#Junji Ito: An Overview
Speaking honestly, this is the seventh Junji Ito review I've done at this point. At this point, I feel like I should just start by very quickly recapping my personal history with Junji Ito. I had no idea this man existed until a good friend of mine told me about Gyo like a year or two ago. A horror OVA about killer fish and sharks with spider legs. I watched that, thought it was hilarious, and decided to gaze further into the Itosphere.
His short story collections, Uzumaki, Tomie, the actual manga of Gyo, and so forth... there are still some I've yet to read, but I'd argue that's mostly because I'm saving what's left for rainy days.
Finally, this new anime adaptation was announced, which would turn out to be an anthology series of a large handful of his short stories rather than an Uzumaki anime adaptation.
Personally, I was very happy that it wasn't Uzumaki. As much as I love Uzumaki, I really fucking love Junji Ito's short stories, even if the scores I have the individual collections set as don't necessarily always reflect that. Additionally, an anthology series meant a potentially wide net of his material over his career would be animated.
There are stories that I don't like, there are stories that I love, and even for the stories I don't necessarily think are very good, there usually are ideas in there that are interesting. I should say right now I've previously gone on record going as far to essentially call Junji Ito the Stephen King of manga. Which appears on the surface to be praise to an almost hyperbolic level, until you remember while Stephen King is the author of novels such as The Shining, The Stand, It, Misery, The Dark Tower, Pet Sematary, and etc...
...He is also the author of Cell. A novel about cell phones triggering the apocalypse because people who use cell phones turn into zombies. Get it? Because people use their cell phones too much and they become like zombies. Get it? If you're going to do a huge amount of stories, you're going to end up having some Cells. It's unavoidable. The point is Junji Ito likewise has stories that I'd qualify as "misses", but the ones I love are just so fucking wonderful in my opinion that I'm perfectly willing to accept the weaker ones.
Hence, this review will be more about how I overall view this as a Junji Ito adaptation. When I reviewed Yami Shibai 5 which is an episodic horror TV short, I essentially went through every single story. But since this isn't a short and I don't have to dissect every single story because not all of them are absolutely terrible like Yami Shibai 5 or Sekai no Yami Zukan, I'll be focusing on my five favorite stories of this adaptation as well as my five least favorite. That's still ten stories out of the grand total of twenty four.
#Junji Ito’s Horror and Adapting Junji Ito Manga#
First though, before I get too much further, I suppose I should put forth my overall opinion of this as just a general horror series.
There are numerous flavors and types of horror out there. Do not approach this series with Yami Shibai/jumpscare horror in mind. Obviously, Yami Shibai was created with the intention of scaring the viewer. Small little horror stories that more or less often usually end with a jumpscare or a monster appearing and then fading to black. I think there's a place for that type of horror in this world, it's just... so easy to overdo the jumpscares. Especially if you have very loud noises accompanying them. In my opinion at that point, you're not really trying to scare people anymore. You're just trying to startle them.
Junji Ito's horror is... well, there's a good variety throughout all of the stories they selected to adapt with this series. You have the outright dark humor stuff with the Souichi character, there's the weird body horror stuff, supernatural strangeness, whimsical insanity, horrific nightmarish monsters, and outright gory violence. There are also a few stories in here that are more sad and melancholic about death and the lengths people attempting to move once a loved one has died/the dead who wish to be reunited with their surviving family member or friend will go to.
They are capable of creating a suitable atmosphere with each of the stories they've chosen. They capably managed to make me feel what I felt when I read the original stories, but some of them actually work even better when animated in my opinion. I've been creeped out, I've been disgusted, and it even made me feel emotions at times. But I never jumped out of my seat as a result of being "scared."
In addition, I feel like I shouldn’t even have to go into this that much but I will… this is a perfectly acceptable adaptation of Junji Ito’s manga. In the review I did for Gyo I touched upon this because for the anime adaptation of Gyo, they made everything painfully bright and colorful. It fucking sucked. But while of course this anime took a bunch of different Junji Ito manga and added color to the images, they didn’t go overboard with it. It’s still (in my opinion) sufficiently dark. Yes, it doesn't have quite that effect Junji Ito's actual manga has, but they’re not gonna make a completely black and white anime. It's just not gonna happen. This is probably the best we're gonna get. And for me, it's like right at the correct level.
Granted, if they ever animate Uzumaki, I might flip flop on my position here, because I honestly can’t picture that fucking manga in color. At all. Like adding color to all of the spirals and the mass amount of blood… I don’t know why but I think the blood being black actually has more impact than it being red? Uzumaki is a completely different conversation, though to bring it back to the Junji Ito collection with that last statement, I did definitely think “yeah this is worse” with at least Fashion Model and a couple of other select stories. Though, I was still very much capable of enjoying them.
The animation overall seems cheapish at various points, but apart from one select story, it never really harmed my enjoyment of this adaptation. In addition, considering probably Yami Shibai is probably the only comparable series to this series, the bar was never set high for me to begin with. Like… maybe there’s some other obscure horror anthology series that’s slipped past by me, but Yami Shibai is probably the only one people still throw around and bring up.
In my heart, this is one of my favorite horror anime almost by default. It's a respectable enough adaptation of a bunch of Junji Ito short stories which before this, I would have been fully willing to assume would never ever be animated.
So with all of that out of the way, let's get into the stories themselves. Really quickly though, I'm going to be including a list of all the stories included in this adaptation and link which Junji Ito collections they're from for easy reference as well as the years. Though, the years may not be accurate or exact for the specific story, as I'm going with the year/year range given to the volumes themselves.
1) Souichi’s Convenient Curse (1997) / Hell Doll Funeral (2007)
2) Fashion Model (1997) / The Long Dream (2001)
3) Boy At the Crossroads (2001) / Slug Girl (1999)
4) Shiver (1999) / Marionette Mansion (2000)
5) The Ongoing Tale of Oshkiri Collection (1989 - 1993) / Cloth Teacher (1997)
6) Window Next Door (2000) / Gentle Goodbye (2013-2014)
7) Used Record (2000) / Town of No Roads (2000)
8) Honored Ancestors (1987) / The Circus Comes To Town (2000)
9) Painter (1987-2000) / Blood-bubble Bushes (1999)
10) Greased (2002) / Bridge (1999)
11) Supernatural Transfer Student (2000) / Scarecrow (1987)
12) Smashed (2004) / Rumors (1997)
13 and 14) Tomie OVAs (1987-2000)
The stories that are italicized are also available in the recent collection of previously published Junji Ito stories, Shiver. Which, like this anime, is a celebration of Junji Ito's thirty years in horror manga.
#Least Favorites#
Let's start with my least favorites first. I need to throw a disclaimer out right away though. Some of these are actually in fact among my favorite Junji Ito short stories. But I didn't particularly like the way they were done in this adaptation or felt that they just cut too much out. Or in at least one instance, isn't even the actual full story. But let's get started.
#5: Shiver#
To be honest, the adaptation of this was fine. But this is just another one of his stories I feel very "meh" towards. Like sure yeah, the image of the guy with all of the holes in his face is cool and creepy, but I remember going "is that it?" when I finished this one. There's a cursed thing, and it causes people to be cursed when people are around or in the direct vicinity of the thing.#4: Blood-bubble Bushes#
I really liked this one. Maybe if only because it's straight up just Junji Ito's own personal take on vampires. And while I want to applaud at how the blood-bubble bushes turned out being animated, I just can't help but feel like this would have been way better if they had just not cut so much out from the original story. In the manga, the vampire guy doesn't just let the couple leave after realizing he's a vampire. No, the vampire kids storm the vampire guy's mansion armed with an axe and they just start feeding on the vampire guy's hoard of blood bubble bushes, and the couple escapes amidst the chaos. That would have been great to see animated! We didn't get it though.#3: Town of No Roads#
This one isn't so much the adaptation's fault. Of all of the short stories I've read by Junji Ito, this is in fact probably one of the ones I liked the least. There's too much going on, to the point where my mind goes back to when Junji Ito stated that sometimes he actually becomes bored when doing some of his stories. Which I can only imagine is the explanation for this story and like... Gyo. Like if this story were just about the insane aunt and the actual town where instead of roads, people just travel through other people's homes, that'd be one thing. But it starts out with and eventually comes back to this weird guy calling himself Jack the Ripper that can apparently both travel through dreams as well as murder through dreams. Also, this is probably the most censored story out of the entire adaptation. It doesn't bother me that much, but it's worth noting anyways.#2: Boy At the Crossroads#
I was very excited when I learned that Lovesick Dead was going to be included in this. It's actually one of my absolute favorites. But I was under the assumption that they were going to be doing the whole thing. This is one of the weird ones of Junji Ito's collections, where the story is straight up the entire volume. I think they only adapted like maybe the first half and even out of what they covered, they cut out a lot. And there's like a part where a character kills themselves by like cutting their own neck, and it's just like an explosion of blood mist and I clearly distinctly remember thinking "that looks bad." I really just don't like blood mist. In anything.
#1: The Long Dream#
It's really unfortunate that this ended up being number one on this list. I fucking love the original story, and I think overall, it's one of Junji Ito's more infamous short stories. After all, it's one of the ones that even got a live action movie. But I think the overall quality of this one is one of the worst of the entire adaptation. Apart from that one frame of where he's really, really fucked up, I also just generally don't like how Mukoda looks in the anime.Admittedly, despite what I said earlier, it may at least partially be a result of the color.
Apart from when they of course take that close up drawing of him at the end of his transformation right from the manga and just add color to it. Additionally, there was this whole section where he actually describes his dreams, and I'm kind of salty that they didn't include any of that.
#My Favorites#
It turns out limiting myself to only five made this one insanely difficult. Like Souichi is genuinely one of my favorite recurring Junji Ito characters of all, and none of his stories are even on here despite the fact I really love two out of three of them included in this adaptation.
#5: The Circus Comes to Town#
Choosing the story for the fifth and lowest spot as far as my favorites go is hard. There's several more that could have qualified or are equal to this one. Souichi, Greased, Honored Ancestors... but I have to go with this one, even if the manga's version is better. First of all, with both this story and Gyo, I really have to wonder what the fuck Junji Ito has against circuses. Personally, I fucking love the idea of a circus ran by Death himself where all the performers die in brutal and horrific accidents. But in the manga, it's better because we're shown a lot more of the audience's perspective but then... I realized, we, the viewers with the anime version, ARE the audience. Hence it ending with the ringmaster addressing us directly. It made me feel warm inside that they actually tried to do a thing like that with this one in direct opposition of, for example, what ICLA tries to do with Yami Shibai.
Also, I should at least mention it, but in this one, there's a part where clearly you can see when the clowns that remove the corpses from the stage run out, like they didn't do all frames of them actually running out there. Cheap animation strikes again! But I'm fine with it. At least there IS animation...
#4: Gentle Goodbye#
This is probably my favorite story out of Fragments of Horror which I will most likely review one day and fully go into. But I really fucking love the idea of this story, and they captured the tone and everything perfectly. Like the idea of conjuring an entity that resembles and believes it's your deceased family member/relative to deal with the grief of losing the actual person is fucked up, sad, and kind of horribly selfish. Because like when the family has gotten out of the mourning period, those afterimages are still just stuck there for numerous additional years until they finally disappear. The idea is actually really effectively sad. Bridge is the other story of this type of tone included in this adaptation and while I really love that one too, I kind of like Gentle Goodbye slightly more.#3: The Marionette Mansion#
I have two words for you. Whimsical. Insanity. They could have completely fucked this one up by trying to apply a super serious scary tone to it. But thankfully, they didn't! The idea of this story originates from just a random thought Junji Ito had one day."Manga artists are ascetics. You sit on a chair all day, leaning over your desk, and make the tip of your pen move over the paper of your manga pages. The fact that the page is longer vertically is hateful because you have to lean even farther forward when you're drawing the top panels. Your back and hips shriek in agony. It would be so much better if the page were longer horizontally. No, better still, I'd like to hang my upper body from the ceiling. How lovely would it be to leave my body like that and get the work done? This story came from thoughts like these. Servants would control me from the ceiling. And then I'd be able to get my work done with ease." ~Junji Ito, Shiver.
So I of course just now have this permanent mental image of Junji Ito hanging from the ceiling via strings while drawing his manga. I really love how they handled this one. The music, Jean-Pierre, the movements of the Marionette family themselves... I kind of wish they had shown the part where he had seen the people in the ceiling, but oh well. I understand due to time constraints, they can't include literally everything. And this is one of the more forgivable instances of that in this adaptation.
#2: The Ongoing Tale of Oshkiri Collection#
While I like the Oshkiri volume, I kind of really didn't expect to love the Oshkiri story they included in this adaptation as much as I do. Like Lovesick Dead, they don't include the whole story in this adaptation, but I'm willing to give them a pass with Oshkiri considering the entire thing is multiple/alternate universes. Whereas Lovesick Dead is its own linear story. I absolutely loved the rotting and screaming monstrous forms of Oshkiri's classmates from the alternate universe and they're genuinely horrifying. This is a story that fucking perfectly demonstrates the weirdness of Junji Ito. Like is Oshkiri is just a normal teenage boy, he just happens to have invisible dimensional portals around his house, and then when he encounters his evil alternate self, the sole reason why Evil Oshkiri is turning his classmates into monsters is because he wants to make himself taller.We didn't get to see the rest of the Oshkiri madness (I actually remember it getting even weirder beyond this story), but like... that transformation Evil Oshkiri is forced into. Like oh my god yes. We see his bones extending and his flesh ripping and the screams are just WONDERFUL.
#1: Painter#
What a fucking surprise that the Tomie story is one of the ones that received the highest quality when they adapted it. It's not like Tomie launched Junji Ito's career or spawned like an eight film long live action movie series or anything. But no really, this is probably my favorite of all of the Tomie stories. And they pulled it off perfectly. From the rapidly quickening descent of insanity and obsession that the artist falls into that takes hold over all the men who become involved with Tomie to Tomie's rage and anger at being depicted like a monster. It's a perfect adaptation of the story. Also, I rarely if ever actually comment on voice actors/actresses in things, but like... the moment I heard her speak. Yeah. Yeah, that's Tomie. It's unfortunate that the Tomie OVAs are most likely probably going to be her origin stuff, rather than some of the more absurd/insane Tomie stories.
Though, I may be wrong! Who knows! Though, it'd be really weird if they didn't do her origin at all.
Painter itself was like the first Tomie story Junji Ito did when he and his editor decided to basically extend Tomie into her own whole series and as a result, it basically serves more or less as the perfect entry level Tomie story. I'm happy that we're getting more Tomie in the form of OVAs, but with the show itself, I was honestly hyped almost every single week to see what stories they were adapting next.
#Souichi#
Yeah, just kidding. I have to talk about Souichi. I'll keep it short, but I fucking love Souichi both just as a general Junji Ito recurring character and also in this adaptation. Just like how the voice actress who voiced Tomie captured Tomie perfectly, this man IS Souichi.
Souichi is basically Junji Ito's walking take on dark humor. Souichi isn't a monster and he doesn't kill anybody. He's just this pathetic kid who chews on nails and fucks with people. All his curses and pranks end up leading into disastrous results, most usually for Souichi himself. My favorite part about Souichi is not only the fact that his family has grown so used to him that they don't even seem to fucking react to all the crazy shit he does, but that in one of the Souichi stories (that happens to be a part of this adaptation), when a true blue monster of the Itoverse shows itself completely unrelated to Souichi himself...
Souichi just shits himself like every other normal individual in the Itoverse who comes face to face with these monsters.
Unfortunately, I know for a fact that the opinions on Souichi are very mixed, with probably the majority of people not really liking or caring for him but... I fucking love him and his crazy antics. There's not a huge amount of them, but Souichi is personally my absolute favorite recurring Junji Ito character. This supernatural prankster that just roams around cursing people, and usually just gets shit on by his own antics when they backfire horribly.
#A Personal Gripe#
They adapted eight out of nine stories from the Shiver collection, and skipped probably my personal favorite all time Junji Ito short story, Hanging Balloons. This isn't actively lowering my opinion of the show itself, but I am somewhat genuinely grumpy ~~(this section was written after mostly everything else and when the show actually finished airing)~~, since this was probably the best/only chance to see the story animated.
I mean, come on. I just wanted to see a balloon headed doppelganger hang someone with a noose. Is that too much to ask???
#Conclusion#
Could it have been better? Yes. Could their selection of stories have been better? Probably, but I'm glad that they tried to grab a wide variety of stories, and I truly believe the variety present throughout is what makes this show work. Was it terrible? No. Did it ruin the stories it adapted? No. Was it a Gyo? No, the creators of this or at least some of them, are actual fans of Junji Ito's manga and I got that feeling almost all the way through this adaptation. After all, they didn't make everything stupidly bright and colorful and actually tried to remain faithful to Junji Ito's character designs.
Is my opinion influenced by favoritism because of how much I love Junji Ito and how insanely low the bar for this was set in my mind before it aired as a result of the horror genre mostly being a joke as far as anime goes? Definitely. But I don't care. I love this. The Junji Ito Collection is an 8 out of 10 for me, and again, basically by default, is in my opinion one of the best horror anime. Not THE best, but that's a different story for another day.
It's certainly the best episodic anthology of horror stories, though. Sorry, Yami Shibai.
