Diving Into the Terrifying World of ‘Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre’

It is with a strange mix of dread and anticipation that most, if not all the fans of the works of mangaka Junji Ito wait for the Netflix release of Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre.

Ironic that one feels this way because it’s exactly how any character in Junji Ito’s stories feels. Dread, a profound sense of helplessness, fascination and an overwhelming amount of fear. Truly, one of the horrifying worlds to even contemplate existing in, would be any world drawn from the mind of horror mangaka Junji Ito.

Black and white, extremely intricate, delicately drawn, grotesque and occasionally beautiful figures in pen and ink occupy the pages of Junji Ito’s manga. Every page you turn sends you spiraling further and further, deeper into this web of the macabre. From cosmic horror to body horror, monsters to people stranger still, unexplained phenomenon, eerie blood-curdling spine chilling tales of terror lurk within his works. His distinct realistic art style plays as much of a role in contributing to the nightmare fuel as his bizarre storyline.

Which is what makes it so hard to translate his work into a different medium. There have been numerous attempts to recreate it, be it live-action films or animated episodes, but none of them come close to instilling the creepy uneasy feeling that comes with reading the manga.  

Take the Junji Ito Collection (2018) anime, for example. It attempted to recreate some of his most iconic short stories. While it remained faithful to the plot, it was still a disappointing adaptation in terms of visuals. Animation is infinitely harder than drawing manga. For colorful, stylized manga, an anime adaptation works really well; but for an incredibly detailed manga where every line and squiggle matters contrasting starkly in black and white, an anime won’t hold a candle to the original. It’s a very, very tough job to even come slightly close to emulating Ito’s art.

In 2019 there was an announcement about an anime adaptation of Uzumaki (Spiral) which was to be animated by Drive (studio) and co-produced by Production I.G USA and Adult Swim. Since then, there have been multiple delays in production due to the difficulty in translating the maestro’s manga art to anime. From the work-in-progress updates put out by the animators, it looks promising, retaining the detailed art style in a black-and-white color palette. Uzumaki relates the tale of a strange phenomenon plaguing the town of Kurouzu-Cho, where inhabitants are haunted not by a ghost but a shape — a spiral. Fans are eagerly awaiting this adaptation as it looks like a sincere and dedicated attempt to recreate this masterpiece by Junji Ito.

In the meanwhile, Netflix is dropping Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, which from the initial glimpses so far is not even close to the art style of the original. However, it does provide a portal for those who’ve hitherto never encountered Junji Ito’s work. This twelve-episode series will feature twenty of Ito-sensei’s short stories, including Hanging Balloons, Unbearable Maze and Whispering Woman. Also making an appearance will be recurring characters Tomie andSouichi.

Tomie, who also has a stand-alone book to her name (Tomie), is the character from Junji Ito’s debut manga, published in Monthly Halloween, a shōjo magazine in 1987. Inspired by the unfortunate death of his junior high school classmate in a traffic accident, young Ito thought it odd that someone so “full of life should suddenly disappear from the world, and I had the strange feeling that he would show up again innocently. Ever since then, I wanted to give expression to that feeling in my manga.” And that is how Tomie was born. A girl who died and returned the next day as if nothing ever happened. A true La Belle Dame sans Merci, Tomie puts many “in thrall.” Men kill to be with her, over her and even kill her! But that’s the curious little thing about Tomie — she cannot be killed. Burn her, seal her, hang her, decapitate her, every tried and tested method will still end up with Tomie surviving. Whatever you do, don’t chop her up, for each dismembered piece of Tomie will lead to mitosis.  She’ll be back, sooner or later, multiplying each time.

Where to begin with Souichi Tsujii? The sinister anemic eleven-year-old sucks on iron nails, sharpens them into fangs and even went so far as to bring his dear old grandad back from the dead to fashion him a coffin to realize his dream of being a vampire. Souichi spends his time cursing people, nailing straw dolls onto trees, communing with the dead, shooting nails out of his mouth and being a general menace to society. He’s the little brother you don’t want to have and made a then-12-year-old me incredibly grateful for being an only child.  Arguably Souichi’s stories are not exactly horror, but comedy and have the happiest endings of all of Junji Ito’s work. It’s also a lesson for all who wish to dabble in the dark arts like Souichi. What you practice will undoubtedly come and hit (or in Souichi’s case, nail) you in the ass.

Not every Junji Ito story has an element of supernatural horror in it — tales like The Bully showcases that sometimes, the most terrifying thing isn’t a monstrous otherworldly entity but just how malicious an average human can be. Another particularly unnerving story along similar lines is the Unendurable Labyrinth (previously known as the Unbearable Maze), with its open-ended climax. The question of what will happen to the characters stays with you long after the story is finished. Despite it not having anything particularly gruesome, it is one of the most unsettling stories.  

Even if the show’s art style is different from the manga, the stories themselves are enough to make you search for shadowy reflections in your screen after you’ve shut down your preferred streaming device. Remember, you never know what could be lurking in the dark behind you.