.
Have you read any of Junji Ito’s manga? If so, which is your favorite and why? Let us know in the comments section. And don’t forget to sign up to our email list to get Finds of the Week and our free newsletter, PopPulse Digest, delivered straight to your inbox each and every week.
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