As Liz Lemon would say, a family like this is a real dealbreaker. Ito tweaks the familiar pressure of family expectations (a common theme in Japanese fiction), turning domestic anxiety into hair-raising horror. In this short story, a young woman meets her boyfriend’s father for the first time and discovers that their family legacy is a very tangible obligation. For more on Ito’s love of cats, keep an eye peeled for the upcoming Kodansha USA release of the creepily humorous Junji Ito’s Cat Diary: Yon & Mu. Soichi is a recurring character for Ito, often seen chomping on steel nails, and usually signals a perversely humorous atmosphere. The felines in Ito’s work typically fare better than the people, as in this brief Soichi short that sees the demented, Addams Family-esque preteen attempt to foist a curse on the new family pet. The young woman in the title is obsessed with being dissected-she begs for it the way an unwanted sexual partner begs to get into your pants. This repulsive short is one of the seven standalone stories included in Fragments of Horror, and mixes perverse eroticism with Freud’s dream manifestation of the death drive. Gyo is one of the three Ito tales currently available in English in a handsome deluxe hardcover from VIZ Media. The initial terror of land-bound deep-sea predators eventually gives way to severe body horror, making this a solid twofer of delicious discomfort. Being chased by a shark is scary enough-being chased by a shark in your own home just isn’t right, man. Inspired by Jaws and Japan’s morally-dubious WWII military experiments, Gyo puts mechanical legs on underwater terrors with deeply unsettling results.
#Junji ito layers of fear 2 crack#
Ito’s “In The Soil” takes place at a school reunion where the popular kids crack open the class time capsule and discover a nasty surprise.
As in Stephen King’s Carrie, the true wickedness often rests with the “normal” classmates, not the unpopular girl who displays creepy, unnatural attributes. The Strange Girl template has been fruitful for horror fiction. The panel above spoils the reveal, but the dread is still palpable: imagine being in a stranger’s embrace for hours on end without knowing it? Even with a premise that flirts at the absurd, this is the sort of story that inspires grown adults to check under the bed at night. Ito’s take on the trope is “The Human Chair,” in which an author overcomes her writer’s block only when seated in a special chair. “The call is coming from inside the house” is a persistent theme in urban legends and Internet Creepypasta. Few can resist Tomie’s allure, but when someone does, the results are monstrous. The titular Tomie is a functionally immortal girl who inspires relentless adoration in men and intense jealousy in women. Tomie, Ito’s award-winning first published work, has spawned nine(!) film adaptations in Japan, but is currently out of print in English. (On a much less haunting note, this short story saw a boost in popularity on Tumblr after Cartoon Network’s Steven Universe referenced it last season.) As with many of Ito’s stories, the protagonists feel an almost primordial obligation to pursue their horrible destinies. Big, Big Spoiler AlertsĪn Earthquake exposes human-shaped absences in a cliff wall, and soon people from across Japan are drawn to the holes, convinced they’re shaped specifically for them.
Much of his work is still unavailable in English, but rest assured: there are images in nearly every single one of Ito’s stories that could qualify for this list. To coincide with last week’s American release of Fragments of Horror, Ito’s latest collection of short stories, Paste compiled 13 of Ito’s most disturbing panels. Inspired by manga horror greats like Hideshi Hino ( Hell Baby) and Kazuo Umezu ( The Drifting Classroom) but working in a highly detailed style all his own, Ito’s slow trickle of English adaptations have established him as one of the best-known fear-mongers working in sequential art today. Ito’s characters often find themselves inexplicably driven toward their fates, compelled against their better judgment to find out what horror awaits them. Published widely in his native Japan, but only sporadically in the U.S., Ito moves comfortably from obscene body horror to the existential terror of inevitability (a theme common in the works of one of Ito’s biggest influences, H.P. Prolific mangaka Junji Ito’s artwork strikes much deeper. Successful horror stories scare or repulse, assaulting the audience with an arsenal of jump scares, pulsing viscera and unkillable foes.
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