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Author Spotlight: Junji Ito

  • Bryan B.
  • Friday, June 24

"Comics utilize images, angles, and feelings that are hard to create in the real world. I think it’s hard to reproduce the overall atmosphere of a comic into a movie, because a film must use real actors and actresses that are not perfectly matched with my original work." -Junji Ito, March 2006

CW: Body Horror, Violence, Nudity (These are not for kids!)

Junji Ito is a horror mangaka (manga artist) from Nakatsugawa, Japan. His career began in the mid-80s when he submitted a short story to a horror magazine that ended up getting serialized as Tomie. Tomie was immensely successful in Japan, running for 13 years and spawning nine feature-length movies. He's been a full-time writer ever since and has been a huge influence on the great horror creators of today, most notably Guillermo del Toro. 

Ito's stories often involve themes of love, familial pressure, and supernatural forces to create a sense of dread in his audiences. He tends to not use "jump-scares" as much, preferring a slow burn of a fright. The characters are often helpless in the face of overwhelming supernatural forces and hordes of brainwashed people. 

Here are some of his most renowned works:

A pencil drawing of a beautiful young woman sitting in a chair, her lifeless stare aiming directly at the reader.

Tomie is a beautiful young woman who has the uncanny ability to make anyone fall in love with her to the point of obsession. The obsession she causes drives her victims to murder anyone who stands in the way of their love, including Tomie herself. Tomie cannot die, and she lives a cursed life, enchanting hapless victim after victim.

Image found in Tomie by Junji Ito

An ink drawing of a woman with a portion of her head missing, with a large spiral made out of the eye stem of the woman's fully exposed left eyeball.

Uzumaki is a horror manga centered around the hypnotizing effects of spirals. The spiral motif appears in a rural Japanese town, harkening the town's eventual destruction at the hand of supernatural forces.

Image found in Uzumaki by Junji Ito

A great white shark, facing the frame, is charging mouth agape intending to devour two passersby and the reader. The shark has biomechanical spider-like legs attached.

Gyo is influenced by the two things that truly scare Ito: Sharks and War. Sharks are an omnipresent threat in a coastal country like Japan, and Ito's parents would often share stories of their time during World War II with him, instilling a deep fear of the horrors of war.

Image found in Gyo by Junji Ito

A black-and-white pencil drawing of a teenaged boy standing in the foreground with a chilled look on his face. In the background is a mountainside with human-shaped holes on it.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault is one of the first Ito works to become popular in the United States. In 2006, it was shared around internet forums and image boards, intending to be a meme, but unintentionally creating a large amount of interest in other works by the same author. This is the work that first brought me to Ito. You can find it in its entirety as a supplemental story at the end of Gyo.

Image found in Gyo by Junji Ito

Horror manga artist Junji Ito posing with his cat.

Deep down, Ito is just a kind soul. He's described as gentle and sweet, and when he's not scaring the pants off his readers, he loves to spend time with his cats Tenmaru and Tonichi.

Image found at https://twitter.com/MinovskyArticle/status/1094673696055328770/photo/2

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Bryan B.

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Teens (12-18 years)

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