Junji Ito: The Master of Horror Manga

Welcome to the last week of 2018's Month of Horror. It is surprising that horror isn't a particularly large genre in comic books; at the start of the month we looked at why there aren't many American horror comics which you can read about here. Likewise, in manga we see a fairly large gap in the horror genre and most of the notable examples of horror manga aren't particularly horrifying for want of a better word; the excellent Tokyo Ghoul is classed as a horror manga but it is a tenuous classification at best. As many anime series, and movies, are manga adaptations this has a knock on effect that few truly horror anime exist - some like Monster and Mononoke exist and I would consider them some of my favourite anime. However, there is one manga artist and writer who has truly mastered the horror genre: Junji Ito. Very few pieces of media actually makes me feel scared - Junji Ito manages to do that every time. His manga truly captures the essence of horror taking the ordinary and mundane, or things too bizarre to take seriously, and make them terrifying; as a result many of the adaptations of his work has failed to illicit the same instances of terror that his manga does. I will also recommend not reading ahead if you're easily disturbed - I am showing some panels from Ito's work and they can get quite disturbing.

Junji Ito and Horror

Ito's manga doesn't contain things we generally find scary. We don't see vampires and zombies as in Western media or yōkai and oni from Japanese media. Instead Ito uses distortions and things impossible to describe in his manga - Ito himself best describes his style of horror saying 'It's interesting to take things and look at them from a backwards perspective.' As a result Ito can make things as mundane as cats, children playing, and a group of people sitting at a table seem unnerving. Turning the absurd and mundane into something unnerving is how Ito creates his horror. One of his main inspirations is H.P. Lovecraft who also uses the absurd to make horror. Like with Lovecraft when reading one of Ito's manga you get the impression of an immense sense of dread looming over you. Ito utilises the medium to its full advantage. For one, Ito hand draws his manga so, instead of getting a glossy finish that we get in say a Western comic we don't get that with him. His illustrations often are sharply done with dark colours making them well-drawn but not easy to look at. This helps add to their unnerving quality. In some horror manga, including Elfen Lied, the art style changes slightly when we get to the horror elements by becoming less refined, but in Ito's the art style never changes. We get a continued unnerving art style building up tension continuously. It is very much like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. Both films are not nearly as gory or visibly violent compared to sequels, remakes, and other horror movies but they earned they were better at creating horror. Made on small budgets in the desert they are not aesthetically pleasing movies which added to the brutal and rustic feel of them. Although Ito's work is not low budget it has the same effect - dark and sinister this creates horror. As mentioned earlier there's a tension building up when reading Ito and he always makes this pay off. Before we see a horrifying image we see a character's reaction to it at the bottom of the page and as you turn the page we see the image very clearly. Below we have an example of this from My Dear Ancestors. The story revolves around a young woman meeting her boyfriend's family for the first time and she is greeted by this...

One first glance you can't tell what it is. How can you? Ito takes something ordinary and distorts it beyond recognition. You have to look at it longer to understand what it is; like in this case it's not a centipede attached to his head but rather a series of skulls. Ito very rarely explains the origins of the monstrosities of his stories; you get glimpses into what they are but no clear explanation. Thanks to this even absurd ideas become terrifying, like a shark walking on spider legs...

Tomie, Uzumaki and Gyo

Now we'll look at three of Ito's most famous works. The most famous is Tomie which at the time of writing has nine live-action movies and two OVAs in the Junji Ito Collection. First appearing in 1987 this manga tells the story of a young and mysterious woman called Tomie Kawakami who has a manipulative personality. Her body is found mutilated and dismembered after vanishing following a school trip but she turns up the next day as if nothing happened sending her classmates into a state of panic. As people are treating her different she said bye to her best friend, Reiko, and jumped off a bridge. We find out through flashback that on the trip up a mountain her boyfriend, Yamamoto, found her having an affair with their teacher. Suddenly driven to a homicidal rage he pushed her and she fell off the mountain dying. The rest of the class, bar Reiko, loathed Tomie so convinced the pair not to go to the police - instead they opted to dismember her and each take a body part to dispose of. As Tomie's only friend Reiko had to dispose of Tomie's heart. When the class found out that after Tomie's second apparent death Yamamoto and the teacher wanted to go to the police so the class decided to take the pair out. However, Tomie turned up. At the end of the manga we find out that Yamamoto is now insane, and the rest of the class has either dropped out of school or commit suicide. Finally around Tomie's heart a new version is growing. Across the Tomie series (it stopped publishing in 2000) we find out more and more about her but not enough to truly understand her. All we know that she is an immortal being who is a manipulator and enjoys tormenting people who are driven to homicidal or suicidal tendencies. 

The next manga we're looking at is Uzumaki. First appearing in 1998 it has received a film adaptation and two video games. Like most of Ito's work it is a weird story with very disturbing imagery. Uzumaki tells the story of the town of Kurōzu-cho (Black Vortex Town) which has a curse revolving around spirals. People start becoming obsessed, or paranoid, by spirals until they in turn start becoming spirals. People's bodies start distorting into the shape of spirals, others begin turning into human-snail hybrids, and people's hair also start becoming spirals. One of the two protagonists, Kirie, has her hair become spirals and when she tries to cut it off it goes to strangle her. A freak storm wipes out most of the town leaving behind several abandoned terrace houses which the town moves into. Due to overcrowding the town expands building more houses, in a layout of a spiral. As the manga progresses the town becomes increasingly enveloped by spirals and the protagonists realise that even time is caught up in the curse...

Finally, we have Gyo which received an unintentionally hilarious anime adaptation in 2012. A young couple, Tadashi and Kaori, are visiting Okinawa when they encounter a strange, decaying fish walking on mechanical legs. This especially disturbs Kaori due to her having a hyper-sensitive sense of smell. Okinawa is then swarmed by various sea creatures on these legs including a great white shark. They return to Tokyo with the first fish, which Tadashi managed to bag, where they give it to his uncle, a scientist called Dr. Koyanagi, to analyse. However, Tokyo is soon also attacked by the fish and Koyanagi had to cut off his arm after the machine carrying the fish detached from it, and then attached to his arm. We actually get the origins of the fish as well: a virus producing a horrible stench was developed by the Imperial Army as a last ditch attempt to fight the war but the plane carrying it was shot down into the Pacific. Kadashi's father had built the machines, which pumps the virus into the victim, so it could walk and infect enemy soldiers. They soon found out that the virus does in fact affect humans when Kaori gets infected and starts becoming increasingly deformed.

Other Stories

Junji Ito has written many stories so I'll quickly go over three which I found particularly disturbing which you might find interesting.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault

This was a story included as a bonus with Gyo. Like most of his stories it has a strange premise with frightening results. An earthquake leaving a fault in the side of a mountain range full of holes shaped like people. Several hikers become obsessed in finding their holes, and when they do they strip to their underwear to enter it. Other hikers have nightmares of those who had ventured into the mountain being still alive and in agony. At the end a second fault is found with holes in distorted shapes, and something coming through...

The Hanging Balloons

Again, another strange but disturbing premise. A famous celebrity is found hanging from a metal noose from a telegraph pole and her fans blame her boyfriend for nagging her about her career. Soon enough her fans kill themselves in the same way after supposedly seeing a balloon shaped like her head. Soon enough her boyfriend sees a balloon, climbs a tree, and hangs himself when told to do so. Her best friend, Kazuko, tries to tell people about the balloon and no one believes her until more balloons arrive. Each are shaped like someone and has a noose for a string which it aims to hang the person whom it resembles. Soon the rest of Tokyo is attacked by the hanging balloons and Kazuko's family soon are claimed one by one.

Army of One

Now we have Army of One which I consider to be the most disturbing story by Junji Ito. The story revolves around a hikikomori (a shut-in) called Michio is invited to a coming of age party for all the people in his old middle school now turning 20. Meanwhile, in the local park a couple is found dead and stitched together. Planes start dropping pamphlets advertising people to join the 'Army of One' which people connect to the murders. More and more people turn up stitched together and on Christmas Eve, when the Army's song is played on the radio, causing hundreds to be found stitched together; everyone killed was found distorted and strewn across Christmas decorations. Despite warnings the ceremony happens resulting everyone who attended to be found killed and stitched together. More and more people soon are found stitched together, and Michio realises that soon he might be as well. I found this one to be the most disturbing just because of how horrific and gruesome the images of the people stitched together are. It is truly one of the most disturbing panels in a manga that I've ever seen.

Conclusion

Junji Ito is truly a master of horror and should be considered alongside figures such as Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft. Bold, unflinching and unpleasant each manga creates a tense and unnerving read. Even when he was commissioned to draw two Pokemon, Bannette and Gengar, he still made them incredibly disturbing. Skip the adaptations and go straight to the source material. Live-action and anime have, so far, failed to capture the intensity of Ito's work. The Tomie movies average out to 5/10 stars on IMDB, The Junji Ito Collection according to critics was a poor attempt to replicate Ito, and when Gyo was shown at my university's Anime society Halloween event it was widely mocked. That's because Ito's stories can only really be done by Ito and they are so wedded to manga as a medium. For true horror go to Junji Ito.

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this post, as well as 2018's Month of Horror, interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. In the UK it's Black History Month so every day in October we're looking at a person, event, or movement from black history so be sure to check that out. Thanks for reading.